Thoughts

This is going to be scatter-shot. I haven't been on Dreamwidth, or even my computer, in a few weeks and I want to write something before I go to my reading page to catch up with how everyone has been doing.

I like to eat pre-packaged salads*. There was a new variety at our local store, an apple/walnut/chicken one with an onion vinaigrette dressing. I shall be keeping an eye out for it from now on - it was delicious! This time of year ushers in the desire for salads as meals.

Someone posted a picture of a lovely embroidered pillbox-type hat to be used as part of her Ottoman era costume and I learned that it was actually a kippah and available on Amazon. So I bought one. YAY! A period-correct head covering (just needs a veil) for my Ottoman garb with no sewing involved! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZCFR1IM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Do you remember when I posted about being told that my "SCA superpower" was "to make someone feel really bad about f*cking up without cursing or raising my voice" (https://stitchwhich.dreamwidth.org/477763.html?nc=3#comments)? I was distrait about it...

A few days ago during a gathering where we were joking about our best skills and I mentioned that to her, that I was mean, at least in her eyes. She was surprised that I took her comment that way. And yet, agreed. See, all those times I had to talk to her about the repercussions of her actions within the Society, she didn't really listen to what I was trying to teach her, or to help her gain understanding about, or my suggestions about how to rectify a situation she'd created. What she heard was that I didn't value her and was wasting no time to tell her so. She wanted my approval. She didn't give a dang about growing more knowledgeable, or proficient, or even more compassionate. She just wanted this stand-in mother to smile on her and tell her that everything she did was something I would be proud of, no matter what it was.

I understand now. And further, I understand why, after she fell in love and married, she ended the Peer/protégée relationship we had. It was never about the SCA for her. She wanted someone she respected to tell her that she was important and deserved to be loved. I regret that she never heard me when I gave her praise or cheered her on but I don't ache over it any more. In terms of "being a Peer", this was a sharp lesson.


*Having pre-packaged foods eliminates the requirement that I weigh and measure each ingredient I combine to make a meal. Sometimes when I am weary that is the difference between me eating or skipping a meal. Unfortunately with the sleep deprivation I am tired most of the time. Then again, I am also recently feeling better and more energetic thanks to a reduction in resting-time pain. I went out on a limb and have been sporadically taking 20mg of over-the-counter CBD before bedtime. It does reduce the rigid muscle cramping in my legs and on top of that has a side benefit of making me a little more "mellow" about being unable to sleep, so I rest better even though I am not actually sleeping, not spinning up emotionally as the hours pass while I am awake. If that makes sense. After a little more trial time I will consider asking my doctor about changing how we address the nighttime leg cramping and pain. Right now I am not taking the CBD every day - I don't know enough about the effects of long term use so am being careful to take it only occasionally. (How bad is the leg cramping? A few mornings ago I asked my husband to feel the muscle on my upper thigh. Sort of one of those "see I'm not crazy, this is weird, right?" kind of instances. He thought he was touching my hip bone. This is not a simple case of restless leg syndrome or diabetic neuropathy. It is too bad there isn't a specialist in our area who'd recognise this and know how to alleviate it. I can't be the only person who experiences this.)

I don't expect anyone to read this, actually. It's been three years since I've written anything but my counselor is after me to write a journal and truth to tell, while I do have a pen and ink journal, I write faster and more coherently by typing the words. So my leather journal is a mostly-SCA-event item. That does make it fun for me to re-read. She also strongly suggested - more like "insisted" that I quit the SCA as what I'd been dealing with was quite toxic. But she settled for me backing out of our local area's stuff. I still kinda keep track of what is going on, and I'm theoretically teaching a class in August but it is only a workshop for folks who would like to cover their modern camp chairs with cloth. I don't attend any of our meetings anymore and I've been training myself to stay out of discussions on the group's Facebook page. It isn't easy. I'm breaking a 32-year habit of being involved. I'll succeed.

