I feel like I've been living in a fog for the past few months, and a bit of sun is starting to shine through the haze. I can see blurred shapes in front of me. Dunno who or what they are, but it gives me a direction to move towards.

Today I reached out to a couple of old friends, one who also just moved back to my hometown and one who moved to a nearby town. I'm ready to step outside my bubble of family and close friends. Until now, I haven't felt like talking to anyone I don't know well or don't feel particularly close to. It saves me the trouble of explaining why I've moved back, what I'm doing with myself, and what I'm going to do next. The sugar-coated answers are: I had a bad breakup, I'm working part-time for now while doing a bit of freelance editing, and I don't know.

I have some vague ideas of buying property out in the sticks and building a straw-bale house, or perhaps getting one of those log home kits. I still plan to set up a small business website and market myself as a freelance writer, perhaps for companies that need content on plant-based foods. The whole-food plant-based diet that's popular right now works in my favour, considering how long I've been vegetarian. But that's further in the future. For now, I just want to update my gardening/food blog again. I don't write for fun anymore, and I miss it. These are ideas I haven't shared with anyone in person. I'd rather have a solid idea of what I'm doing before people around me start offering advice or telling me how dumb my ideas are. I don't think anyone will do the latter, but that's what I'm used to hearing from my ex-fiance and his family. I don't miss hearing about what so-and-so said about me or how this person thinks this or that. Screw that BS

I also need to work through my emotions instead of ignoring them. The last time I wrote here, I had the intent of getting my feelings out on E2 so they wouldn't randomly explode in person. Well, that plan didn't work out so well. One of the new girls at work got engaged, which I first heard about last Friday when she thought it would happen and was acting all excited. I left the room. I went to the area where my friend works, asked her if I could hang out there for the day, explained why, and started crying. I cried on and off all morning. After my shift, I drove to my hair appointment, where I also burst into tears. The hairstylist was really nice about it. She took me to the back where we'd have more privacy, and she encouraged me to tell her everything because "hairstylists are also therapists." She pointed out that I've gotten stuck in a rut and should start doing yoga again. Sometimes our bodies need to cry, so we need to let it out, she said. After my appointment, I went home and balled my eyes out for what felt like hours but was probably only 30 minutes. My friend from work stopped by later with my paycheck because I'd forgotten it. I didn't want to keep her, so I said I was fine. All I wanted was to curl up and go to sleep. I pretended I was fine to my parents. Later that night, I watched my father play with Eowyn. It cheered me up a bit. I slept like the dead that night. I spent the rest of the weekend catching up on sleep, gardening, and reading. It was what I needed. I'd been pushing myself too hard to act like I was OK.

On Monday, I found out that my hairstylist is my friend's brother's girlfriend. There's a pretty good chance I'll see her the next time we all go to the rock choir concert, which all of our mothers are part of. "Don't worry," my friend said, "people cry at her workplace all the time, so it's no big deal. She's a real sweetheart, so she won't act weird if you see her again." Ah, small town life. At some point, I'll have to do a w/u on the differences between city and small-town living. One difference that comes to mind, aside from everyone knowing each other, is the presence of blackflies and mosquitoes. There are so many more of them here. I'm scratching the bug bites on my wrist and face as I type this up. We also have white-tailed deer here. There were two babies with their mother in the backyard last weekend. Beautiful is not an adequate word to describe them. Awe, or something like wonder, is what I felt. Seeing wild animals is one of the best things about living here.

I bought myself more clothes yesterday. I've lost 4 pounds since moving back here, which is enough for my favourite pair of capris to fit too loose. I have the house to myself this weekend, which I'm happy about due to my mother driving me insane these past few weeks. We had a fight the other day which involved her backing into my Jeep in the driveway and then worrying more about her own car than mine. Because mine "wasn't even worth getting insurance for." I had some words with her about that. Dealing with her is stressful. I sometimes feel like she's the child and I'm the adult. It has always been that way.

Warning: Rant

I think that's partly why I got so frustrated with my ex-fiance and the way he acted with his parents. They acted like children half the time, and he catered to their wants and needs far more than he should have. By the time we broke up, he had decided against buying the house he wanted purely because of his parents not wanting him to. Isn't that crazy? I think that's very selfish on his parent's part. I didn't voice that opinion to him, but I think he'd figured out by that point that I didn't think very highly of his father. His father physically abused him and his brothers when they were kids. Then he went out and got drunk one night and asked his one son, who didn't have his driver's licence, to come pick him up. His kid did it, and promptly got in a car accident. His father ended up with a broken back. To this day, he tells people about how he broke his back in a car accident, as if it were some horrible thing that happened to him. Which it was. But it was partly his own fault. Seems to me he sees himself as a victim, when really he should be ashamed of himself for putting his son in danger. This is another opinion I never voiced to my ex. I don't think he's ready to admit that his father won't win any father-of-the-year awards anytime soon. I did the best I could to get along with the guy, because I knew it meant a lot to my ex that we got along. But I couldn't bring myself to like him. I always felt uncomfortable around him, knowing that he used to abuse children. And another crazy thing is that my ex's sister allowed their father to live with her in the same house as her two sons. He never abused them, apparently, but still. I wouldn't have felt comfortable allowing someone like that to be around my kids. Even if my ex and I had had a child together, I wouldn't have wanted his father to hold our baby. 

I haven't written or spoken those thoughts to anyone. Not since the breakup, not while we were together. It feels good to get it out. And I've also figured out why his family might have hated on me so much: casting me as the bad guy could help them feel better about themselves. Before me, they hated on their SIL. Before her, they hated on the BIL. It's actually sort of sad, and I'm relieved to be away from it.

/rant

Okay, time for a gardening update. I've planted the warm-weather vegetables in the main garden bed. I have a yellow pear tomato plant, four eggplants, an orange bell pepper, basil, thyme, and beets. The parsnip seeds are planted. The cooler-weather veggies — arugula and broccoli raab — are coming up. The weather is so weird that I don't know what will grow well right now. I'm also hardening off some different varieties of tomato seedlings and more eggplant seedlings. Tomorrow, I'm heading to a different garden center to see what they have. I'd like to plant some lupins and shasta daisies in the front.   

Now I need to do some editing and get a batch of seitan going. Thanks for reading.