Bleed [the Furnace] to Love Her

Earlier today I fretted over my mental progress a bit.  I'm trying to bring the light of consciousness to my inner world, and get to the bottom of my moods and behaviors.  Most things I am working through have roots in my childhood.  Trauma is a funny thing.  Okay, no, actually, it's not at all, but it is odd.  Even after the trauma itself is over it leaves a residue that you need to scrub off of your psyche, I guess you could say.  I'm elbow deep and scrubbing, but I think I need steel wool or something sometimes.  I've been trying to understand my triggers better and I'm shining a spot light on things that have been hidden in darkness for years, but the healing process doesn't work unless you FEEL the past so it can be released. The purpose of a feeling is to be felt. How mad do you get when somebody ignores you? Think of how pissed off repressed and suppressed feelings can get. 

I feel as though most times I am running on empty, so what am I actually running on? Fumes? Old energies are mostly what fuels me; old patterns, thoughts, habits, and behaviors have me locked into their vicious cycle of negative regurgitation.  That's fuel made from past trauma. I am resisting, but what am I resisting? What I'm denying are mere memories, but it's not the memories themselves being denied but rather the emotions tied to those memories. All of these things have me fighting against the current of Life, but in truth resistance is futile if you wish to avoid suffering. I'm learning to change my fuel, reboot my system. It's a process...and quite the journey. I listened to Concrete Blonde's song Bloodletting earlier today and thought 'That's what I'm talking about!' That was foreshadowing. I need an emotional bloodletting. I need to release all of the pent up feelings that never were granted expression. I need to bleed out my demons. You can deny feelings all you want, but they will be felt EVENTUALLY on your terms or on theirs. I'd rather it be on my terms.

I can't help but be consumed with my healing and awakening. This is a precious period of time in my life that will NOT be repeated, and I feel I need to enjoy the journey, for lack of a better phrase. I was a victim this morning again, but by dinner time I was my own hero. We ran out of fuel earlier today, but had 5 gallons in a jug on the back porch. I successfully heaved the full jug up and got the kerosene into the fuel tank. For the furnace to work, though, I needed to bleed the line, which is something I have never done before. I've seen it done a number of times, but seeing and doing are very different experiences.

After getting instructions via the phone from my husband I made my first attempt. The furnace kicked on but shut off again. I obviously hadn't bled it right, but was getting too frustrated being in the middle of my yacking, incessant toddler and my instructing husband on the line. I declared I would figure it out and hung up the phone. I did just that. Fuel spraying out of your furnace can be a little intimidating, but after a few failed attempts, I figured out where I went wrong. Three soda bottles later and I had successfully bled the furnace properly. Celie and I high fived and cheered as the blower kicked on and started to heat our home again. I was proud of myself, and the sound of the furnace brought a real sense of accomplishment. I can now bleed a furnace. It might not be a huge accomplishment, but it's more than some men can do...and that's the truth!

This, of course, is a metaphor. When you run out of fuel, you can end up sucking air, running on fumes, if you will. You can put all of the fuel you want into your tank, but the furnace won't work until you bleed the air out of the lines....ALL of the air. I can pour all the fuel I want in my tank, but I need to clear my lines before any changes I make will be lasting.

Rod Wives: When Saturday Sucks

Living as a Rod Wife can be hard enough, but what is even worse than seeing your man only two true days a week is when they work on Saturday.  Sure, overtime can be nice, but who cares about money when you are that lonely?  Oh, Mr. Scrooge?  Yeah, him, but for real?  We "pay" enough to live this way, I want my Saturday. We both sacrifice a lot to live the rod life, but it does allow me to spend this irreplaceable time with my child instead of in the work force, climbing a ladder or running with the rats.  I would rather do my work at home, but this life does come with sacrifices, as would the other one.  Everything comes with its price.

