What makes a simple day in a complicated life

At first when I was alone for a night, for a weekend, I didn't know what to with myself. The nights are still difficult. I have trouble falling asleep. Even going to bed alone.

Then I was sick again for a few weeks, just in time for the start of school for Indi. I had promised to have a small exhibition, which I really wanted to work on.

I have. But not forcing myself. I had to create a comfortable atmosphere first, have all the stuff ready at hand. So that beginning work was easy. There is plenty of space, I can leave stuff to dry and continue later. Practical is simple.

On friday night I had women from church over. We had fun, we played a role play (with lots of trying to kill each other at a dinner party, how Christian of us :D ) and we ate and talked. We had planned to pray for everybody's needs, but time just flew and it was time for everyone to leave before we got to that!

I don't have a dish washer, so the next day I did the dishes by hand. The first time I had a pile like that in like, ten years. But it's simpler for us not buy a dish washer for the two of us.

I do our laundry at the laundry room, again, it's simpler than to buy a new machine to replace the broken one. I like booking the laundry room once a week, and there is a drying room where I hang it to dry and in the evening everything is ready to be picked up.

Now that I'm better again, I may walk to the beach for a moment and run some errands. Today I picked up some secondhand clothes and then went to a flea market. Indi has been wanting Pet Shop toys and I got her four. I also bought some other useful -and not really that useful- stuff. Hand towels? Useful. Woolen babushka scarf? Absolutely useful. Tin coffee box? Weeeell.. I'm using it, okay?

Never mind the raccoon.
But who could resist that face? I couldn't.

I'm not going to turn into a hoarder, mind you. I suddenly needed clothes several sizes smaller, so I've gotten some freebies and bought some second hand and I'm giving and selling away some. We had very little dishes because we never had guests over at old small apartment, so I've bought some dishes. Some furniture I've bought and some sold away.

Sometimes I just need to do something to distract myself with.. But I have stuff to do, paint, sew, clean the apartment, read, write, take photos.. and I still spend  a lot of time with Indi. So I'm never bored at least. I want to do what I love to do, what I have studied to do, and what I think I can do best. I am thinking of ways I could make more money.. but God is my provider, so I'm not worried.

It's simple for me to work from home.
It's simple to live in  a place where I can walk to get groceries, and the beach is 500 meters away (like 1/3 mile). It's simple that we now live on the first floor and Indi has started to go out by herself, and that we live close to the school.

Getting finally diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and starting to make sense of why I was never just quite okay, even a s a child, makes my life simpler, because it helps me understand why I have collected so many illnesses and why I am like I am, and just accept it. It also makes it easier to get check-ups and treatment for different stuff, because it can affect pretty much any part of the body. I just had an ultra sound of my heart, I had minor mitral valve prolapse, which is pretty common and not dangerous, but because of the EDS they will monitor it every few years so it doesn't get worse.
I have heart pain and irregular heart beat but I put it down to extreme stress, because my body just won't quiet down!
Sometimes it's enough of a job that I just survive to take care of daughter.

Living simply becomes an afterthought when you just try to simply live... Everything superfluous naturally falls away as you are stripped bare. On the other hand, you don't stress out about your kid wanting to hoard cardboard boxes, or buy Pet Shop toys. But I still find it easier to keep mental clarity in a simple, aesthetically pleasing environment.

It's simple to live for God, because then you only have to care about what He thinks. When you have fear of the Lord, there is nothing more left to fear. And fear of the Lord does not feel like fear, because "in perfect love there is no fear" as the Bible says. So it feels like love. As simple as that.

Shadows and light, tears and laughter, surviving and perhaps living a little

I guess there is no way for me to keep blogging without telling about this.
This thing that has cut me wide open, deeper than anything else before in my life, and trampled the broken pieces so deep into the ground that sometimes I think there is no way anyone could ever pick them up and make me whole again. Even though I have been through a lot and my family has been through a lot, nothing has ever been like this private hell.

Yes, we really have moved, but just me, my girl, and our cat. My husband has left me and filed for divorce. This has been going on since last winter (January-February), and he actually decided to come back, and then he left again.

This new apartment is really big, because when we decided to rent this, he was supposed to stay with us. Our old building just went under some big construction work, which I found out about a few weeks before it started, at the same time that I heard about this apartment becoming available.

Because of my illness and all the emotional stress, I could not think of staying there.

I am not going into any details because this involves other people.
Let's just say that my husband takes most of the blame for ruining our marriage (not that I claim to have been the perfect wife!), and that he wants to be a loving father to our beloved daughter, and that he has been generous in wanting to make we are financially secure.

The six month mandatory consideration period is over and he can make the divorce official with just a signature on a paper. I do not know if he will. I'm not asking. It will only make him anxious and shut down. So I let him be, and we only talk about practical matters.

I know it would be a long way back home for him - and I could not let him do this to our child for a third time. Her sense of security and trust would be in ruins after that.

I forgive him. Because Jesus forgives me my sin. And my husband's as well.
There are issues, deep wounds and traumas affecting people, Christians too. We do horrible things and say horrible things. That's why we know we need Grace so badly!

I love him and always will. But after all these past months, I have gone through so many emotions, wanting to force him to stay, wanting to help him, make him whole and happy. But it's not in my power, and the greatest act of love I can think of doing for him is letting him go.

The future is wide open. My main concern now is Indi's well being, and she will get through this if I do. I will only speak kindly about her father (though I will say that it is not right, or God's will, to divorce - but the sin in this world and in us prevents the world, and our lives, from being perfect and ideal. That would be heaven then, and we are not there yet).

She needs to know her daddy still loves her, and it's okay that she loves him too, and that they get to keep their close relationship. So I tell her, that we forgive him and love him. It's okay to feel sad or angry too, or anything. It's okay to cry.

I will not let her break over this, not if it takes every last bit of my strength.
I will not let her break.

So now it's out there. I have not tried to keep it a secret anyway.
Please pray for me, all you who believe in Jesus, that He would guide us and that His will would happen, not mine.

Truly miss

Settling in. School has its ups and downs for sure, but mostly things are going pretty okay.
I've been doing some watercolors and plan to paint some canvases when I get my studio in order - which is really an excuse I guess haha. But I'm just liking aquarelles now, and I had planned a small exhibition at the church we live next to -called Water and Light - but I think the exhibit just got really tiny and I may only have space for the photos I printed on aluminum.. as we have a few dozen new neighbors at the church, refugees in temporary crisis shelter and it of course affects the church space as a whole. The official refugee centers are overflowing.

In case you are wondering what the handwritten text says, it's some random thoughts and basis for what I'm working on right now:

Dry land, scorched by the sun,
thirsts for rain.

For a moment the cold sprinkler water refreshes a child screaming for joy,
and the wilted grass.

The child names her cat Light.

My studio heats up too much, I say and pull the curtains over the windows.

Mommy, I'm afraid of the dark, the child says,
even though it's barely dusk.

Nothing to worry about, mommy is here.
Let's turn on the corridor light.

I am thirsty
Thirsty for God.




A song with English subtitles for you "Ikävä - Truly Miss".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIOSSDrD-U

I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart, for following my blog, though I have been posting so little.
I do have things I want to say, to talk about, pictures and words to share.. just send them out into the wold and pray they find whomever they were intended for.