I am down to one SCA protégée now. One was elevated to the Order of the Pelican (YAY), one recently met with me to re-evaluate our relationship and we decided to release it (actually, I think she was looking for an opportunity as we had been growing further and further apart in viewpoints as she absorbs her very-Republican new husband's views) and one asked me to release her so she could swear to a dear friend who had been elevated last September. Her friend took over three protégées on the day of her elevation - more power to her. I could have never done that but they all had been talking about it "when the time comes" for eyars.

That last ex-protégée hurt my feelings today. I had asked her for the name & contact info for her soon-to-be Peer on the day she made her request but she didn't answer me. That bothered me a bit but I figured she was already juggling emotions and plans for her travel back to her old kingdom for the ceremony. Her new Peer lives in a kingdom about 18 hours away from our area, so she needed a local contact person in our polling Orders. Recently I wrote to my ex-protogee about it only to learn that she has asked another Peer who lives in a different barony to be the contact person. And that hurt. I guess that our friendship was more window dressing than reality since she's only known that person for less than a year. How could I have misjudged our relationship so poorly?

And I question myself now. Am I that horrible a person? In less than a year I've lost two protégées. Have I become a toxic individual? Maybe so in these last few dark years. I spent a few years wanting to die, constantly fighting the urge to weep, and trying to hide that. I'm still dealing with depression but that level of it has lifted. I'm starting to have good days now, with goals and activities I only daydreamed about previously. But has the last few years poisoned my personality while I was trying to cope?

I don't know.

Sometimes the difficulties inherent in an off-beat sleep schedule are not very obvious. I sat down at 1am for a snack after doing a lot of work at my desk. I thought I'd just want a little savoury 'something', as people do late at night. So I had a bag (1oz) of potato chips, feeling rather naughty since they are carb-heavy. Then I had another bag. Then two slices of lunch meat. Then a nectarine. And finally yet another bag of chips.

And then it occurred to me that I'd been craving a meal, not a snack. Perhaps because I'd eaten 'breakfast' 12 hours before and 'lunch' six hours after that.

I did manage to get a lot of admin-stuff cleaned up from my desk. That means that I have phone calls to make to medical billing offices in the morning, darn it, but it is nice to actually have our bills back in normal order and the riff-raff of 'Pennsic mail pile' finally gone from my sight. It is all shredded and in the recycling bin now.

Plans for tomorrow are for some salad-making, clothes cutting (I've GOT to get started on the sale stock for Holiday Faire!) and the printing out of Pennsic device pages so I'll have something to do with my hands at our baronial business meeting. Ah, Crayola Therapy...

Speaking of that, I was given a sweet compliment yesterday while answering a question for someone and I'm going to save it here so I can find it again during the dark times: "...you have a reputation as someone who knows their stuff, is always willing to help other people learn, and is ALWAYS helping out in one way or another. That's not exactly something to sneeze at." The next time I'm feeling like snarling, maybe I'll remember that and keep my teeth behind my lips. It is more fun to cheerfully help someone than it is to be grumpy.

I have explored Google. And dredged up a memory of a haircut I did like...






I once had something like this. It was longer in the back but I remember that the only thing I disliked about it was attempting to braid it. I believe I have a winner.

It will be nice to do something that reaffirms being alive and enjoying living after the last few years of health-stress.

Members of the SCA will understand this one - other folks may be a tad bewildered. Or just think "Meh. Weird."

Everyone who has been reading my entries knows that I was working fairly hard on a fundraiser for my barony by making and selling lumpia. Ultimately, this time (we did it last year too) we netted about $1100. Not bad. Altogether our two lumpia-making drives got us roughly $1800 closer to a new baronial pavilion, which we really are needing.

This last Saturday was our baronial birthday event. Our silent auction fundraising coordinator faded into the walls before the event happened so I ended up taking care of that, too... it was no big deal, silent auctions being what they are. Neither was I particularly enthusiastic about it, it not being my idea and I have been rather opposed to 'yet another automatic fundraising thingy for baronial members to spend their money on' event activities. Thus the lumpia - one (needed) lunch at Coronation, and a chance for those who like it but can't make it to order some for themselves outside of our local events.