On this Saturday, for instance, my husband worked so he didn't get home until 6:30pm.  So right off the bat, Saturday feels like Friday, and obviously what should be Saturday morning is Sunday morning, soon turned Sunday evening and before the clock hands even seem to move it's Monday morning and he's leaving again.  That's barely enough time to get your laundry done, let alone feel like a family, do errands, and get some lovin's in.  At least on this Saturday, we had plans to fall into directly after he arrived which included dinner at a friend's, other children for entertainment (namely hers, meaning ours) and some wine!  So we were able to have an authentic Irish dinner and some grown up talk and beverages, while our midget enjoyed the company of some other shorties.  For a sucky Saturday it was pretty fun after all.  Most of the day was spent waiting for Joey to get home, which made it feel like Friday, but then it actually had the rewarding feeling Friday's used to have back when they included more friends, food, and fanfare, and less bawling, baths, and bedtimes.  It's nice to celebrate the return of your loved ones. Friday's were always a party; everyone was coming home.

Obviously things have changed with our week and weekend routines after having a child, but being a Rod Wife still sucks when you're both doing overtime.  Some men are gone for weeks on end, so I should be grateful we are only apart the amount that we are.  Money is nice, but not as nice as my husbands arms feel.  They can keep their money, I want our Saturday's.  It doesn't happen that often so it's important to look on the bright side of the situation when it occurs.  Absence has been known, for example, to make the heart grow fonder.  It's true.  It also makes the sex better.

Me To You,
Missie Sue

November Blog #24: "Alone vs. A Loner"

NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Nov 24): Do you enjoy being alone? Would you rather be around other people?

I think that I probably answered this question when I blogged about my secret pleasure.  In retrospect, I guess it really wasn’t much of a secret.  It’s pretty obvious to me, and to some, but I suppose to others it wouldn’t be.  Maybe that is why I chose it.  Would I rather be alone or around people?  I always described myself as an introverted extrovert.  This may be a silly contradictory phrase, but it really does make perfect sense for me.  Vice versa would hold true, as well; I am also an extroverted introvert. 

www.righteousmonster.com

I grew up in a decent sized family.  There were six of us all together.  I had 3 siblings, two younger sisters and an older brother.  Not big by older standards by any means, but 4 children is quite a bit for today.  I was the second child, but the oldest daughter.  Sometimes it felt as though I was the oldest in general.  It goes without saying that the first born is born into a deal of responsibility in the hierarchy of a family, and being the first of three girls and so close to my brother in age, I was no different. 

Although being in a big family forced me to interact with people throughout most of my days, I also preferred to spend a lot of time in my room and/or alone as a child.  I didn’t dislike my family, per se; all families have issues.  As I mentioned in my blog about my secret pleasure, I am not sure if I am just innately like this or I became this way because of conditions during my development.  It’s just simply how I am. 

I actually prefer to be with people; I love social interaction, I love conversing.  I just need almost as much time alone.  That is to say, I am accustomed to getting as much time alone.  My husband’s work takes him away all week, so up until I had the baby, it was just me and the dog during the weeks here.  I lived the half life of a bachelorette.  I must say, having the baby has saved me from loneliness more than I ever could have imagined.  She’s like my new best friend.  I prefer to be with her, honestly.  As a Stay-at-Home, I have also become accustomed to having her with me 24/7. 

As she keeps growing and we bond more and more every day, I find myself changing more and more.   My “self” is changing to include her as well.  I’m “alone” with Celie a lot of the time, but I am not really alone.  Sure, she isn’t an adult capable of intellectual debate and stimulating conversation, but she fulfills my social needs in a way I could never have comprehended before.  Don’t get me wrong, I still need time away from her, I still need time completely alone, and I still need time to be social without her, but I am growing more and more each day.  I believe I am being re-socialized by my daughter; she is making me co-dependent.  This is something I have kind of had a battle against since my husband and I got together.  I had to detach myself in a way from the loneliness I felt every time he left me or I would never be able to live the life that we do.  Even though I still feel this loneliness every day he is gone, my daughter is helping me to not feel so alone and feel more okay with him leaving me so much. 

Overall, I am a homebody.  I enjoy spending quality personal time with my family and that is what I choose to do most times.  I also would never be what I am today without the social stimulation of my friends.  I have learned things in solitude that one can never learn in social circles.  I have, in turn, learned many things in a social circle that one can never learn in solitude.  Although I have come far and overcome many personal obstacles, I continue to walk the thin line between social butterfly and social outcast. 

