Day Four, Thursday Night

Today in true fashion of avoidance/avoidance syndrome ( a phrase I picked up in Psychology 101) I completely ignored the list. I didn't make one, I didn't even go through the motions of sitting down and  pretending to write one. I left my project from yesterday untouched, and brooded about how lame I was for leaving it untouched. In fact, I asked Primo to clear it off the table so we could eat dinner at the table. He did.

I knew after yesterday's entry I had been derailed, but I had the best of intentions around picking up where I left off and carrying on despite the seeming setback. I didn't.

It rained last night, it was such an odd feeling, we left the door open for fresh air as it has been so warm lately. I awoke to the sound of Nuuanu Valley, that gentle pattering of rain, the soft swish of a slight breeze through the trees, the feeling of the air through the open windows (even though ours is a door). Sometimes I miss that place so much I think the ache will never end. I still can't think about it without crying. But I digress, what I was really going to say is that I woke up to the rain and after I thought about G'ma & G'mpa, I lay in the dark thinking about all the things that scare me. The roof leaks, I am sure of that. The cottage needs a new roof. Our home equity loan needs to be dealt with. I'm sure I left something out in the rain that will get ruined by the water. The skylights are open. The dogs are squirmy. It went on and on and subsequently, I didn't get much sleep.

When I got up I felt dejected but at the same time strangely elated. The early morning is such a beautiful time of day, so peaceful and then, gradually at first but exploding when light comes, the birds are a riotous noise of song and chatter. The weather was sultry, soft and almost voluptuous with moisture. The light was muted through the rain cover, and it felt a bit unreal, as if we were someplace else. Everyone got ready for their day and I played bus driver to some and ended up taking my carpool's sibling to school, which of course is exwork for me. I ended up staying forever, helping out, visiting and there started the big avoidance.

After I got home I could feel the stillness weighing my limbs down and I talked to LS on the phone, pouring out all my fears and self-disappointments until she had to go and then I distracted my self with my phone, telling myself I was trapped in my room because the girls were watching a scary movie. Really I could have gone to the cottage and fooled around up there until they were done. Or worked on my project with headphones on. Really and truly I was NOT working on the project because I didn't want to. I have looked at what made me shy away from it and this is what I have so far: I don't believe I can do it. I feel like I cannot move the stuff out of my life and I am afraid that it is pointless to try. I am afraid that I will take everything out, shuffle it around and then put it all back without having succeeded at anything. I am afraid of this because this is so often how it goes. I run through what I want to do in my mind. Carefully filling in all the details about what I will do with all the stuff I find in the drawers( do I really need to keep bottles of ink that are over 10 years old? Of course not!) and visualizing how the space will look cleaned out and streamlined. Then I do the actual work and as soon as I pull things out and am surrounded by clutter (even more so than usual) I give up and retreat, defeated by stuff.This has happened over and over and I am surprised I even attempt clearing out at all anymore. But I do, I keep dreaming and believing I can do it and keep being beaten back by my own fear.

So then I have two questions; 1) What makes me unable to follow through with my desire to  downsize my possessions? and 2) How do I plan a project like that, that will take time and energy over several days and through many stages and still get the regular chores like laundry and dusting done? How do I get ALL the things that weigh on my mind taken care of and maintain some semblance of order in the house? Enquiring minds want to know!

I told TR what I had accomplished and in the fashion true to himself he was completely supportive and reminded me to keep track of what I DID do today. So the number one important thing I did today was...investigate how to get the  power turned on at The Badger's Den (named for all the badgers we've never seen nearby), and after I found that out, researched electricians in the area. The second biggest accomplishment was something that I held a lot of anxiety around, I called the fix-it-up-chappy to tell him that we could not afford to invest $5300 into the OBC and I would pick it up later, then TR and I did pick it up after work. So that's done and we will turn it over to the clean air people like we had planned. One more possession down, a lot o'more to go! Besides that the same little things that go along with any day, taking people here and there, dishes, sweeping, dinner all these little things that fill up day.

I feel that I want to fly, to soar in my life, on wings made of dreams and desires. I want to live out loud, as the quote says, and take the life I have left and make it really mean something, But when my spirit swells in my chest, filling me up, I creep back down into that still place within myself and I am that girl again, sitting on the couch, sucking her thumb, numb, isolated, and so far from out loud.

Poll na bPeist, Inis Mor, Ireland

This is one of my favorite places, on a wild, magical island on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Made of limestone, battered by the sea, this is a place I imagine one cannot live in without living out loud.