Another Day, Another Tangle of Feelings

 Some days I get in my own head so deeply that I lose track of where the pain ends and where my words begin. When that happens, people sometimes get hurt — even the ones I care about. I don’t mean to. I don’t even fully understand why. If someone asks how I feel, I tell them… but the truth is, sometimes I don’t think they’re prepared to hear it. And if I’m being honest, sometimes neither am I.

Talking has never been easy for me, especially when emotions run high. The words vanish when I try to speak them, but when I write, they come out — raw, messy, and real. Writing is how I manage the pain. It’s also how I avoid interacting with people when I’m struggling, because I’m not great at it. The words feel safer on paper than in conversation.

Today they come slowly. I’m sitting with a lot of sadness and regret for the things I said yesterday. I was angry — more than I realized — and I let it spill onto someone who didn’t deserve it quite that way. He asked how I was feeling (or did he? I’m not sure anymore), and I unloaded more than either of us was ready for. I don’t regret being honest, but I regret the way it landed.

Right now, I’m tired of hiding how fragmented I feel inside. I’m tired of pretending everything is fine just to make others more comfortable. I’ve spent so much time accommodating everyone else that somewhere along the way, I started losing pieces of myself.

In Other News: E and I are Struggling

We’re fighting — not about anything important in the bigger picture, but small things that carry heavier meaning. He has a habit of reclaiming items he’s given away if the person later throws them out or passes them on. I threw away an air fryer he gave me over five years ago because it was beyond saving, and he wouldn’t let it go. I asked him twice to stop, but he wouldn’t. So I snapped.

I told him to stop, and when he signed off with “I love you, bye,” all I could manage was “bye.” Because in that moment, I didn’t feel loved. I felt distrusted — like I’d done something wrong by choosing cleanliness over clutter.

So I’ve decided if he wants to cook here, he can bring what he needs and take it back with him. If I’m not “responsible enough” to keep his things, then I won’t keep them. Truthfully, I don’t want anything material from him. What I wanted — what I still want — is care. Time. To be seen.

I wanted his undivided attention once in a while, to matter more than work, more than obligation. But instead, I’ve spent years in the background, supporting him quietly while feeling invisible. It hurts to admit that. It hurts more to wonder if I ever really mattered to him the way I hoped I did.

The Hard Part

The complicated truth is this: I still love him. I can’t imagine life without him. I just wish I felt loved back — or even cherished, occasionally prioritized. Instead, I feel like a convenience. A safe place to visit. Someone he comes to for comfort, not someone he chooses for connection.

Yesterday, I felt treated not as a partner but as untrustworthy. As a child. And I am tired. I survived before him, and I can survive again if I have to. I don’t want to… but I will if nothing changes.

For now, I’m sitting with what’s real. Not rushing it. Not burying it. Just writing it down so it stops echoing so loudly inside. Because I’ve learned something, even through the mess:

Being honest may hurt, but hiding yourself hurts more.

Tears

I am lost in my head today and my heart hurts. I've had to close my window to the out-siders and I have told them why. If I don't I risk losing my apartment and I will not allow myself to become homeless but then I'm accused of lying. I care I care too much but I can't afford to lose my apartment I just can't going out in the cold it makes my knee go haywire and I can barely walk.

Yeah E I know I should have told you that but I still want to do the week-end we planned I will just have to wear my brace

The tears won't stop but at least they are silent, when I first was ordered to stop I burst into loud noisy tears as soon as I closed my window.

The outsiders are so used to being homeless that someone withdrawing support to keep the roof over their head seems to them like I was faking the whole time my window was available to them because now it isn't. I understand them being upset at me I'm upset too. I will not give up my home for them I can't. 

With the cold comes all sorts of aches and pains that only come when its cold. Those aches and pains limit my activity enough without being forced to sleep outside. Oh I could couch surf for a little while but what kind of life is that for a 65 year old woman. 

The tears won't stop , the lonliness and depression are already making themselves known. If I were not so fearful I wouldn't care I'd do it anyway but 60 days from the end of November puts us smack into the end of January I would not survive.