November Blog #22: "This Land is My Land; This Land is Your Land!"

NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Nov 22): What is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to you, and why?

When I was just dating my husband, we were staying with his brother and his fiance and their 18 month baby daughter, now my niece.  My husband had lived with them for years, it was just the arrangement they had.  When we started dating, I moved in with them and lived with them for approximately 4 months maybe.  I ended up being kicked out by my now sister in law.  Some people would think it odd that I am friendly with her today, but I am and actually, she is one of the best friends I have had in my whole life.  She is family.  She is my sister.  That is how it is now, but it wasn’t always that way.  I was luckily able to turn the other cheek, and all has been forgotten.  Well, apparently not forgotten, but it has been overlooked.  Our relationship means more to me than petty misunderstandings and rocky beginnings.  It’s bigger and deeper than that, and regardless of the reason for the eviction, it isn’t the point of this blog---the chain reaction of events that happened after being kicked out is the point of this blog.  I see this as being very “lucky” in determining the future of our lives and “where we are” today…literally. 

I convinced my husband that as my boyfriend it was insulting to him if he stayed behind without me.  I had no where else that I could go immediately other than my parents' house.  I hadn’t really lived there in nearly 5 years at this point, but I called up my folks and explained the situation and they were happy to take us in temporarily.  My husband had been working for my father at the time temporarily so he had gained some respect from him, which is kind of tough to do and had a lot to do with them taking him right into their home with me which I am grateful for.  Anyway, we slept on a mattress on the floor of my parents’ basement for what ended up being around 3 months. 

While we were staying there we started cleaning out the “Old Part” as we called it, which was actually the small house that we had when I was a little girl until around the age of 6 that was still left attached to the new house at the time.  It had been used for storage for years after they built the new addition on.  It shared a room off of the basement with the new house, the room above this which was my parents’ old bedroom was now their office, but other than that it could be completely shut off from the rest of the house to be a small house of its own.  My parents had rented it out for a few years when I was around 10 or so to family members twice.  We ended up cleaning it out, thinking we were going to stay over there, as I was already keeping my clothes in the closet in one of the rooms over there and mostly using the shower in the bathroom.  For some reason, after cleaning the majority of the house out, we didn’t end up moving into it.  I can’t remember if it was because of what happened next or if what happened next happened because that didn’t happen.  Either way…

A friend of ours was renting the trailer we live in now with her boyfriend off of my father.  This place is maybe a quarter of a mile behind my parents’ house back in the woods.  They ended up splitting somewhere around the time my husband and I moved in with my parents.  The boyfriend wasn’t able to come up with the rent after she left because she was apparently paying it when they were together, so ultimately he had to move out, which left this place up for rent.  Having done odd jobs for my father before and during the time of our stay, I ended up cleaning the trailer for him in between renters during which time I was also checking it out for us.  In some weird way I have always had my eyes on this place.  It has the best location for a forest dwelling hermit.  3 other of our friends had rented it off of my dad and stayed here also for a year or so back before I was with my husband.  So I had been around the place and had been visiting it.  I had never entirely left it.  

"I feel home---when I'm chillin' outside with the people I know!"
- OAR, I Feel Home

When we were young kids, my brother and I would play up here on the hill.  A little ways down the driveway my father used to have a small graveyard of old cars.  My brother and I used to play in them all of the time.  Also, before my father put the trailer that is here now on this piece of land when I was in my teens, he had an old school small, aluminum, rounded-back mobile trailer here.  I remember playing in it as a little kid as well, and staying here with my father a time or two when my mother was away.  It was a camp for him and he and his friends occasionally stayed there. 

We ended up renting this place off of my dad starting in February of 2004.  We rented for 3, going on 4 years, until we got married in July of 2007 and my father presented us with “The Deed to the Ranch” as he called it. 

