Waxing Poetical at 5 am
Wow, what a roller coaster ride this year has been!
Weddings and Horses and Hairdressing and Operations and Events! Sometimes when I lay down at night my head spins with it all. I am a tiny speck in the center of a very big world. It can all seem very overwhelming sometimes. I try to look at it all in little compartments, make each little world happy and complete as it's own entity. For the most part it seems to be working, but it does leave me a little scattered... a little disjointed. Sometimes each of my little worlds collide. This can be good and it can be bad, but I guess it is always interesting?
First was Colin and Raven's wedding, I think it went well enough from my side of things. They looked happy and I think I helped as well as I could. Certainly it was at times hard to help with a wedding and plan my own, while still maintaining a sense of individuality and support, in the midst of vaulting shows and work disasters and my own tender feelings. It amazes me how everyone holds it together under the constant time constraints and high expectations. Ian's family are indeed superstars.
Then our wedding! Planning slipped into full gear the same time work did. Everyone rushing in before I was to leave. Full fledged family drama, tensions between equally stressed out friends, the constant battle of the sexes! We nearly killed each other but we made it together! Yep it was a wedding *snorts* And it was beautiful, powerful, unique. Mostly, for me, it is still a little bit unreal. Mostly a dream to be felt and remembered in pleasant flashes. The details are blurred with exhaustion and too much emotion and not enough time. Still, a dream to be treasured forever. I am glad to have shared it with many of you. It is lovely to see it over and over through your eyes.
And then we were off! Honeymoon! What a whirlwind tour. The Maritimes is full of rugged raw beauty tempered with old blood. This is the only place I have been where being Canadian means anything to me. You can see your roots exposed for all to see, history and trees as far as the mind can grasp, and it is PROUD and still a little bit wild. The people are at once independent and clannish while being welcoming and self-sacrificing, confident and humble, beautiful and full of magic while holding ages old grudges and bitter rivalries close. A land of awkward things balanced in harmony. We saw too much to put here in anything more than abstracts. Definitely a trip deserving of it's own entry. Too bad I wasn't nearly as organized as I hoped to be! 3000 pictures should help keep my thoughts in order...
As always the return to reality was quite the shock for me. I always take it harder than I should. It doesn't help that it wasn't inclined to be easy. I had been putting off the thoughts of my oncoming surgery and bill payments. There was a flurry of panic and we weren't really ready for it, but we pulled through together. The house was torn apart and put back together into some sense of newfound order. Our precarious finances were thrown into some sense of balance. Chipotle was sent to boarding school while I recuperate. The ferrets and fishes where settled in for the duration. Work again peaked and then died off for the time being. And I was ready, but I wasn't. I was pretty much terrified. I remember laying there crying in the operating room with the oxygen mask on my face and my arms strapped down. The nurse cooed and wiped them away as I fell asleep. Nothing quite as violating to a control freak than surgery.
And I survived! (See a reoccurring theme?) and for the most part started off with resting. Pretty much done with that now. :P I make for a bad patient. Pain killers put me on edge and I am a restless spirit at the best of times. This fierce independence I have developed in my old age is really counter-intuitive to requiring help. I am pretty much intensely frustrated all the time that I cannot return to my regularly scheduled program. I am twitching at the need to act and going stir crazy. Sadly for Ian this makes me liable to take the head off of anyone that so much as looks at me the wrong way. This lioness doesn't like to be caged. Not one bit. So I am pacing the bars for now... waiting for the door to open.
While I struggle with my own recovery the Outpost is growing like a weed in the summer sun! There have been a few growing pains, but that is to be expected. We are bursting the bounds of our little world and becoming something more... more than a small group of people that already knew each other and welcoming in new energy and new life. It is a good thing, as I know I was starting to stagnate. Too bad my personal timing just sucks. So many big events lined up for us on the horizon with no break in sight! Viadrina Gathering! Clinton! Autumn Tavern! Velja Noc! Time for me to take a deeep breath and take stock. Time to pick out the workers from the players and build something stronger than we started with. We have SO much potential it is staggering, I feel myself inspired in a way I haven't been in a long time. I want to be a leader worthy of our group. I can't wait to see what we are capable of!
Lets hope I can keep this level of energy and motivation going for a bit. I think for the most part I am still riding my summer seasonal high... and that scares me a little. Wondering how low the winter will bring me this time. For now I will do my best to set aside a store of good memories to carry me through that time. Set myself up for well-planned, low-stress, little victories and pre-emptive damage control. Last year took me well into spring to recover from and I don't want to do that again.
