It’s that time of month. I have learned to push through. Ignore the occasional excruciating pain. I don’t usually medicate. IN the states I discovered midol, acetaminophen to take the edge off. Yesterday I felt nauseous from pain. And last night I couldn’t sleep for  five hours. I finally gave in and took a pill at 5 am. Relief came within the hour and I slept though the morning. I don’t feel tired as I have been building a summer reserve of sleep, by sleeping in this month.

But rest is not what I want to process about. 

Occasionally, around my period, my brain goes into overdrive. I overthink things, I can some incredible insights, but I can also spiral down latching onto projects I need to finish. 

I treat my anxiety with productivity. The house gets clean. Postponed projects get finished, difficult calls are made, I wrap things up with furry and determination. Except those I can’t. The yard. I nudge it forward. I don’t shy away from physical labor. But when we depend on experts I feel stuck. Last week, during the heat wave I have had feverish dreams about the backyard project. We need good soil. We need good drainage, and we discovered we have a spring near the surface. I don’t know what collecting or containing it entails, but I’ve been reading about our options. Digging a well, building French drains, buying a hump to release the water up the street into the drain, or watering the yard. We are above our neighbor and for two years we’ve just had a soggy side of the yard, but it has been contained. We don’t need a well but we may need to build one out of necessity. The access to our yard is not easy as we have a builder and a fence poll so no heavy machinery can make it back here. I try to wrap my mind around well and drain building and it’s intense. 

Yesterday, in my intense ache, trying to distract myself from it I delved deeper I to overdrive trying to solve the excess water in the yard. The heavy storm announced after a month of drought didn’t help my anxiety. And then it rained. The hole we dug which was full up to a level from the spring, now is full to the lip of the ground level. The storm was 25l/m2 and the ground is soaked and the spring beneath is also saturated. It is a good test to see that the back yard is not flowing down the hill. Not yet. But we have reached out to so many experts who take their sweet time responding, that I feel we haven’t talked to the right people yet. I’m afraid this will cost more that we want to pay. Like more than we invested in the garden yet. One thing we did was but rocks. Which feels like and extravagant purchase but it was one we can take action on and do something about. 

Anyway, our grass is patchy, the soil is mostly clay so it’s very cracked. We are due to put a think layer of topsoil. And the water pools in certain areas and pockets for the ground is improperly leveled and we do have a surface spring. Which worried me that is located under the house but as it turns out, as far as I can see after digging a bunch of holes in the ground, it is located on the side. Or surfacing on the side. 

As my intense pain subsided I feel I can think clearly again. and I can get a grip on my thoughts, my emotions. I rationalize and I let go. I think of what I can do now, and what is in my power. Also, that knowing everything about water in the soil is not my area of expertise, even though I’m trying to figure it all out. And solve it with my bare hands. I take a deep breath. I sip my coffee and let it go for now. 

More updates soon.