“Now we know we’ll be here forever!”   
- Boyd Lucas

Yeah, we do.  It was very exciting when we got the place for all of us, including my friends.  I was completely shocked.  “Lock, stock, and barrel,” the deed my father wrote up himself said.  I had never been given something so big in my entire life, maybe other than life itself.  He gave us land.  We owned a home.  It was amazing.    

It was the biggest gift I had ever received and it was the greatest thing I ever “lucked into”.   Just think, it all would never have happened just how it happened if I hadn’t been kicked out of where we were.  I never would have come to live with my parents and had been looking for a place to live right when this place came up for rent.   Now we have our very own chunk of pretty in the woods, land for our children to run and grow up on and ultimately inherit.  As luck should have it, we became homeowners.

Home Sweet Home, circa 2008

November Blog #21: "As I Sit Here in the Drifting Sun"

Prompt of the Day (Nov 21): The Business of Being Born is a passion project. Are you pursuing a passion project?

I suppose that aside from being my “business”, Drifting Sun has really been a giant passion project of sorts for me.  I have never known what I really wanted to do with my life, per se.  I knew all of my interests.  I knew what I didn’t want to do, maybe.  But pinpointing it down to one niche, I could never seem to do.

I went to college and got a degree in Integrative Art, but after graduation, what did that even mean?  I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do the whole time I was working toward my degree.  I knew I wanted to do something.  But figuring out what, I could never seem to do.

After my husband and I moved into our current residence, I had graduated college and hadn’t gone out to find a job yet.  We weren’t rich or “set”, but the good news was his income allowed me to stay at home and not work right away.  The idea of a homemaker was always sort of a romantic notion, but I had always been driven to do something more with my life.  I have always wanted to be a mother and I greatly wanted to be able to do something that would allow me to eventually stay at home with my children.  I wanted to contribute and do my part.  Even though simply maintaining a household can be quite demanding work and is definitely a job in and unto itself, I was unsatisfied with this.  As a woman, I wanted to be able to support myself in some way, shape, or form.  I wanted to feel like I was doing my part.  We had no children yet to take care of and weren’t planning on having any until we were married; I had time to pursue what I wanted to do.  If I could only figure out what it was. 

During college, I had started sewing in my spare time.  I started making purses, blankets, curtains, etc.  I would make them for my friends and myself.  I eventually started ironing little “Handmade by Missie Sue” labels in them.  After college, I was able to focus more on improving my sewing skills since it was what I was doing at the time for creativity.  I ended up starting an eBay store and trying to sell my “duds”.  Around the same time I came upon screen printing and it seemed to utilize so many of my learned college skills, so in 2005 I formed Drifting Sun, my handmade clothing and silk screen printing services business…or was it?  To this day, Drifting Sun, like it’s founder, is technically without a definite purpose.  I print t-shirts for people; I print my own prints; I sell band shirts; I sell purses and earrings and odds and ends I make.  Drifting Sun basically is whatever I make it…literally. 

I have recently taken a hiatus of sorts from the biz while I was pregnant with and had my daughter.  I printed 2 jobs while I was pregnant, which I got assistance with because I was afraid of the fumes in my printing shop.  I have printed 1 job since and am planning on printing one here before Christmas.  I suppose this feels right.  I do enjoy printing my own designs immensely more than I do those commissioned for businesses, and groups, etc.  I can do both, but lacking space and money makes it a slow process, but I continue.    

Drifting Sun has been a battle with myself; it has been a project I have been trying to get fully passionate about, but like its owner, is a bit unclassified and without direction.  Where do I focus?   

“How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?” -  John Lennon

I feel I am at somewhat of a stand still.  Sometimes I question if I am capable of such lofty endeavors.  Not only is it hard single-handedly establishing and running a business, it is also hard to be a stay at home mother and even harder to have your significant other away about 70% of the time, so sometimes I get a little discouraged, but I press on.  I believe that Drifting Sun is a beautiful vision and it deserves my all.  Logically, I understand that it can't have this, but I still can give it my best.  I don’t feel I have yet given it that.  So I continue until it feels right.  I continue to see if I can have my cake and eat it too.  And so the saga continues---here’s to finding my niche with Drifting Sun, and to Drifting Sun finding its niche in the world of small businesses.