As long as I can see the light

I have gone dark over the last couple of weeks, both here in Steemit and in life in general. I have been feeling an overwhelming amount of stress, and although I'm sure some of it has to do with the time change and the shorter days, some of it is just life stuff that always seems to come in waves.

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The owner of the property down the road from me where I have been storing my hay for the brush goats for the last couple of years, and parking the goats when they are unemployed, suddenly had a meltdown because she had it in her head that I was supposed to have goats at her place all the time. She wouldn't understand the bit about the goats having to work for me to be able to afford to keep them, and kicked me out. So my son and his friends and I spent two days moving 100 bales of hay from that barn to Farmer Dan's barn.

It was a relief to get the hay out of there, although it was a little sad to close that chapter of my life. I think I have lost a friend in the process of this, and although her meltdown had very little to do with me in the grand scheme of things, the rift is no less real.

We got the hay all loaded into Farmer Dan's barn, but one of the boys left the door open and the goats got into the part of the barn with all the hay in it, something Farmer Dan has been extremely paranoid about since I moved them there in the first place. He was very unhappy, and although I apologized profusely, it took me a long time to go to sleep that night. I was worried that he was going to be upset enough to kick the goats off his property too, which would mean moving all that hay yet again. We have mended fences, though, so I feel better about that whole situation. He is really grateful for the work the goats are doing, and I guess that is a plus that outweighs the minus of the goat free-for-all in the barn.

My son moved back home about six weeks ago, which is not unusual for a kid his age (he's 22). However, his stuff didn't become accessible until last week (long story), so we spent a day in the city packing and moving all his worldly possessions. He feels much less stressed now that he has all his stuff back, but it has taken over the entire upstairs, and he is like frozen molasses when it comes to sorting or organizing or anything like that. So I have been the bad cop, making him deal with his stuff so life can get back to whatever passes for normal these days. On the plus side, having him home has given me a helper, and when I can get him motivated he's not half bad.

As I'm writing this, none of it seems like it should have been such a big deal, and I'm now feeling a bit self-conscious about the level of stress I allowed myself to feel about all of it. I guess it was all of it together. I keep the books for four companies on top of the day to day goat stuff, and there has been a lot of paperwork that has been put on the back burner for the last couple of months that has contributed to the feeling that I have no control of my life. I am starting to pull myself out of the hole, but it's a slow process.

I have been feeling a little more positive over the last couple of days, and getting some of the albatrosses off my neck has a lot to do with it. I have felt guilty for not posting on Steemit, which is a little ridiculous, and I have felt guilty about not looking at my feed and not voting on anybody's posts. I really value what I've created here and I really want to try to dig myself out of the funk I'm in and get back to interacting more regularly. I guess this year the coming of the dark coincided with too many other stressful things to allow me to function properly.

Yesterday my son went to work for a friend of mine, who lives near the family farm. I have been responsible for feeding the cows this week, so I drove over to do that after I dropped him off. It has been really cold for most of the week, but yesterday the fog was insane. I don't live on the river, so I don't see this kind of thing very often, but it was surreal. And it sort of exemplified what I've been feeling the last few weeks. Driving the mile from my friend's place to the farm felt like it took half an hour, because everything was shrouded in fog so thick that the world seemed to disappear. I was driving along the Columbia river, and normally I should have been able to see Washington on the other side, but even the river was invisible.

It felt like an apt analogy for how I've been feeling; lost in a fog with no way out and nothing to see no matter where I look. That sounds melodramatic, and it is, but sometimes that's the way it is. We just have to wait to see the light at the end of the tunnel and follow it until we get out.

I am under no illusions that I am completely out of the woods, since the holiday season is lurking and that will involve more family events than I can reasonable handle on the best of days. I am considering a boycott, but I might be overruled. What really sounds good is hibernating, but I don't think humans can pull that off without a lot of medical intervention.

I'm sorry if I've been a downer. I've been having a hard time and wanted to share a little of it, if only to get it out of my head. Here's a final pitcure to say that when the light is dying, it is the most beautiful.

Good night, everyone, and keep looking for the light.