Sunday, March 20, 2011

Time to Take it Easy


This is the first weekend that I've had no plans since I've bought this house.  It's a weekend of nothing special, piddling around, rearranging stuff, and small painting and repair projects. Knocking down the list of niggling items and getting comfortable in my space.  You see, 3 weeks after I moved in (if putting a mattress on the floor can be called moving in), I got into the car accident.  Then 3 weeks after the car accident I met NM, and we did stuff on weekends until recently.  And when I was with NM, I had no desire to organize the pantry, or scrub dog pee off the basement floor, or fix the kitchen cabinet door that won't stay closed.

Yesterday I fixed the cabinet door and painted a bench, and set up the hammock on the porch.  This is in an unheated part of the house, but it will be toasty warm this afternoon after the sun's been warming the space up all day.

I've had some time to think since NM's been gone.  About patterns in my life and being mostly alone for the last 12+ years after my divorce.  About how I've been happiest when I've had friends and how hard I worked up on the mountain to accomplish the goat-y goal, but didn't invest the time to make friends.  I invested time to find a partner too, and was unsuccessful at that as well.

So here I am, half an hour closer to the world, coming out of the hardest winter since my first winter on the mountain 2 years ago and thinking about what to focus on this year.  I'm not going to plant a garden this year.  I'm going to watch what the place wants, and hit it hard next year.  I'm not going to work so hard at finding a partner.  I'm going to take all that energy I spent and put it into ... taking it easy.  Getting comfortable with those assholes at the fire department.  More and more of them are being nicer every week.  Good thing I can be persistent. Taking the dog for walks.  Finding people to relate to, and turning those into relationships that support and nourish my soul.

It's tremendously freeing to know that I'm not going to do any big projects this year except the Make Friends project.  And all I have to do for that one is allocate my time to doing outside-in-the-world-with-people things that I like doing, and be myself.  (It's telling that I have to give myself permission to relax and make it a project, isn't it?)

The only other thing I have to get done is actually move my stuff from the other house to this one.  It's been on the market for 4 months now (here's the listing, probably safer to post now that I don't live there any more) and not a single person has been to see it.  Two folks almost walked through it, but decided that it was too far away.  I lowered the price two weeks ago and it hasn't made a difference.  I'll probably lower the price again, and then just rent it out if there's still no interest.  I've already found a property management company who can deal with finding and managing a tenant (and fixing maintenance issues), so it won't be a big deal when I make that decision.  I'm kindof in limbo here though, as long as most of my furniture is still there.  No matter.  That decision will wait.  Time to take it easy!

3 comments:

  1. I love your self reflections! I am glad that you are going to take it easy! Wish I would be doing that this year!

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  2. It's funny how many people I know are setting the "Make Friends" goal--myself included. Would love to hear your take on how you're going to make that happen.

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  3. Hi Shannon - thanks! Love your energy!

    Heather - I think I'll write a post about this. I've started over so many times, I have a formula for making friends. It's a little depressing thinking about how many times I've done this and how, even though I'm physically in a different place, I'm back in the same place of trying to make friends. I need to think a little bit more about *keeping* friends if I'm ever going to move forward into actual friend relationships that last.

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