I know I have people who will take me in for a few weeks maybe but it is not the same as having my own place. 

Two days later the water is back on my sill because I had about 35 bottles that I know I won't drink all of. The sign in my window says only water and juice crystals knock. Some will see it and it will eventually all be taken it's just going to take a little bit. After two day of the sign telling everyone I was ordered to close my window they are going to be reluctant and since they know why it happened they will avoid the area for a week or so. Still better out there than in here going to waste.

The food I sent to the tiny homes, the first aid stuff I sent to 186. 

I am still not sure if I'm going to be able to pay my rent but at least I am safer now than I was. I will get to keep the apartment for a little while at least. 

A short story for you

 I had the pieces of this short story in my poetry journal today I'd like to share it with you as a single chapter from a possibly larger version.

The Bridge of Aszis

How very sad, I used to think, that a mind can live its whole life locked inside a skull.

On Earth, that thought came to me in crowded trains, in noisy cafeterias, in classrooms where people’s eyes were dull from too many facts and not enough wonder. I would look at all those faces and feel it — the sense that we were all carrying entire galaxies of thought and feeling, and most of it would never be known.

Many mysteries does our mind hide. There is so much to learn.

When I was ten, the headaches started — bright white bursts behind my eyes whenever someone nearby felt something intense. I could tell when my teacher was about to snap at the class, when the stranger across the bus aisle was quietly grieving, when my mother was worrying about money and trying not to show it. I didn’t hear their thoughts, not exactly. I felt their weight.

By twelve, I could push back. If someone’s anger boiled too loud in a room, I could nudge it down without knowing how. Calm the edges. Blur the sharpness. It scared me.

My parents did what scared parents do: they got me tested.

The tests came back with quiet urgency and a stack of documents stamped with the emblem of a world I had only heard in rumours: Aszis.

By eighteen, the choice was made. My headaches were worse. My accidental nudges stronger. Earth’s crowded, hurting mind pressed against mine like static.

So on a grey morning that smelled like wet concrete, I stood in a small park with my parents and tried not to cry.

The transport point shimmered between the bare trees, a circle of air that looked like heat over asphalt even though the ground was cold.

“You don’t have to go,” my father said, his hands jammed in his coat pockets as if he could hold the moment there by sheer will.

We all knew better. People like me either learned control or they burned out. My mother’s eyes were red from a week of not sleeping.

She stepped closer, took my hands, and for the first time in my life she pushed gently at my mind, the way you might tap on a window.

Can you hear me?

I blinked.

Yes.

She gave me a sad little smile.

Go. Learn. Bring something back to heal us.

Aloud, she said, “Don’t let them make you forget where you came from.”

“I won’t,” I said.

The gate brightened. I stepped into the light.

Transition wasn’t like walking anywhere. It felt more like falling inward.

One heartbeat I was in the wounded park; the next I was surrounded by violet.

The Zim grass stretched in all directions, waves of purple under a soft breeze. Above the field, the sky was gold near the horizon, blue overhead. No smog. The air carried the smells of soil and something sweet, like distant fruit.

Towering burgandies rose overhead, massive living structures with maroon leaves filtering warm light.

Students glided along paths, some walking, some drifting slightly above the ground through mind-power.

A presence brushed my awareness — warm, gentle.

Welcome, a voice said inside my head.

A tall figure approached. “I am Teral. Instructor at the University of the Mind.”

They guided me to the University woven into the Burgandies themselves — hollows, terraces, chambers grown rather than built.

Our first lesson took place in a circular root chamber. Teral stood in the centre.

“Before you learn to shape the world,” they said, “you must learn to shape your own mind.”

We received translucent thought-stones. “Lift it a hand’s breadth,” Teral said.

Simple.

Mine shot upward like a launched spark. A ripple of force burst from me and disrupted half the class.

Flush-faced, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Power is common,” Teral said gently. “Understanding is rare.”

I slept deeply that night — until the visions started.

