Tag Archives: silence

animals, Behind the curtain, Blunt Talk, life, memories, military, people, relationships, The Vees Big Adventure, travel

The Hermit

While the Hermit Tarot card does ring true when it comes to me, in this instance I mean the behaviour/archetype I slip into when my husband is away.

And yes, he is away once again. This time for quite a bit longer than the other times.

We’ll be fine, we’re just a little out of practice for these longer runs as it’s been almost 3 years since his last major deployment or mission.

But I know that in a few days I will slip into my Hermit skin and silence will settle. It’s a comfortable silence, and I am not someone who needs people, so it’s a welcome silence as well.

I really don’t mind being alone – I’m never lonely, as I have my beautiful dogs with me – and I even like my own company.

It’s time for me to work to make some money, do some odd jobs and potter around our little cottage and the yard – try and get the grass to grow – and even do some chores for my mother-in-law at the main house while she’s away as well. I also want to get into an exercise regime to get back into shape like I was in Germany. I know I’m not walking nearly as much with the dogs as I was, even in Georgia, so I know that’s why I’ve gained weight (it’s not a lot, but it’s way more than I am happy with) but there are other ways for me to get fit and the dogs don’t have to go with me every time I go out! I can run on my own – even if it’s early morning or late evening when it’s bearable outside.

We’re heading into New Mexico’s infamous summer, where roads melt and cars bake and everything dies in the scorching sun. Luckily, our little cottage is generally pretty cool, and we have a little air conditioner that seems to be handling the heat well so far. Early mornings are quite lovely here in the desert, and the dogs have the choice to be inside or outside and when it starts really getting hot around 11, they tend to prefer to be inside. They go back out in the evening when the temperature drops to a reasonable level for us all, and the air conditioner takes a break while the fans blow the cool air in from outside. Azzie likes to be outside, even when it’s very hot, so I have to watch her a bit. She is not used to this weather and doesn’t realise she’s cooking until I bring her inside and she feels how cool it is and she falls asleep in the kitchen on the cool tile or on her bed in the main room with the air conditioner.

She’s an odd duck, that one, but she’s mommy’s girl and she’s already shown me that she’s there for me – the moment my husband left I had a wave of heartache and sadness and I couldn’t fight the tears. It was just a moment and just a sob, and then I was done, but Azzie came barreling across the yard and shoved her head into my arms and wriggled and huffed until I stopped. Gina was too busy waiting at the gate and Odin was too busy barking at cats in the other yard.

PS: I updated The Vees Big Adventure page as well.

animals, Behind the curtain, Capsule Wardrobe, life, people, relationships

Being a stay-at-home person

Being a stay-at-home person for most normal people is 70% awesome and 30% meh.

For normal people the separation from their co-workers, and the lack of social interaction in general, causes them a great deal of misery and depression. For me, it’s not an issue. I am a solitary person. If it wasn’t for my husband, I could go months, even years, without speaking in person to another human being. Except maybe a thank you or please to people who need it. No conversation though.

For normal people, getting up in the morning at a reasonable hour is also something they find difficult – for me, it’s not, as I have so many reasons and motivations: firstly, my husband gets up early and I get up with him so that I can make him breakfast, and pack his lunch (yes, we’re old school – and we’re good with it) and I also feed my dogs (two of them have to eat early in order to prevent acid reflux which causes them to vomit if they have an empty stomach for too long) and take them outside for a quick piddle break. So I have no CHOICE really, but to get up at a reasonable hour to start my day. Usually, during the week, the dogs and I go back to bed after their breakfast and husband has left for work. It’s an hour or so of a nice nap to prepare for the day. Then we get up and go for our long morning walk, which lasts anything from 40 minutes to 2 hours, depending on where we go and what we do.

This leads me to another issue that normal people seem to have with working from home (or being a stay-at-home person) and that’s getting out of your pajamas. Once again, thanks to the dogs, I don’t have a choice in the matter. I have to get up, get dressed in clothes that I can be seen in out in public. and head out. I also do the grocery shopping, generally, and that involves being in public, so I definitely wear reasonably acceptable clothes for that too. I’m a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, so it’s not difficult. I also have a capsule wardrobe which mostly consists of clothes that I can wear both on a dog walk AND at the store!

