Settling in & rising from the ashes

A bit of a dramatic title, but I couldn't think of anything more suited.

The gang’s all here, we survived the move. (Barely)

Good omens were found during the move, with small coincidences like a moving truck with a bat illustration on it. Momentarily inspired me to take up airbrushing so I could get an old van and airbrush bats all over it.

I’ve moved a bit out of the concrete jungle. I hear crickets now like I've never heard them before. I used to walk with my son to areas in the city that I heard foxes would frequent, and we never found one.

The other day I saw a live, healthy looking red fox running along the field. So to find one without looking, and near my new home was pretty awesome.

Things hit a scary point with Ronon. During the move, I lost his meds. I moved the very important meds to a new spot that would keep them “safe” and, then that spot was immediately forgotten. It would take the vet a day and a half to refill his meds, and during that time he went downhill so fast. I've never felt more incompetent or hated myself so much. If I hadn't felt the need to “put the meds in a better, safer spot” (THEY WERE FINE WHERE THEY WERE TO BEGIN WITH) then none of the death knell crap would have happened, & my sanity would be more intact. He's bounced back fully now, defying his vets diagnoses and much to my kids delight. It's like he's not sick. Just old.

My beautiful native sunflower patch, Helianthus divaricatus - Woodland Sunflower. I didn't get to see you bloom completely this season, you tend to bloom a whole cloud of yellow flowers in the coming weeks. Beautiful for fall, and crucial for the pollinators to get in their last bits before the frost kills it all. This means I didn't see the goldfinches come hang out this year and steal your seeds. I hope the owners haven't chopped you down, but it doesn't matter. I've been lucky to enjoy you for 8 years.

Just thoughts I've had.

Because we were days away from facing homelessness, I had to take literally any place that would rent to me. I had to downsize from a 3 floor townhouse to an apartment. Which meant a lot of stuff went to the dump, I didn't have time to get it to goodwill. Everything was closed on the labor day long weekend. I only had the Uhaul for a set amount of time.

At the dump, they open the boxes and bins before they toss them into the area they're going to be dumped. I told the kids not to look because we can't take in anything more, all the stuff had to go. We didn't have a choice. We've filled the apartment to the brim.

I thought I had saved all my son’s transformer bins. One bin was forgotten about and made it's way into the dump pile. It was so fucking unfortunate that my son had to see that bin get thrown out. He's rightfully upset, all I can do is apologise and promise to buy them all back again someday.

It brought up the core memory for me when my mum threw out my Optimus Prime toy. She said “girls don't play with boy toys” and I cried when she threw him in the garbage and I wasn't able to get him out. That toy had been a father figure to me. I vowed I would never do this to my own kids.

So to see this happen again but not in the same way-I love transformers, I thought I had saved all his bins of them, I didn't take them away from him on purpose. Still feel like I fucked up as a mum forever.

I'm going through a whole range of emotions. I feel like I'm on vacation. My body seems to be functioning with the idea that we’ll be back home soon. But home is here now. I've never been forced to move. I've always made the choice to move somewhere. So being forced from where I was happy, is something else. I can be happy at this new place, it has some cool benefits and the air is fresher, you can open the window and not have smog come pouring in. It's lovely.

Maybe it was just a bit too much, it's been a whirlwind of a year. I did not celebrate summer at all. I'm trying to get things sorted so that my kids can return to a form of normalcy asap. That being said, every bone and muscle in my body is protesting.

I look forward to not feeling so exhausted.