This life has it’s own pace. You are both completely in control and yet not at all. You can focus on where you have it or where you don’t. I recommend the former.

This morning I walked the field in the opposite direction as usual. I had lots of thoughts on the way down that are lost to me now excepting some planning for my website. Maybe that is because it was best to listen to them and then let them pass.

At one point I stopped, squatted down to release some tension in my lower back. Sleeping with the two dogs can become cause to some strange sleeping positions. ?. Taking in the sun reflecting off the field gave pause to remind me that so much is dependent on the angle at which you approach and view things.

Though Button is keeping me awake at night as she patrols the back (and the front) with what can seem incessant barking to ward off the coyotes, there is an upside.

I see that the turkeys are able to nest here. One hen is brooding over around seven eggs. I have no idea how long but I hope that I am witness to the hatchlings. We spooked another hen with five little ones that are able to fly the other morning. Funny I never knew that turkeys could fly at all until I got here.

Sometimes I can’t sleep. Maybe this has gone on for years.

He and I share one thing. We hate being inside. Tonight I went outside with the new computer and tinkered. It feels good.

The sounds of the country waking up sooth me almost as much as the ocean. Truth. Maybe more. The feeling of the keyboard oddly is also soothing. Something I can command.

It’s nearing time I need to nap before work. I wish I did not need to work. I would float through what I feel right now and make something that would help people. Would it get me paid? Probably not. SO to work I go.

There is truth in these hills. 50K people here once seeking fortune. I assume much disappointment and a whole lot of grit. The grit remains.

As I grapple with how to be the best participant in this new place that I have embraced, I struggle a bit.

At the same time, the quiet – I forget the word – not fortifies…. more like the ramparts placed to protect from war.

Going to take a nap. Have 3 hours before i have to be a professional.

I could not look into my dog’s eyes because just the pleading expression itself was too much to handle. It was like a mirror to my soul imploring the world to look into my eyes and recognize how to help.

At the height, I was barely able to crawl under my desk to plug in the wires required to get my ‘home office’ up and running. I remembered thinking this is paralysis, rigor mortis? Lucky for the mysore yoga practice studio at the bottom of the hill.

Now, I see even that I resisted exploration because I could not handle what I, at that point, ‘knew’ I could never have. At the time I may have viewed it as the impressive estate grounds in the ranch (the land I could not have) or even the clean beautiful little homes by the golf courses.

I just, to defend my soul, avoided it all.

Equally, I had trouble with urban neighborhood that I once embraced and walked freely in, even if I should not have in my 20’s. So I found a place to wedge myself firmly in between the two and here I am today.

I am somewhat surprised I survived back then at all. No wonder my projects, while completed, carried the weight of failure with them. No wonder I “ducked and ran”. What else could I do? Explain depression?

Explain that I just did my best to forge forward? Explain that I did not really know how to take responsibility for something I could not accept myself lest in accepting it I would allow it to tear me to shreds? That when you asked me, “Can you handle this?”… the only answer I had ever known was ‘yes’ because that was how I had survived my entire life. Explain that I know that, had I been willing to test out just a bit of vulnerability, I would have learned more.

Was I afraid even of being ‘saved’? Because that would put me in the hands of others and that might be terrible? That really, I just had to keep going with that same MO that I’d leaned on so many years because it was the only ladder I could trust to crawl out of that space.

I’ve gotten past it feeling just plain embarrassing and terrible. I’ve reasoned through understanding that people like you may not be able to fully comprehend the depths from which I make decisions that are likely not at all rational in your logic. I may have even come to that painful realization that, instead of me being the one that had to let go of someone, I was the one you had to let go of.

We all reach limits. It is within mine that I may at some point re-cultivate a life where I cross back to a place where I can empower. So much about that time. So much. So much I created and let factors pull me away from.

Had he been fully supportive? Had he not wanted it all for him. A question I’ve asked myself over and over. The obvious answer is yes – a partner can indeed tear down every rung you install. And make you feel like he is actually your biggest champion.

Nevermind that though. At the end of it, I came (have come) to view my outbursts like that of a child who has fallen from the swing, bruised a knee, and is crying for a guardian who is too busy on the phone to notice. So, eventually, they give up, dust off their knee, and get up and start playing again. Over and over and over and over again.

Because, at that point, the people that were watching I was too scared to engage with, and the ones I wanted to be…well…