Normal people also complain about their eating schedules – I don’t really have that issue. I eat breakfast after feeding the dogs “second breakfast” when we get back from our long walk. This is any time from 0930 to 1030, depending on how long the walk was. So I’m pretty full right up until around 1400 or so. I have something small (soup, a sandwich, cereal) for my “lunch” and then the next time I eat is when I make dinner for my husband and I. I think it works for me, as it stops me from “snacking” all day and eating junk food. If I am bored, I eat. So this meal schedule helps me keep the weight off.

I also have the Bird Bar, as we call it, to take care of. And my plants and herbs and flowers need watering as well.

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I have to admit that I have become a bit of a “social commenter” on Facebook, much to my disgust. I realised this today, after reading an article about this subject (working from home) and finding that only a few of the items listed actually concerned me. There are a couple of groups on Facebook that I check daily, a few times. I have made some lovely friends and learned some very helpful and interesting things there.

 

But other than that – I love being a stay-at-home person. When I am done with school, and I begin actual work, I don’t think my routine will change much. Perhaps a little less time on breaks and more time working (my work will be time sensitive) and completing things in a timely manner.

Sometimes being a little odd and being a loner is pretty useful. It helped me through long periods of separation with my husband too, while he was on the other side of the world. I’m a self-sustaining person. If I have no interaction with humans, I am just fine. I don’t get miserable or depressed. i don’t get anxious or desperate for another human voice. If I want to hear people speaking, I simply watch one of my favourite tv shows. I talk to my dogs, yes. I talk to them a lot. I don’t find that strange. Sometimes they help me, simply by listening, to sort through things or work out ideas. And anyone who says that dogs can’t have a conversation has not spent enough time with them. 🙂

My dogs are interacting with me in many ways, all the time. You just have to be aware of it, and be willing to let go of human conversation rules. My dogs have taught me a lot about silence.

Like the silence of the forests we walk in – that silence that’s made up of all the sounds of the forest at once. I love that. I gives me great serenity and fills my body with energy and inspiration and I can get on with my day. I find days that I don’t walk in the forest with my dogs, are days when I am physically tired, and I struggle to concentrate on my school work. It’s no coincidence, I feel.

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animals, life, military, people, relationships

quiet days

Husband left on mission again early this morning – I had to drive him down to where they were being transported from, just before 0100. Took the dogs with, and Azzie (being the sensitive fur child that she is) picked up on my husband’s excitement and nervousness and impatience (the army does things in weird roundabout ways that take ages) and behaved like a complete crazy idiot. She leaped around and barked and whined and bashed into people and pulled me around. Husband lost his temper (not his fault – a lot going on) and couldn’t understand why she was behaving like that – I tried to explain that she was just picking it up from him, but he felt he was being calm and didn’t agree. On the surface he looked very calm, but she’s a sensitive dog, so she saw what was really going on inside him. This was proven when we said goodbye to him and headed back to the car – we were barely 10m away and she was suddenly calm, relaxed, walking easily on the lead with no pulling and no excitement. Hopped in the car just fine and all three dogs were quiet on the way home – heads out the window like usual – and they didn’t even bark at the MP and gate guards like they did on the way out.

So next time we go say goodbye or send him off somewhere and the dogs come with we will ALL be glugging some Rescue Remedy down 🙂

Dogs are amazing, really. Can’t hide anything from them.

The “silence’ experiment is going quite well: I’ve been walking them in near complete silence, with only positive remarks occasionally. I think that my tone when I speak all the time is perhaps confusing the dogs because my body language says something else, or my energy or something, I really don’t know. Or maybe it’s because by not talking I’m expressing my frustration/annoyance less, so it’s helping me remain calm? Could be a combination of all of that. We’ve encountered a few dogs in the distance and while my dogs have been interested (a bark from Odin, a small whine from Azzie and Gina puts her tail up and huffs) we’ve kept on walking without incident and with very little resistance from the dogs, even while the dog we’re passing by goes nuts on the end of their lead. We haven’t seen the Smug Man and his Husky recently: that will be the ultimate test for this experiment.

 

Now I have to get back into “mission mode” while my husband is away. I have to stop checking my phone for messages, and stop expecting to see him pull into our parking lot in Helga (our BMW) or hear his key in the front door lock. Will take a few days for me to sleep as well. Always does.

 

animals, food, life, people, relationships

another long walk

Dogs and I decided to head out in a new direction this afternoon, thinking of exploring some areas we’ve not been yet.

So we headed down into the industrial area, and out the back of  it onto the grass/forested area there. The path I’d found on google maps was covered in downed trees and was very muddy so we had to figure out a new path, but we ended up walking along a nice single lane/bicycle path which headed into our tiny village from another side. It was lovely. Dogs were awesome, super well behaved.