Anyway. Their Excellencies called the lumpia crew (my 'roller-babes'!) into court to thank them for their/our efforts. I'd forgotten that they'd most likely do that. Then, when I was moving slowly into the background again, his excellency stopped me and said he had something to say to me personally. That caught me a bit flat-footed. He started by saying that they'd appreciated the work I was doing, and that he, personally (being also a cancer-fighter right now) knew how challenging it was to do such a thing while dealing with physical pain and weakness, and that he was astounded by my dedication and hard work while being confined to a chair. He was playing with something in his hands, worrying at it. He told the court that there really wasn't anything that they (Their Excellencies) could give to a person who already had all of the awards that the barony could offer. Then he held up a chain, a circle of steel links. He said that he and his two squire brothers (I knew the now-Sir Colin but don't know the other) went into a Sears store together and bought those chains, 'fence chain number 5' as promises to each other that they would see their way through their training and someday, if they were deemed worthy, they would swear their oath of fealty on their 'brother chains'. It was a physical token of their dedication to chivalry. And one day, he did swear his oath on it, and he wore it for five years before putting it aside for a new one. He said he had always cherished it and that he would have sworn he would never, ever, give it away because there was nothing he could imagine that would cause him to part with it.


And then he gave it to me.

.

It came to me, a little over two weeks ago, that I really love the place I am at with my circle of friends. The circle is rather small. A year ago, I regretted that, thinking that I was missing out on something and feeling a bit alone as I heard about people doing this or that together. Now, I've grown enough to know I'm not missing out on anything I value. I have just the right blend of companionship and solitude, and best - a group of people I truly admire.

Who are my friends, you ask?

They are the people who, if I should have to say, "May I speak with you? It really hurt me when you...." react with appalled shock and rush to say, "I'm sorry" and "Can I do anything to fix it?" and "I didn't mean for THAT to happen!" They will explain what they were thinking, what was going on around them, and sometimes even say "I was just in a horrible place emotionally and you got in the way of my swinging arm. I'm so sorry" - because they trust me to love, understand, and forgive them.

And I do.
And they do the same for me when I mess up and hurt them.

My friends have integrity. When something comes up, I know that they will respond with kindness and honesty. They have no need to lie to themselves or surround themselves with hyped-up drama renditions of their lives - because their lives, while stressful, are also full of love and appreciation for the large and small things that fulfill them.

My friends help me be a better person than I am. Better than I was yesterday, a month ago, a year ago - and what draws me to them is their own shining desire to grow better themselves. I realised, a couple of weeks ago, that my friends all heed the duty-call of introspection and are not easy on themselves when they perceive failure. Yet they forgive that failure in others.

My friends commit themselves to The Greater Good - in their lives, in their hobbies, in their voting choices. They give, consistently, to others. They volunteer for work that is not shiny and eye-catching but needs to be done... and they get it done, without drama, without excuses for dropped responsibilities, without the need for constant applause. They don't shirk a job and then lay the blame on others.

They accept responsibility for their decisions and actions. Heck, all of them take responsibility for things that aren't their own - because they care enough to rue any lessening of their world around them and can't suppress the desire to make things better. Even when they already have more burdens to carry than they should bear.

My friends are the people who I have to bargain with to let me do something for them, instead of letting them do something for me. And so we help each other to give in graciously.

They talk to me about each other and about others of our acquaintance. Because they are always trying to find a way to smooth a path, ease a pain, help someone up, heal from a hurt inflicted by another. That sometimes means talking about things in a way that others may interpret as 'gossip' - but gossip doesn't ease a person towards finding acceptance and support for an individual who has put one off, or someone whose character one cannot trust but must deal with constantly anyway... my friends care about the people around them, even those who are not within their circle of friendship or who are swimming in a swamp of toxic behaviours. And when we do slide into the path of gossipy crochets, I can count on them to pull us all back out, or assist me to do so if I notice it first. And we smile, and relax, and we all are relieved. Because my friends are great-hearted.

My friends are not perfect. Neither am I. But together, we sometimes find moments of perfection. Of laughter, joy, fulfillment, love. Without needing to stand on another person to get it, without cruelty, crudity or leering sexual sliminess.

I really value my friends.

