Hello to all of my blogging, Facebook and Twitter friends. I am appealing to you for a bit of help. I have started a new blog for Shamrock Lodge (my new job) and would love and appreciate it if you could check it out and follow if you could. The more exposure we get, the longer I get to keep my job. 😉
Here is a picture of where I get to go every day to work, and below is the link to the new blog site.
(It doesn’t look like this now, but it will soon)
The Heaven’s have aligned and I am back home after twelve days of living in a hotel room with my puppy dog. I can’t even find the words to describe how it feels to be home – and that is a first for me!
I ran the gamut of emotions while I was under that temporary roof. I was grateful to have that roof over my head and friends who cared enough to offer me a plethora of living options, but my frustration was undeniable. I’m sure the bureaucratic red tape at a certain energy company tangled the process and elongated my hotel stay by at least five days. But, I digress.
I flipped the breaker myself earlier today and was warmed by the glow of light coming from my windows. In the days preceding I had been stopping by to check the progress of the work and my house sat lifeless on my property. No light emanated from my windows and it sat as a cold, empty shell where there once was life.
There is still a noticeable chill in the air, inside, but I am home. All of my electronics work and nothing else was damaged in the ordeal. The only thing I had to do was call Bell to help download the guide for my satellite to get it working again. The lovely woman I spoke to was in the Philippines. I’m sure you have all seen the news of the devastation in the Philippines and, while she was personally unaffected, members of her family have lost everything. We had a very fortuitous conversation that allowed me to truly put my seemingly overwhelming problem into the perspective it deserves.
I still have a home. I still have all of my belongings and I have a large collection of friends who would be there for me if I ever needed them again. I didn’t lose everything. I don’t have to wonder how I will recover from such a devastating loss and I don’t have to mourn family and friends who didn’t survive. These last twelve days were really just a hiccup in my existence.
670,000 people are now homeless and countless have not survived in the Philippines. It really makes my previous rants seem so selfish and I will keep those people in mind the next time I want to complain about an infinitesimal problem in my life.
Dear Stress,
This is the most difficult letter I have ever written. You have been such a big part of my life and we have shared many moments together. Through all of the ups and downs you have always been there, waiting to participate in every aspect of my life.
I can’t recall the moment when we first met, or how we developed such a close bond over the years, but throughout every waking moment of my day I always knew you were willing to put in the effort to be by my side. We became so close that I truly depended on the fact that you would be there with me, shadowing every moment of my day.
Your fastidious nature made it possible for you to delve into every nuance of my life. It enabled you to invade the inner sanctum of my being and hold fast to the things you knew I held so dear.
It is with a heavy heart that I have to write you this letter. Living with you has worn me down to a shadow of my former self. During our tumultuous relationship, I have lost a part of myself along the way and I gave you the power to feel superior. I made you feel like you had won.
I am writing this letter to tell you that I have found something to replace you. During the journey that you and I have traversed together, I realized that I had feelings for tranquillity. It soothes me in a way that you never could. It takes the time to understand my feelings but spends more time making me feel relaxed and more like myself.
I wish you the best in your continued journey but I have no place for you in my life. Our relationship will always be a learning experience for me, but I deserve better. Good luck in your future relationships with unsuspecting people.
Sincerely,
Susan
~~
This was actually my first post on this blog site, but it seems much more appropriate now!
“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” ― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
~~
I’m almost at the end of my ordeal, which is good because I’m almost at the end of my rope. It has been 11 days since I have been out of my house due to a horrible wind storm bringing down my power lines. The work has been done to reconnect the panel and bury my new hydro lines, but I am now waiting on the administrative portion of the process to ensue before I can have power restored and finally move back into my house. I don’t care if it looks like this when I return – I just want to go home.
The process, from start to almost finish, has been a real experience. (It was difficult to type that last sentence without using some really good expletives.) Although my electrician has explained to my insurance company the value of burying the new wires underground to alleviate any more claims in the future, the insurance company will only cover the dollar value of replacing the existing above-ground power supply. $$
Because HydroOne insisted on have a schematic of the trench where the lines would be buried (which was veritably a straight line) this delayed the process by 5 days and I had to remove and dispose of the contents of my fridge and freezer. $$
After a call to HydroOne this morning to find out when they could restore my power, I was sent a contract (with the wrong name and address, mind you) and was told that I now have to pay them $325.00 before they will even come to my house to restore power because I upgraded my equipment. $$ I have had several people do work at my house and I don’t recall EVER paying those contractors until the job was completed.
After lowering my blood pressure and after the anger subsided, I could still feel a pang of unrest in my stomach. That familiar feeling I had as a child had reared its head again and I felt homesick. Send me the fucking bill, with my name on it this time, get some employees out to my house and please turn my power back on. I just want to go home.
I have no words.
I feel imprisoned within four walls that don’t belong to me.
Lost in a familiar setting, missing the comforts of home.
Thankful for the roof over my head, but a stranger in these confines.
Going through the motions, watching the clock.
Incessant thoughts running through my mind. Can’t sleep.
Life is out of my control.
Cracks in my resolve.
I am a creature of habit. I miss my routine.
I make the best of my dilemma. I rise above and adapt.
Fleeting moments of angst are replaced by gratitude.
Calming breaths.
Hope for resolution and restoration.
Longing for Mr. Sandman.
Maybe sleep will come tonight.
After feeling displaced after the recent storm, there is something inherently comforting about being in a familiar place. Although hotel living is difficult and I am realizing how much of a homebody I really am, things could be much worse.
