Friday, October 2

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

That in spite of everything, most of the time I want to be kind. Yup, I have some really bad days, and that leaks out into my interactions with others. Some days I am a toxic mess, and I take it out on others. Most days though, I'd rather try to interact with someone in a way that might make someone's day a little, tiny bit better, or at least not worse.

I went into town today so I could go to the "yard sale" fund raiser for the local cat shelter. I'm so happy that this town now has an actual cat shelter, they've only had one for a couple of years. Before that, I shudder to think of how things went for animals picked up by animal control etc. I found two very nice scarves, and a few books. I had a nice conversation with another person looking at the books.

Then I walked around the little man-made lake, and it was somehow one of those almost out of body experiences that we are lucky enough to have from time to time. It's always a nice trail, with lots of trees etc, but somehow the light was just perfect, and there were all of these autumn colors, and there's this one part of the trail that has a street light and something about the whole scene makes me think of Narnia, and the street light in the forest when you first come out of the wardrobe.

I had Roxy with me in town, so we walked together, and she was very well-mannered on the leash, which is nice, since I haven't had much occasion to walk with her on a leash this year. I had two separate lone men go out of their way to make sure I didn't feel threatened by them, one of them apologizing for wearing a hoodie. The hoodie one I chatted with for a while. It's nice that they wanted me to feel safe, but I am a little sad that they must feel that they have to make sure that no one misunderstands them. I wonder how often men avoid walking around by themselves, because it might seem threatening to others. I also chatted with a man with his son, and their adorable little puppy. I got the feeling that the puppy was kind of a COVID thing, to get them to go outside more.

My ankle still hurts, but it's not unbearable if I'm careful. I'm really not getting much exercise this week, so I wanted to walk for a while, even if it was uncomfortable. I just took my time.

I also picked up a tiny bit of groceries. Mostly for milk, but I got some fruit too. I made a point of talking to the clerk (I usually do), because I think it makes their day go a little faster, and it humanized the whole experience.

Then I had a quiet evening at home reading.

Taking this week mostly off has been restful. It sucks that it has to be because of an injury, but to not be working my ass off or trying to fill my waking hours with busyness has been nice. I've been really burnt out for a long time now, with all the stress from the house and yard this year, the stress of River's breathing and fearing a confrontation with the barn owner, and just on and on. Weirdly, this injury has at least made me focus on taking care of myself a bit, and it's given me the mental space to just say "fuck it" to a few things. Permission to just say "well, I guess it just isn't going to happen today, is it?". I don't want to have to go back to "full tilt". It was too much. I literally feel like I could sleep for a month, and maybe just do animal care and go for nice walks. The stress level this year has been crazy, and I just want to let go.

When I did chores last night, I spent some time just sitting with the ponies and goats, looking at the clouds all lit up by the full moon, listening to an owl shrieking. It was lovely.