Loneliness in the midst of chaos

Technically, right now, I’m not in the midst of chaos.  Right now, I laying in my hammock listening to the church bells from the catholic church behind our house, listening to the cicadas, listening to the birds sing their morning songs.  My coffee if about a hundred feet away and I wish it were so much closer.

The starlings who have taken up residence in the house next door are flying in and out of the eves.  I watch them with a weird sense of satisfaction.  They fly in and out of the place they pushed out of place in the siding.  There are at least three of them, currently in residence.  I can see the two in the nest (the ones who won’t leave home but who have the wings to fly) sticking their heads out of the gap in the siding and another one flying back and forth to and from who knows where.

I am seriously thinking of just building a lean-to around the hammock and taking up residence here pretty much forever.  I’ve stretched an extension cord across the back yard so I have power.  A lean-to would keep the rain off.  This might be the perfect place for a peaceful summer home.

It is delightfully peaceful externally.

INTERNALLY, however, it might not be quite so peaceful.

I’m stressed about work… too many hours… I long to be able to just leave for lunch.  I long to feel like I can justify leaving to take my daughter to the emergency room without having to spend the entire time on my phone dealing with emails.  I long for the luxury of being able to justify taking my vacation pretty much at all at this point.

I’m stressed because I’m the one who plays peace maker.  I’m the one who has to deal with the less than pleasant text messages and has to start doing all of the accounting for everything all the time. Squabbles and quibbles (why do those sound like awesome cat names all of a sudden?), stupid pointless lies, and always always always the guilt.

It’s kind of a joke, but it’s really kind of not.  Stupid dog… stupid stupid stupid dog… The only one who can’t talk and therefore the only one who can’t tell you that you’re way to stupid about stuff.  It was a joke when it started out and we were blaming the loud obnoxious farts on her… but now it really is just starting to get old.

I am hoping to be able to hang here and vedge for a while.  I will have to go in and check the stuff in my dehydrator in a little while.  Test the apples… check the cookies… but for now… it’s just too blessed quiet hanging here to really do much of anything.