It’s Yule!

What’s that, you say?

It’s the Winter Solstice; the shortest day in the year, the day that signals the return of the sun to the northern hemisphere; the day that pagans celebrate with light and cheer and that was used to pattern some Christmas celebratory symbolism – the tree, the yule log, hot apple cider, lights, gift-giving, family gatherings, and egg nog.

I am a simple being. I despise pomp and circumstance, drama, and excessiveness. I don’t like the limelight (odd, I know; being that I am a Leo) and I don’t like expending more energy on time on things than are necessary. One of the reasons I strayed away from your typical church-going is that for me, 6 hours at church on a Sunday morning just doesn’t seem to me the best way to show your faith, commitment, or loyalty. I’d rather live that faith, commitment, and loyalty all day, every day of my life instead.

This morning, I lit 3 candles and a pine incense cone, then I lit a fire and spent a few moments thinking about the sun and it’s warmth and the coming year. And then I lit the house and started my day. The candles will burn all day – until sundown – and I shall spend this day doing what I would normally be doing were it yesterday or tomorrow.

Regardless of what you believe, or how you practice your beliefs, I am wishing everyone a warm and bright Yule. I hope that warmth and brightness carries you through the next year and helps you keep your truth.

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I am sick again – for the third time this season.

The first time was a cold, the second time was the flu and again I am battling with a cold. It seems as if no matter what I do I am destined to be always fighting off some bug or other. I comfort myself that it’s just that my body having been dried and burnt out in Texas for 2 years and not being used to this cold and wet climate. That it is just overwhelmed and that sooner than later it’ll be able to withstand the constant barrage of germs. That pep talk isn’t working.

I know that the greatest part of my problem is being sedentary and as much as I would love to run – yes, I think I would love to run – I just can’t do it now. I can barely walk. Yoga was a problem. Just going the 300 or so feet to the mailbox is an issue. Sometimes just carrying a laundry basket up the stairs here at home makes me winded. I am in bad shape.

I have never been very active. High school was the last time I was physically active and without batting an eyelid, I will tell you that high school for me was a good 30 years ago. Yes indeed. I am that old. And lately, I have been feeling it. Lucky for me, I think I finally figured out what is wrong with me and I am going to get it looked after. I sincerely hope that once this treatment kicks in I can actually climb the stairs here at home, at a brisk trot and not feel like I’ve run the marathon when I get to the top rung.

That being said, I refuse to let this cold keep me down for much longer. It’s kept me mostly stationary all weekend. There are so many things I should have been doing this last month. Not the least of which is spending time with my friend and her newborn. I am tired all the time, and I am sick almost every other week and I just don’t feel well. It has got to stop NOW.

School starts next month again, and hubby will be gone for 6 weeks starting the first. I need to get myself sorted out quickly. I can’t be alone and sick for 6 weeks whilst I take on extra work and school. So I’ve vowed to also include a dose of airborne everyday with my one glass of lemonade too. I think in a little while work will require me to be up for far later at nights and awake far earlier in the mornings and I need to prepare myself for that.

(P.S. By the way, I am loving After the deadline. )

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I have been going to Fort Hood Open Circle meetings lately. Decided to get out and do some of this meeting people thing … I chose the coven (yes – it’s a coven but an open one – one that welcomes all faiths, even Christian) because they were likely to be the people with whom I could most identify with … at least I think so. All of us quirky and not afraid to BE our quirky selves.

Well … I am a little afraid to be my quirky self, but I am learning that quirky is sometimes good – even if it gets you unwanted attention; which I loathe, by the way – the LAST thing this Leo likes is the spotlight – can’t get much more quirky than that!

So anyway, I have been going to meetings and starting yesterday, we are going to be examining ourselves with the help of a poem our Leader found call “The Invitation“. To recreate the poem here would be pointless… I shall just leave a link to the original I found online as is and refer to each stanza as we go through them (assuming I’ll have something to write about each week – and assuming I am around long enough to see the whole exercise through).