G’s tummy was very good, but Azzie’s wasn’t the greatest. It’s ok, they’re still 90% better and improving every day.

A day of silence, it seems.

Yay, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has started up again! All cued up and ready to go! Now I’m making some killer dinner to go with it, and then I’m going to start watching!

animals, life

First winter snow

Happy snow dogs, lemme tell ya!

Treats, please!

Day … whatever of Life Without Facebook and I don’t miss it at all 🙂

Finally the snow has come for the winter and hopefully more to come – my dogs were BORN for this, they LOVE it!

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Even Gina sheds her normally stoic exterior and becomes a nutcase in the snow!

Gina doing zoomies

A little quiet around here with husband away, but we’re used to it. It’s only really difficult at night – but the dogs like the extra space on the bed! 🙂

Stay frosty!

life, memories, people

Silence is not always bad

Doing this #100happydays thing with a few friends – where you try and find at least one good thing about your day.

It’s been… interesting. I will admit that I skipped a day, or two. Not because I couldn’t find anything to feel happy about, but simply because my brain has enough trouble remembering things that help keep me moving each day and I just forgot completely to “take a shot” of something good.

I wanted to take a shot of my dog’s poop – that’s when I realised that I needed to think again. Reason being – my dogs have been so sick for so long, that seeing a “good” poop from them made me happy beyond words. Seeing it consistently for the last few days has really kept a lightness to my heart. Also, seeing Gina’s new energy level and playfulness (like when we first got her!) and Azzie calmness and happiness, makes me feel bad for them that they were sick for so long.

It’s still slow going – taking it a day at a time with this – but they are definitely getting better and this makes me HAPPY!

A happy fur mom.

Azzie has another issue that we now need to deal with – but it’s not making her sick and it doesn’t affect her in any way other than it embarrasses her and makes a little mess. Doesn’t happen all the time, of course – almost random, really – so it’s hard to sort out. Going to try something natural first, before we hit the drugs. Just waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

Husband has been gone “on mission” for a little bit and will be gone for a little while longer. I miss him, of course, and the house is silent without him – especially in the evenings and on the weekends when we let our hair down and listen to music, watch movies, laugh about things or he plays his games and gets loud and silly and has fun with his friends online.

But sometimes, it’s alright, the silence. I focus on things that I would normally ignore – me, for instance, and how I am doing.

Some people find it hard to understand that I really don’t mind being on my own. I’m never “alone” – just, not in the company of people. This is fine with me – I like my own company. I can say/think what I want when I am with me – no filter necessary to either tone it down or make it understandable to other humans. My husband gets me better than most, I will admit, but even for him, some of the things that come out of my mouth, from the depths of my dark mind, even he doesn’t always understand it.

 

I’ve had more memories return, as well, from my youth. It seems 10 years is long enough to keep them locked away and now they are starting, slowly, to resurface. I’ve “dreamed” a few – but I know they are _real_ not just my usual vivid dreams. I “remember” them when I wake up. Things come back to me. I have been a little… saddened I guess is the word, by some of them. Because I could not (cannot) remember most of what happened to me before the accident, when things come back and I can understand them better, see them from an older and wiser perspective – I see things now that I was completely oblivious to when they happened.

One of the memories nearly woke me screaming the other night. I woke up with jaw clenched, hands clenched so hard my nails dug into my palms. I was sweating profusely and my heart was beating so hard I felt like I was going to vomit. And my head hurt so badly I couldn’t move it. My husband slept on, so I am assuming my “noise” was all internal. Which is fine. It’s not a memory I wanted to share, anyway.

 

Head injury, and PTSD, affect us for so long after they happen. Sometimes the recovery can be painful – not just physically, but emotionally and mentally too. New pathways are formed in our brains, which means new ways of seeing things. Some of the things can really suck.

Luckily, one of the good things that came of my head injury, PTSD, and subsequent recovery is that I am very strong, mentally. I am also very close to myself. If that makes sense. I know _me_ and I know what I am and who I am and what I can and cannot handle. So, while I feel like I wasted my youth trying to have things I could never have, be with people who didn’t want to be with me at all, or get myself into situations I should have been smarter about – I learn something from every memory that comes back.

Any fellow sufferers who read this – hang in there. Don’t give up. Be strong. Be yourself. Trust yourself.