Earth and Aszis overlapping. Light threads connecting worlds. Two possibilities merging, separating. And always, at the centre, a single bright point.

Me.

During meditation, the vision solidified. A voice said:

You are the bridge. Not between places. Between ways of being.

I didn’t understand — until the message from Earth arrived.

Representative Lian appeared on a holo-disc. “Our world is failing. We ask for your help.”

The Aszis Council feared giving power to a wounded world. Lian feared losing billions of lives.

Two truths.

Both real.

I stepped forward.

“Let me try something,” I said.

With consent, I linked Lian’s emotions — her fear, duty, hope — to the Council’s awareness. And I linked the Council’s calm harmony back to her.

No force. No intrusion. Just feeling.

Silence followed, deep and shifting.

Lian whispered, “I didn’t know how much we hurt.”

“And we did not know how much you love what remains,” a councillor said.

So a plan formed: not factories of mental power, but a small school. A beginning grounded in empathy, not ability. Slow. Careful. Real.

And one day, when my training is complete, I will return to Earth — not with blueprints, but with ways of seeing.

I’ll tell them what Aszis taught me: that there’s a whole other world inside our minds. And the wonders come not from what we build, but what we understand.

 

What is this?

 This is a poetic version of the prologue from my book, you will find a strange new word in it mycorrhizal which is what the layer just under the surface that connects all the trees is called, I've also heard it called the Wide Wood Web. It is how they communicate and also helps them grow by bringing water and minerals to the trees as they need them. I planned this story to bring awareness of our need to care for our trees and other plants cause if they die we die. An educational version is also in the works. Read it and tell me what you think. All seven of you please. I want to make sure it can speak well.

🌲 When the Forest First Sang

Before the first dawn brushed the sky with breath of gold
the world lay still, a whisper waiting to be told
From soil’s deep heart a shimmer stirred and rose
a pulse of life where secret knowing flows

The Guardian awoke in threads unseen
a song of root and rain between
Each droplet hummed a tender tone
binding stone and seed as one

From darkness green light unfurled
moss wove carpets across the world
Tiny spores took flight in dream
to weave the forest’s living theme

Beneath the loam soft voices grew
the first mycorrhizal choir flew
They sang of balance deep and wide
of roots that meet where worlds collide

Then came the Mother Trees—four hearts in bloom
their crowns of song dispelled the gloom
Willow whispered wisdom clear
Birch brought hope and silver cheer
Oak stood firm with courage’s might
Pine breathed strength through endless night

All beings woke within that tune
mushroom folk and bears of lume
Spiders spun the light of dawn
wolves of shadow watched withdrawn

Yet even as the forest sang
a tremor through the balance rang
For where there’s light the dark will creep
and sow its hunger in the deep

The Guardian wept but did not flee
she planted faith in every tree
and whispered to the roots below
that love must learn through ebb and flow

When the first song met the sky’s soft flame
life remembered from whence it came
The forest sang—and hearts replied
in every leaf, the soul inside

65 finally?

Turning 64 hits differently. It isn’t old and it isn’t young — it’s more like standing in a doorway with one hand on the past and one hand feeling around for the light switch of whatever comes next. And honestly the year between 64 and 65 comes with way more practical nonsense than anyone tells you about. It’s not just emotions. It’s paperwork and timelines and figuring out how to land on your feet when the government decides you’re now “officially” a senior.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned this year is this: as soon as you turn 64, start your applications. If you are on Ontario Works or ODSP like I was, they cut off your benefits the moment you hit 65. You’ll get one final month after your birthday and then that’s it — no money coming in unless all your applications are already in process. And trust me, government drones move slower than winter molasses, so the sooner the better.

That means filling out forms for Old Age Security (OAS), Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS). They send you the forms to whatever address is on your Income Tax file but if they don't you can get them at Service Canada. They will help you fill them out and they will handle the mailing if you go to the office.

CPP starts in your birth month, but if your work history is mostly temp jobs like mine, it won’t be much. Mine is less than $100. 