This week, we talked about the first lines of the poem:

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”

Michele (our leader) asked us to go around the room saying what we wanted – what we ached for, what we ached hungered for  - from off the top of our heads.

It’s a lively, jovial group … and we got things ranging from:

• I want to be the mother and let someone else be the maid
• Family

To:

• Cold beer and pizza

Like I said – a jovial group.

At first, all I could come up with is “family” because of all the things I WANT right now, it is that. I’d like to get my family started. I really would – and it hasn’t happened for us yet. It was the first thing off the top of my mind … because I thought about it and I realized that I really “hunger” for nothing. I have just about all I need – either right here, right now … or on the way.

With that thought, I floated through the discussion and onto the conclusion that for myself I would like family … yes. But first, I’d like to share the light in my life with other people – the light that has shown me that I CAN be content – despite the everyday stresses and the waiting for the husband to be by my side again safe and sound …  despite all the problems, the issues, the drama, the illnesses, the trials and tribulations … I AM CONTENT!

Then this morning, I found this link from a twitter friend. It’s an article from the NY Times which debates the pluses gained by allowing constant communication between solider and spouse during a deployment to a war zone.

It made me think some more on that light I talked about … a light that made this deployment so much easier for both myself and hubby … easier than I am seeing other people have it.

The article talked about how communication can make it difficult for soldiers to focus on their mission due to the availability of the facilities. It also touched on the anxiety that can be caused because of spouses settling into a routine of communication with their soldiers that inevitably gets interrupted for one reason or another … the panic and worry that can set in and how that can snowball into more distractions for the soldiers in the form of arguments,etc.

I have neglected to say it because I know some people don’t speak to their husbands as often as I do – but I pretty much talk to him daily. He keeps saying he should stop because he doesn’t want me to get used to it so much so that when it doesn’t happen I panic or get mad. But … it has happened before. A day or more will pass and I realize I haven’t spoken to him. I say realize because really and truly, I’ve made a HUGE effort to occupy myself as MUCH as possible this year.

Even on my worst days, there is something to keep my occupied – if even just brainless TV shows on Hulu+.

On the good days, I write, I take photos, I work like a fiend, I sleep, I do crosswords and read … and these last couple of weeks, I’ve secured and installed a server class machine here at home with the help and enthusiasm of a friend (DJ) back in Jamaica.

The key, though, is that I have made the effort to occupy myself. So when I miss a call or an IM or a text message or whatever, it’s way past the hours within which I would have been notified if something had happened to him.

“It’s been 24 hours … if something had happened, I would already know. Ok – patience, breathe, relax … he’s fine. He’ll get to you as soon as he can.”

The article goes on to talk about how the constant communication mediums leave relationships wide open to disagreement and discord and how couples inevitably find it difficult to put relationship issues on hold so that the soldiers can focus on their mission, get it done and get home. How spouses end up sharing their at-home problems with the soldier and how they can find themselves carrying the burden of war zone stresses as well as at-home-and-i-am-not-there stresses.

I realized that any problems I have that I can’t solve, have no solution in the works or feel impotent to try to solve, I don’t need to mention to him at all. I feel it doesn’t do either of us any good to have him shouldering his stresses as well as mine.

So I am sick, and he feels like he should be here to take care of me and I stress to him that he needs to focus on coming home to me so he can. That I am fine, that I am taking care of myself as best as I can and when I can’t I reach out and ask for help. That while I miss his ministrations, I am compelled to manage until he gets back. (e.g. It wasn’t until I had been to the doctor and gotten my second dose of antibiotics for the strep I couldn’t get rid of that I told him how sick I was.)

It’s important to me that he has little or nothing to think about except what he’s doing over there. It’s important to me that he be able to focus. Having lived with him for almost 2 years also taught me what it is he needs in order to get in the zone where he goes to focus and stay there comfortably. And I do as much as I can from this distance to recreate that condition for him.

