a mountain visit

As usual, with no edits. I'm sure in the morning that will be changed, but here, right now, it's just as it is. 
(in the morning...editorially, it's wrong. I flip between the her and the me, but that's how it is in my mind, so it will stay. That young girl, she is me obviously, but more than that...she's become largely integrated into myself now. It's not a completed process, but it's damn close. It's what I want. Fractured living is difficult. And maybe if I learn that path wholly I can hold the hand of others as they make the journey).

I went to the foothills of a mountain on Monday. 

I had much on my mind, and nothing as well. 

It happens. 

Nothing really of a worry, just thoughts of life and living, of how things are and the process of looking at them and understanding...or trying to.

As I posted before, I went to the tiny old Alder cemetery. I have no family in Alder, I never lived there, but I lived close. We had land in Alder at one time, and had planned on moving onto it asap, my mum and I. It didn't happen, she set her sights more on Ashford. I laugh a little now, seeing at how things hit and skipped and skirted and swooped around. I can't help but wonder at how things might have been different in life had things been different back then...but that's a fool's game, that wondering. Things weren't different. And things are now. 
That's as it should be...right? Yes. It is. I wouldn't be who I am now without the in between. No looking back, just now and ahead. 
Anyway. I wandered around the tiny place, straightened flowers, cleared headstones, said Hello to a friendly yellow dog that came to supervise...looked at my mountain and noticed, not for the first time, that the stones all face her. 
And many other thoughts ran through my mind out there, walking the shore of the lake, climbing the hills and perching on the rocks in the growing misting clouds. Not really thinking, just letting the thoughts and such move through me on their own as they used to when I first found myself there.

An old friend has been in the hospital. He's in a bad way, but I don't know what the bad is, exactly. And unless someone else tells me, I won't know. He sent a msg saying God was good. And I was lucky to get that one. I could ask someone, but I won't. It's all so sad and strange. We were involved once. He wanted to explore, I bowed out immediately, as I do. Long and unnecessary story short, he wanted right back, I couldn't. We weren't right for each other in the least...not in any way, shape or form. His fiance, who I repeatedly sent him back to, has told me to not contact him, and I am respecting that. It doesn't mean that I don't care anymore. We were friends. I do know that in the long run, it doesn't matter. Not really. I still send good thoughts, or what I call prayer but others wouldn't. 

The things that we find accepting in life, as simply part of life, that we never thought we would. 

The talking with my former spouse about how to best try to integrate his wife into our daughter's life, if she's willing. 
Because... She might be a very nice woman. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that she is. It's all Em's call at this point. 

I sat there, walked there, and thought about the young girl who lived there. She was so tired and sad for a young one, an old heart and a broken spirit. She climbed those hills, notebook, water, flashlight...wrote and wrote and wrote. I dug the pain out of me with those words, I left them to the rocks and the wind, I spilled blood of all kinds from myself out there, and at the end of those years, I was clean. From that, at least. When mum moved me out of town during my sr year, I broke down. I had filled the empty places in myself with everything there and with it gone, i crumbled. Into a heap of rubble, or that's how it felt. The next few months were terrifying, but necessary. That refiner's fire. 

I thought about how she went from a voc/tech into a job at the air base, met and married a complete stranger, moved across country, came back, had 2 daughters and struggled to find herself again. I tried to see if she'd had any idea how life would have rolled along, when she sat in those hills and climbed as high as she could safely go alone...
she didn't. She had hopes for love, if anyone could love someone as broken as she felt. She yearned for peace, to not be driven by the demons that weren't even hers. Those 2 things I was able to remember, as clearly as the days that I first found them in myself. The demons, those are gone. Not even ones that are my own. I made them my friends, used them for strengths and they became that instead. The broken bits...well, I suppose that I still am broken, but i feel almost whole. Former spouse said that it wasn't likely that I'd find a man who could ever love or understand me and my odd views on life and such...as he left the finalized divorce papers on the counter without another word. Maybe I am odd. I don't think so. But maybe. 

An internet friend, a man, had me added to a silly relationship group. It's run by a woman who wrote a book on how to attract men and some of the women in there...I think. I think there's a book. I'm not certain on that. See what a lot I know about it. Good gosh. He had me added for 2 reasons. I'm the exact opposite of almost every other woman in the group and for comic relief. I'm afraid I've let him down on the comic relief. I can't even go in there more than once or twice a month, it's just about the saddest, most damaging thing I've seen. This leader is telling these women to act a certain way, then switch and act another way and on and on and on...when I'm there I'm always asking why they can't just be themselves? Not to worry about trapping a guy that isn't right for them, because that's what it is. Or to quit looking at every nuance of a man and picking it to shreds. It makes me crazy. There are a couple of people there who've asked me to stay, because when i do pipe in it stops the insanity for a day or so. But it made me wonder, am i odd? Are women "supposed" to think and feel and behave that way? I can't. I just can't. More so, I won't even try. To lie? That's what it is. To deceive? NO. Yes, damn it. I'm a woman. I come with all the woman things, but not that messed up pile of who even begins to know what that is. 

So, I walked, and looked, and smelled that unique mountain air, and remembered. I found secret places that I know that I've never taken anyone to. I remembered nice memories...I thought about circles and cycles. I thought about pathways. 

And still, for the first time in my whole life, I chased that fool's game, and wondered.

It was a good day.