Another Spider Warning, Also Trigger Warning For Sexual Abuse So, Yeah, Maybe Don't Bother With This One

I woke up this morning determined to take a walk. If I can weed in the garden for an hour, I can walk for half an hour. I wasn't being ridiculous- it's been so long since I've really taken a walk and it is so hot that I determined to only go a mile.
It was hot but I kept it short and I constantly reminded myself to slow down. The hotter it is, the faster I tend to walk because I want to be done with it. This is not the best strategy. I also tried to do most of it in the shade, which considering all of our trees here, is harder than you'd imagine. 

I ended up doing a little over a mile and I didn't feel stressed nor did I feel like I was going to die which is always good in a walk. Now. Can I do it again tomorrow? 
I'll try. 

I also went to town, but only as far as Publix and the library. I had a book to drop off and at Publix I got my bottled lemon juice and a few other fun things. Nothing crazy. I was happy to realize that I could still participate in casual conversation which was reassuring. 

I has a very vivid dream last night about my abuser that was deeply visceral by which I mean in the dream I could feel the many emotions that the abuse had caused in me all those years ago. One thing that did not happen in real life but which did happen in the dream was that I kept screaming at my stepfather to go away, to leave me alone, that he was not allowed to touch me. I remember the first time I had a dream about him in which I hit him and I truly thought that perhaps, I was on my way to healing, to putting it all behind me. I was proud I had come that far. 
And that was probably almost forty years ago. 
My mother was in the dream too, and I yelled at her as well, telling her that her husband was a pedophile and she needed to leave him for the sake of her children but she ignored me. This, too, is part and parcel of these trauma dreams. I sometimes wonder if her inability to protect me and (I think) my brothers, is as big a part of my trauma as the actual abuse was. Or even more so. 
I'll never know.
And I'll also never entirely "get over this." That is something I do know. I read an article yesterday about how differently people process trauma in their lives and yet, how in the end, it is all so similar. 
And I have come to understand that being alone is so comforting to me because I feel safest alone. Now of course, this is not entirely true. Mr. Moon makes me feel very, very safe but the comfort I feel when he is here is different than the comfort I feel when he is away. I can't really explain it. But I know exactly where this comes from. 

I remember once, when I was probably a junior in high school, and my mother and brothers were going to be out of town and so was my stepfather, although at a different place. I was trusted to stay by myself and this issue was mostly forced by the fact that I was also trusted to take care of my brothers when my mother and stepfather went out of town, even for fairly long stretches of time. So there was no rational way that they could refuse to let me stay by myself although this almost never happened. Ever. And on this night, that I remember so clearly, I had just finished doing a few days' run of a community production of "Our Town" in which I played Emily. I loved doing that play. It was such a joy. And after the play, I went to a friend's house with some other people, some from the play, and that was where I had my first sip of alcohol. Boone's Farm Apple Wine, thank you very much. 
I did not get drunk or even tipsy, really. I was just so...happy. I had done well in the play, I had loved doing it, and I was going to be able to spend the night alone without the lurking, dark presence of my stepfather there. 

And yet, when my boyfriend dropped me off (see what a good girl I was?), I realized that the lights were on, the TV was on, and there he was, sitting in the blue glare of television. Because of the way our house was set up, the Florida room where everyone watched TV and was really the living area of the house, was directly across a small outside area with plants in it from my room. And no matter how tightly I closed my curtains, I could see the light from the TV coming into my room every night. By this time, the actual physical part of the abuse had ceased (had I aged out? was he afraid I was old enough to know that what he was doing was wrong?) but there was always that fear, the threat, of it happening again. And he would sit in front of the TV long into the night, reminding me that he...was...there.
And there was no lock on my door. He wouldn't allow it. 

So. I had looked forward so much to having one night with no light coming into my bedroom window, no threat of him entering my room. And there he was. 
And there was nobody else in the house. 

If this does not explain my ease and comfort in being alone, I do not know what would. For many, many years I could not sleep with any light coming into the bedroom at all. I am more at ease now with some light coming in but it is still a thing I do not like. No nightlights, no lights on electrical devices, no light from a distant room. Moonlight does not disturb me as much and that makes sense too. And it occurs to me that there are probably many people who cannot sleep in total darkness because of their own particular traumatic experiences. 
Different. But the same. 

It also occurs to me that I have told this story before but the dream I had last night and my circumstance of being alone right now has reminded me of it again. It is a true testament of my love and trust in my husband that I am able to sleep well and deeply when he is here. But I will tell you that I have slept more soundly in the last few days than I usually do. 

I think I will sleep well again tonight. I canned my tomato sauce after I got back from town. 

I know- it looks nothing like the tomato sauce we're all used to but it's made with the sweet, sweet Sungold tomatoes that are filling my picking basket. It is, I have to say, delicious. 

Before I leave I will show you my first picture of the year of one of our banana spiders, or, to be more accurate- a golden orb weaver. 

She is nowhere near as big as she's going to get if she is able to keep on living. Her web is right near the mailbox in front of the house by the front gate and her tiny mate, not seen in this photo, was right behind her. 

I have played a little piano which brought me some joy, swept the back porch which sorely needed doing, and tried to do some mending, realizing that my little pincushion with my pins and needles is not where it should be and for the life of me, I cannot find it. 
Sigh. 
And ARGGGH!
I even moved out the couch to look beneath it and dug through my various baskets and bags where somehow it might have gotten stashed and in the process, caught my toe on a table leg but life goes on. It has to be somewhere. 

Meanwhile, let us all try to accept and love ourselves for how we've come to deal with the things that have happened in our lives because all of us, each and every one, has to deal with something that we probably shouldn't have had to. 
Okay? We do the best we can. 

Love...Ms. Moon