All I care about is that he come home safe and sound. Nothing else matters right now. Everything that needs fixing and needs his input can wait until he IS home safe and sound. I will get by until then … and then is the only goal that matters.

I was talking about quirky earlier in the post … I am beginning to realize just how quirky I am. My quirky (and his) has helped us survive this deployment and maybe even come out of it better off than we were before he left.

The only problem I have now … is how to get back out of independent mode once he gets home. And that’s no big deal really … since he lends himself so easily to being surrendered to.

I have to say … I am blessed.

I must have a guardian angel that loves me unconditionally – because no matter what I throw in her way, she always finds a way to show me the light once again.

I’d like to share the secret of that light … with all of you… I also know you all have to be ready and open to see it … otherwise, any effort I make will be pointless. Until then, I do what I can to talk about me and hope that some of my light spills out and over onto you. If you do catch some of it, I am happy … if you want to catch more of it, let me know … we’ll see how we can work up some light of your own for you.

And even if it’s only just one of “you” who gain … then it’s all been worthwhile.

Namasté

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I haven’t written in forever.

I haven’t done much of anything in forever except the bare minimum necessary to stay sane.

I get up in the mornings, work almost all day until about 4ish when I cuddle on the recliner with the cats until about 10ish when I attempt to go to bed. It hasn’t been working very well – the sleep attempts – since here I am in Jamaica and am sleeping as if I haven’t slept in 8 months. Well … I’ll tell you I feel so tired as if I haven’t slept in 8 months – so that may not be too surprising.

Yes. I am here in Jamaica. All the things that used to annoy the HELL out of me are faint irritations now; the street noises, the heat, the mosquitoes, the constantly ringing phone in my parents house, the barking dogs in the neighbourhood, and the hovering my parents are doing … all of it a wonderful welcome. I feel like I was missing out.

It’s good being here.  I am indulging in a good deal of decadence – I had bun and cheese for breakfast and dinner yesterday and that’s in addition to the patty for lunch and curry chicken and breadfruit for supper. Plenty of fruits – Dad sourced ortaniques for me and coconut water has been rolling in by the quart.

I am in Jamaican food heaven.

Christmas feels burdensome to me, though. I really am just hoping it comes and goes without so much as a peep. I’d rather get to the other end of this holiday as fast as I can manage it. It is just WAY too empty without hubby by my side – whether we would be here in Jamaica enjoying the Christmas breeze, or in Michigan up to our thighs in snow. It wouldn’t have mattered so long as I could have had him with me.

The luck of the draw precludes that from happening … and so here I am in Jamaica attempting to obliterate that empty hole in my life with as much of the familiar from my old life as I can find. So far, it’s working. I am not thinking about it as much as I probably would be had I stayed in Texas alone.

However, it seems as if I am fighting some kind of bug – I am tired all the time and today I literally feel ill. So some reading for the rest of the day and some sleep too maybe.

All in all, it’s been a good week or 2.

I have so much more to write about – but I’ll try and get all that in after I get back to Texas. For the time being, I am all about soaking up as much of this as I can – maybe it’ll be enough to carry me through these next 4 months or so until hubby comes home.

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Here’s some REALLY bad fairy-tale writing for you all today. Sitting on hold, being hungry, worrying about hubby, feeling tired and icky – all equal completely useless writings:

Once upon a time In a land far, far away There lived a princess Whose prince was in a land Many leagues hence She would get word From him daily On how he was doing and What was happening. And then suddenly there was nothing And she was sad.

There is a Jamaican quote, I am sure, regarding getting used to something only to have it taken away suddenly … now if I could only remember it.

I know, I know – some people don’t have the everyday communications that I have gotten used to, but it’s still a little disconcerting to lose it without warning after you’ve gotten used to it. And whether or not you know to NOT get used to it or not, is completely separate from what your brain actually ends up doing.

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