I spend a lot of time sitting by the windows in the front of the house - the table that hosts my laptop is there. And I've realised that it has become my serenity spot. Used to be, that would be my corner of the kitchen table where I do my crafty-stuff, but no, now it's my window. I was starting to log off of the computer when I heard a dove outside the window, sitting on the rocking chair by door. I can look out and see the chair, part of my willow tree, and the holly bush... each one has a different bird by/on it. Dove on the chair, little starling (?) in the holly, and three mallards under the willow. In the wee hours of the morning, the ducks are still sleeping while the wild bunnies come and munch the grass under the willow.
It's urban, I know. But I love my little corner of green. And all the birdsong that I hear as I sit here and enjoy the dappled green of the wind through the willow branches.

I recently have been musing on my lack of compassion. Thin skin? maybe. It's no excuse... (I'll grant it to others but I reserve the right to be harsher with myself. I prefer to strive to live up to my own standards.) I've been bothered not just a little, by tales of backstabbing and nastiness. Enough to want to strike back, somehow, to - well, resolve it one way or the other so it could stop bothering me. And in that being bothered, I've lost sight of my own desire to view the best of someone instead of the worst. I can't stop backbiting and sly remarks. Not by shining a light on them or by ignoring them with dignity (or even poorly-hidden pain). Folks who do that and who encourage it in others have their own insecurities and nothing I say or do can help them heal from those - that takes a decision on their part to want to heal. And none of us are in a position to force such a thing. So I have to let this irritation, this defensive pain, go. Because in allowing it to rule my thoughts about the situation, I'm becoming like the ones who are hurting me and mine. And that is unacceptable.
So if, in the future, I stop you from telling me a tale, and ask if it's something I can do anything about, please understand that it's not personal about you. It's about protecting what I hold dear - my ability to love without judging. Because it's far too easy for me to lose that when my heart has been cheese-grated.

Avoidance behavior. Boy am I in a full-bloomed outbreak of it. I should be cutting out garb for Arni and I. I should be cleaning out the second room (Shawn's old one) so I can set a bed in there and offer privacy to guests. I should be out in my car traveling to the various ethnic stores in the area looking for canned fava beans. (Ever tried calling a store that specialises in non-English foods when you only speak rudimentary Spanish or German? Better to just get in the car and go there so the clerk can get the full benefit of my 'confused but nice older lady' look. Not that I'm finding the beans.)
Oh. And I'd better get on the phone or the email and find a home for the 50 loaves of bread that are done 2 weeks before I was told they would be - and that I have to pick up on Saturday. Because with the advance warning of two days, I should be able to arrange freezer space for those, right?

Right.


Stressed? No not me. Why do you ask? And while we're at it, what do you say to a long-distance Internet friend who has undergone gender re-assignment and just broke the nws that he is now a woman? I want to be supportive but I'll be danged if I know what to say after, "Lucky you, gravity hasn't been your enemy yet!" (She sent pictures.) There's got to be some sort of something I can write that is supportive but not nosey.

And did I mention that I'm off of the little pills that keep one from getting preggers and incidentally also keep one from *spiking estrogen episodes*? Yeah, I needed that like a hole in the head. Okay, well, it was time to stop taking those but I think if I'd been intelligent I might have waited until after the busiest month of the last five and certainly not change things before my first event cooking gig in oh, about 4 years or so. Because I'm feeling a little stressed. Even thought really, it's all under control. I just can't get my hindbrain to understand that. Arg.

My wrists and arms hurt. I just spent 5 hours making a "pirate shirt" for my youngest only to learn that his carpooling buddies didn't want to bother stopping by my house to pick it up. Since I live about 6 blocks away, I find that a little annoying. Since I've spent half of my sewing time handstitching decorations on his shirt and finishing visible seams, I'm even more annoyed. For this, I could have stayed in bed and got eight hours of sleep after all.

'Course, he's going to really like the shirt when he gets to see it. And I wouldn't really have been quite so annoyed if he'd thought to call me 2 hours ago when he was 'kidnapped'. Being rushed sucks, I know. And now he only has one shirt (I gave it to him last night) to make it through the entire Convention. His roomies are going to learn not to stand between Shawn and a clean shirt - the hard way! :)

Guess I'm not quite as annoyed as I thought I was.