My hydro situation is at least another week from being rectified and although I felt great frustration today, I stopped for a moment to count my blessings and realize how fortunate I am. I have a roof over my head, I am surrounded by warmth and I am among friends. Waking up to this view isn’t half bad either.
![IMG_0977[1]](https://polysyllabicprofundities.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/img_09771.jpg)
My new work family is looking after me and making sure I don’t feel like I am being a burden. I enjoyed a nice warm meal today, compliments of Karen, and I will sip on my glass of wine and bury all the negative feelings I had today towards HydroOne. Life is much too short to spend these moments being bitter and angry.
Last night I had a nightmare. I have no recollection of the horror at all but I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and I was sobbing, full on heaving sobs, and tears were streaming down my face. I can honestly say I’m relieved that I don’t remember the theme of the night terror that I survived. Naturally, it got me thinking about nightmares and why they occur.
Nightmares are simply a combination of our history of events and many of those nightmares are caused by the stress of those same calamities. Whether we realize it or not, we may be dealing with some issues that take hold of our subconscious and wreak havoc in our dream world. We may not even comprehend that we are holding onto so much of what happened in our day, or our week, but it builds up like a brick wall that crumbles in our sleep and the shrapnel plummets into our waking moments.
Stress is fickle creature. It can inhabit our daily life as much as it creeps into the blissful hours that should be our time to recharge. When I went to bed, I carried with me each particle of energy-draining angst that I had accumulated throughout my day and the stress of what has been happening with my home. Nightmares and dreams paint a picture of what is happening in our life. Whether that portrait is drenched in vibrant colors or tarnished with mottled shades of black and grey, the visions in our sleep depict our mood and illustrate the tension we are storing in your body.
I am in awe of the seemingly limitless catastrophes that a human body can endure and process. Any type of mental anguish it represses during the day will certainly appear in our unconscious state giving us signs that we are walking on a ledge.
We need to find a way to clear our negative energy before the weight of our day begins to pull down the blankets of our eyelids. We will at least have a fighting chance of supplying the artist in our sleep with a pallet of spirited rich colors instead of the monochromatic, threatening spatters of charcoal and black. If we can free our head of that ticking time bomb called stress, we can reclaim our restful night of unadulterated sleep.
The last couple of days have been stressful, to say the least. My puppy and I are still currently residing in one of the rooms at the lodge where I work and there is still some work to be done at my house before it is safe to move back in and have the power restored.
It’s been frustrating and I feel, in a way, like I have been taking advantage of my employers (they assure me otherwise). I have spoken to a least eight Hydro One employees to try to rectify my situation and, after several trips circling the drain and not getting a straight answer, I think we finally have it sorted out.
But as I sit here in a warm room with the football game on the television, I realize that things could have been much worse. My house could have burned down and I could have been left in the cold with no roof over my head or friends to lend me shelter. Life really is about focusing on the positive.
I went for a walk this morning with my puppy and the blue sky and sunshine helped to clear any of the remaining negative thoughts that may have been residing in my brain – remnants of my adventures this weekend. The cloud in the picture below hovered above us and the way the sun shone on the small formation at the top, it illuminated the shape to look like Pac-Man. That ethereal icon continued to eat his way through the clouds until nothing was left but an expansive view of pure blue sky. Only a strange ghost-eating fragment of my youth could have been the catalyst that made me focus on the good. It made me see the positive which was otherwise temporarily masked by a shroud of looming clouds.
The sky in my mind once again matches the blue of the sky outside. Once I remembered to focus on the good things in my life, the rest of it all but washed away.
There are not many things that truly scare me but wind storms are one of the furies of Mother Nature that greatly unsettle me. It doesn’t help matters that my house is nestled amidst numerous very tall trees.
We had a doozy of a storm last night and the wind is still raging, pushing the rain sideways across the landscape.
In the wee hours of this morning a large branch came down on the wires attached to the post that holds the power connection directly feeding my hydro supply. That post now hangs precariously at a 45 degree angle – still barely attached to its mooring. The most disturbing part of this situation is that the power is now back on.
![IMG_0969[1]](https://polysyllabicprofundities.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/img_09691.jpg)
I am currently sitting in my car waiting for the cavalry to ride in on their white trucks and rectify the dangerous situation my house is in. With a live power supply – those wires could spark any time. I am staked out at the end of the driveway watching for any sparks – poised to dial 9-11 if the need arises an my dog is safely snuggled in the back seat.
Fingers crossed they arrive soon!
The progression happened so slowly I could barely recognize the stages. The large binding knot that continued to grow in my shoulder had begun to dissipate and unknowingly I was on my way to happiness again.
I have always been able to handle stress, on the outside, but inside my body was storing all of those tense moments and creating a winding path of pain and discomfort that made it difficult to sit or sleep comfortably. It was a normal occurrence to wake with a headache and try my best to avoid taking pills to assuage the soreness at the base of my skull, but that monkey continued to sit on my back and weave the dull ache throughout my shoulder blades.
(image credit: globeandmail.com)
Two months ago I made the decision to change jobs after almost twenty years of being part of a resort family. It was a monumental decision for me but one I do not regret. The monkey, however, may have other thoughts. With the change of employment came a sense of relief for me and that monkey no longer had the string to weave whenever he wanted. His hobby became non-existent and he made the climb down from my back to seek refuge on another back that gave him something to work with.
I wake these days rested and free from pain, without having to drown some pain relievers with my morning coffee. The monkey no longer dictates how I feel or insinuates its opinion on my range of motion. I feel free. I feel happy and, although there is some stress involved in the new job, I will not be filing a missing persons report for the pint-sized primate.
polysyllabic profundities 