OAS shows up on its own strange timeline — your birthday month, the month after, and then it finally kicks in the next month. Even then the maximum is only $740.09 per month, which wouldn’t cover rent for a broom closet in Ontario these days.

GIS is still the mystery amount. I haven’t been told yet what mine will be, but if I get the maximum it could be close to $1100 extra. And if everything lines up and I end up around that ~$1800 mark, then honestly, I’ll have achieved my dream of being financially comfortable, enough to breathe without the constant panic of “what if.”

Now that I’m actually 65, I can say the emotional part is real and no one warns you about it. You cross the line on your birthday and suddenly the world treats you like you’ve stepped into a new category, even though inside you feel mostly the same. So I’m learning to look at my life as it is now and decide what I want this next stretch to look like — what I’m carrying forward, what I’m letting go of, and what I’m finally making space for.

I’m also working on gentler habits — moving more, eating better, and carving out tiny pockets of joy so I don’t march into this new chapter feeling like a squeezed-out sponge. And the biggest reminder I keep giving myself is that I still get to change. Sixty-five isn’t the finish line. It’s just another milestone on a road that’s still unfolding.

So that’s been my life over the last year. Paperwork, planning, a lot of deep breaths, and the stubborn belief that I can still build something good for myself. And if sharing this helps someone else walking the same path, then it’s worth putting into words — even on the days when the words don’t come easy.

Back on track...kinda

 The last couple of weeks have been a blur of creativity and caffeine as I bounce between Woulf’s Quest and the poetry anthology that keeps stealing my attention.

On the Quest side we’ve been deep in world-building again tightening the canon polishing appendices and slowly shaping Act III so it breathes the way Air should. I swear every time I think we’re done another little detail taps my shoulder and says fix me next.

And then there’s the poetry book which has taken on a life of its own. Some days it feels like excavation brushing dust off old feelings until a clear line appears. Other days it’s more like wrestling fog but in a good way. A handful of poems finally clicked into place including Heavy in the Soul and I’m starting to see how the whole collection might hold together.

Heavy in the Soul

I keep hearing that time waits for no one
and I guess that includes me
because nothing slows down
not even when I’m falling behind

If I want my life to mean something
I have to push harder
and God I’m tired
but I’m still here
sitting in this moment
trying to make sense of what’s left

I look forward and everything feels thin
hollow somewhere
like I lost the map
or dropped the thread
and now I’m standing at the edge
looking for a reason to take the next step

I’m angry
and I’m afraid
and I hate admitting either one
but both sit in my chest
and they’re not leaving on their own

I know I can change
I know it’s possible
but today it feels far
like reaching for something
through water
slow and distorted

Most days I feel heavy
heavy like a stone in the mind
and heavier still in the soul
tired of fighting the same fog
tired of carrying the same ache

And still
I have to learn how to stand again
how to fight for myself
because no one else can do that part for me

Every day I open a door
and the light hits me hard
too bright
too soon
but this is the world I have
and I can’t go back
even if I wanted to

Everything feels unfamiliar
and sometimes I feel unfamiliar too
like I lost pieces of myself
somewhere along the way

I need something to hold on to
a goal
a direction
a spark
anything that reminds me
my soul is still mine
and worth protecting

So that’s where I’ve been lately wandering between worlds writing editing rewriting and occasionally remembering to eat. It feels messy and productive and very very me. 

ChatGPT which is a AI app for writing has been a great help. Taking my direction my words we have managed to create something momentus including 3 Acts, and the Prolog for my book. 

I haven't decided on how I want to present it yet and there are still 5 chapters, an interlude and the Epilog to get polished. Claude (another AI) has been helping me by reviewing all of the acts to make sure they follow the worldbuilding requirements (worldbuilding is exactly what it sounds like, you build your whole world from literally the ground up) it has also turned the Acts into books using html. I copy the code down then insert the images and turn each into a pdf for collection and binding. Instant manuscript for sending to a publisher.

It has been a busy 2-3 weeks but it means that I am a step closer to getting that book out in the public. Though honestly I am not sure I will ever get it published unless I do it myself but that is an issue for the New Year