Nuts and Bolts

I don't think my life has ever been better. I am trying to keep my heart in gratitude, and remember what it was like to sleep in a welfare hotel, alone with toddlers, but everything is just coming at me so fast it is hard to grab any sort of perspective. Everything is in demand, everyone wants me to do something, give me something, take me somewhere, teach me something. If I try to explain, it doesn't even make sense.

You see....
💗I have a babysitting job every morning, putting kids on the bus at 6:45 am, and extra for dentist appointments, when the kids are sick, and vacation days.

💗I have a part-time job selling Asian Pears to health food stores, cheese shops, high end restaurants and inns, etc.

💗 I am also travelling from time to time to pear events...festivals, galas, wine tastings, etc.

💗I have recently started a teen collaborative art organization.

💗I am preparing for an Art Show in June...I am one of many on the event, but it is the FIRST time I have EVER shown art. At all. In any context.

💗I joined a little local Artists guild, which gives me a lot of additional opportunities.

💗I have three dogs, but it feels like 27 because I have a pitbull puppy...oy.

💗I'm custom painting shoes, and selling my paintings, marketing on social media.
 
💗Nevie is doing great a boarding school, and I am going back and forth there. She has become very serious about being a classical soprano and is getting ready to go to Costa Rica this summer on a biology trip.

💗Sequoia is in public school at home, and active in marching band and the drama clubs, and serious in her veganism, and is kind of amazing at fashion, design and makeup.

💗I have a hundred year old, three bedroom house that is in continual need and constantly filthy.

💗And, vital to all the other parts, I'm Bob's wife, and shockingly, we are getting along better than we have in ten years.

See....you got bored even reading the list of all that I do! It is too much to list, and it is all happening, it is all booming, it is all good, and I am just running.

So many years lost to depression and sickness, and now....I'm off like a motherfucking ROCKET!

Ten thousand million bazillion things are better than they once were, but when I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection, I still look a mess. A fucking mess! Who wants to worry about diet, exercise, what one is wearing, what one's hair is doing....fingernails?!....when there is stuff to DO. I'm damn near 40, it looks like I might have grown up to be a person who just looks a mess, and I should embrace it. OR I could start worrying about the aforementioned, which doesn't seem like an attractive option either. It does bother me, though. I would like to look nice, once. I never feel like I look nice, but when I spend time or money on anything having to do with how I look, I resent it and I think the time and money should have been better spent elsewhere. Sigh. I wish I looked as good as I feel, but I don't feel rich enough in the time, energy or money it would take. Or, when I try, I feel so awkward, like putting lipstick on a moose. I think my next goal is to forgive myself for spending/prioritizing just a LITTLE on how I look.

I am also getting an itch to get rid of stuff. I am always getting rid of stuff, I am not a saver, but everywhere I look is stuff that is just...stuff, that I am always dusting, picking up, cleaning, organizing, and is just a GIGANTIC waste of my time. I don't think I can have a garage sale here. I don't have the right stuff. People garage sale here for machines and equipment, and I have stuff no one wants...art and books and stuff. Maybe I could have something like a party/garage sale...friends could come and take home some things. I wish I could take the whole house and shake it, and rinse it with a hose. Bob and I are always at odds on this. He likes to have a big moldy, pirate horde. I would like to have a backpack of the best, perfectly efficient, stuff.

 I know so many people with such beautiful homes, and it recently has been blowing my mind just how much time and energy it takes to have that. Yard work? I don't want to. I could scrub the dust and dog hair off of the stairs, or I could paint. You guess which one I'm going to choose. At least until this show is over.

I don't know if this is worth publishing, just boring nuts and bolts. But that is where my mind is right now.

In tremendous gratitude for my recent good fortune...
love and light,
Your friend,
Hil