For now? I feel myself again.
Weddings and Horses and Hairdressing and Operations and Events! Sometimes when I lay down at night my head spins with it all. I am a tiny speck in the center of a very big world. It can all seem very overwhelming sometimes. I try to look at it all in little compartments, make each little world happy and complete as it's own entity. For the most part it seems to be working, but it does leave me a little scattered... a little disjointed. Sometimes each of my little worlds collide. This can be good and it can be bad, but I guess it is always interesting?
First was Colin and Raven's wedding, I think it went well enough from my side of things. They looked happy and I think I helped as well as I could. Certainly it was at times hard to help with a wedding and plan my own, while still maintaining a sense of individuality and support, in the midst of vaulting shows and work disasters and my own tender feelings. It amazes me how everyone holds it together under the constant time constraints and high expectations. Ian's family are indeed superstars.
Then our wedding! Planning slipped into full gear the same time work did. Everyone rushing in before I was to leave. Full fledged family drama, tensions between equally stressed out friends, the constant battle of the sexes! We nearly killed each other but we made it together! Yep it was a wedding *snorts* And it was beautiful, powerful, unique. Mostly, for me, it is still a little bit unreal. Mostly a dream to be felt and remembered in pleasant flashes. The details are blurred with exhaustion and too much emotion and not enough time. Still, a dream to be treasured forever. I am glad to have shared it with many of you. It is lovely to see it over and over through your eyes.
And then we were off! Honeymoon! What a whirlwind tour. The Maritimes is full of rugged raw beauty tempered with old blood. This is the only place I have been where being Canadian means anything to me. You can see your roots exposed for all to see, history and trees as far as the mind can grasp, and it is PROUD and still a little bit wild. The people are at once independent and clannish while being welcoming and self-sacrificing, confident and humble, beautiful and full of magic while holding ages old grudges and bitter rivalries close. A land of awkward things balanced in harmony. We saw too much to put here in anything more than abstracts. Definitely a trip deserving of it's own entry. Too bad I wasn't nearly as organized as I hoped to be! 3000 pictures should help keep my thoughts in order...
As always the return to reality was quite the shock for me. I always take it harder than I should. It doesn't help that it wasn't inclined to be easy. I had been putting off the thoughts of my oncoming surgery and bill payments. There was a flurry of panic and we weren't really ready for it, but we pulled through together. The house was torn apart and put back together into some sense of newfound order. Our precarious finances were thrown into some sense of balance. Chipotle was sent to boarding school while I recuperate. The ferrets and fishes where settled in for the duration. Work again peaked and then died off for the time being. And I was ready, but I wasn't. I was pretty much terrified. I remember laying there crying in the operating room with the oxygen mask on my face and my arms strapped down. The nurse cooed and wiped them away as I fell asleep. Nothing quite as violating to a control freak than surgery.
And I survived! (See a reoccurring theme?) and for the most part started off with resting. Pretty much done with that now. :P I make for a bad patient. Pain killers put me on edge and I am a restless spirit at the best of times. This fierce independence I have developed in my old age is really counter-intuitive to requiring help. I am pretty much intensely frustrated all the time that I cannot return to my regularly scheduled program. I am twitching at the need to act and going stir crazy. Sadly for Ian this makes me liable to take the head off of anyone that so much as looks at me the wrong way. This lioness doesn't like to be caged. Not one bit. So I am pacing the bars for now... waiting for the door to open.
While I struggle with my own recovery the Outpost is growing like a weed in the summer sun! There have been a few growing pains, but that is to be expected. We are bursting the bounds of our little world and becoming something more... more than a small group of people that already knew each other and welcoming in new energy and new life. It is a good thing, as I know I was starting to stagnate. Too bad my personal timing just sucks. So many big events lined up for us on the horizon with no break in sight! Viadrina Gathering! Clinton! Autumn Tavern! Velja Noc! Time for me to take a deeep breath and take stock. Time to pick out the workers from the players and build something stronger than we started with. We have SO much potential it is staggering, I feel myself inspired in a way I haven't been in a long time. I want to be a leader worthy of our group. I can't wait to see what we are capable of!
Lets hope I can keep this level of energy and motivation going for a bit. I think for the most part I am still riding my summer seasonal high... and that scares me a little. Wondering how low the winter will bring me this time. For now I will do my best to set aside a store of good memories to carry me through that time. Set myself up for well-planned, low-stress, little victories and pre-emptive damage control. Last year took me well into spring to recover from and I don't want to do that again.
For now? I feel myself again.