Pooper Friday!!! Luce-zilla Strikes Again!!!

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Lucy has become so large as to dwarf poor Harlow. I've taken to calling her Luce-zilla due to the bull in a china closet approach to our home and it's inhabitants...Reckless abandon has never held so much meaning before.

Aside from the constant terror, all things are still holding together. The only real casualties so far are the chair in the living room, which was already starting to come apart anyway; the back lawn which has numerous holes, and the Japanese maple tree, which can't really be considered a casualty...yet.

Many thanks for the encouragement, the love and the support. It means so, so, so, much. I agree with Suzie, it is cyclical, not a chain. I think my point there was that when you combine physical and emotional pain, you can start to lose sight of things, that it permeates everything and that they compound with time and events. The things that I'm dealing with are the same issues over and over, but yes, they are different levels of dealing. I'm learning, evolving and growing...ya, whatever, this shit sucks.

Never the less...It is a considerable comfort to come here and find your messages. My days are filled with work, watering and dogs. I get up around 6am and let the dogs out, feed them and begin watering, only to have to leave by 8:15 am for work. I get home around 7:30pm and make dinner, eat, water, beat the dogs into submission and crash into bed by 10pm. It's a viscous cycle to be sure.



I get to have an extra day off this week, Fourth of July holiday. What a treat! Hope you all have a safe and fun holiday weekend and Fourth of July.

Recovery Plus Pooper Friday

Two days past my massage therapy session and I'm now feeling a bit beat up physically. It's that feeling you have when you haven't been to the gym in a while and decide to drop by for a good work out. Felt great to do it, but then pay for it later. I made sure and did some stretching yesterday, and will do so again today.

Emotionally, I feel fine. I feel like a bit of pressure has been released.

I need to say thank you to those who got in touch with me here and elsewhere after the last post. Like I said, I'm staying my hand on pulling the plug, because I feel like that would set me back even further. One more form of cutting myself off and isolation. I'm going back to the therapist a week from Monday to continue what I've started. I know that this is key to my healing.

That's the crazy thing about physical and emotional pain, it really is a chain reaction. One event feeds into another and so on and so forth. Left unattended, it bleeds into so many facets of your day to day life, that eventually you don't know how to distinguish what's normal and what's pain related. You stop seeing the good in others and can focus only on their negative aspects. Add another person in a lot of physical and emotional pain to that, and you get a bit of a negative vortex swirling around.

Now for your Pooper Friday, cause I know that's why you're really here.

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You can see recent photos on Flickr.

Greenie Update!!!

This past week I decided that it's time to pull the plug on "Life with Harlow and the Boys". I realized that it has lived out it's usefulness and that it was time for me to finally let go of it.

Yesterday, I went to a massage therapist and came to some conclusions about myself. I'm not doing as well as I thought I was. I laid there on the table and the entire time, tears ran from my eyes non-stop. Not tears of pain really, at least not from the deep tissue work she was doing, but from the emotions that are so tightly connected to my tightly strung muscles.

I always suspected the correlation of these two things, there was just to much evidence of it in my life, but like so many other things, it was just one more neglect of self on my part. I spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up the facade that it's okay, that I never make room for me to let it out. I've not had a place to do that here. At least, not until now.

At the end of the session, we talked more about what to do next and how to work on me at home. I ended up sobbing, my body shaking, and surprisingly, this kind woman's arms around me and telling me to let it out. I found a sanctuary where I can go and feel safe, safe to let my vulnerability out, if only in measured amounts.

I thought that I was past it all. I thought that I had put a nail in that coffin. Honestly, all I have done is throw myself into my work, so much so that I have no time to think or feel about anything, not to mention what is going on elsewhere. A true survival instinct.

As part of that survival instinct, I have distanced myself from others, retreated. I bemoan my isolation here, and yet I have managed to leverage it to it's fullest potential, to keep myself insulated from questions, concerns and possible loss of emotional control.

All that said, I guess down deep inside, I'm afraid of pulling the plug here. I've retreated from so many of my online buddies, and at the same time I miss them terribly. I bounced around yesterday and realized that I'm missing out on so much. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm staying my executioners hand for now. I'll be returning for more therapy, so let's see where I end up.

With Love,
Greenie

Pooper Friday!!!

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You can see recent photos on Flickr.