Grief at Twin Harbors

The first four paragraphs here are not about hiking at all, skip to the **** to go straight to the hiking report.

  It has been a terrible couple of weeks.  I skipped grief group last week so I could hike.  Then the next week there was too much snow for me to get out of my driveway so I had to miss my individual grief counseling.

One of car cars would not start but now it is running just fine, but I will never trust it again.  My washing machine has been broken for weeks now, I replaced one part that was recommended to fix the problem and it did not fix it.  I've ordered the second part that should fix the problem but it is on back order.  The parts are expensive, but hiring someone to fix appliances is even more expensive, so I won't be doing that anymore.  There is a laundry mat three blocks from my house, I wonder if I should just give up on having a washer and a dryer.  It is certainly more expensive to keep my two fairly new machines running that it would be to just use the laundry mat once a week.

My child has been having a rough time and I won't go into the details about it here, but it is very stressful for me to see my child like that.  Also my child is at the age where they hate mom and won't do anything with mom.  With my spouse gone, my only company in the big house is a child who hates me at the moment and this child is very angry.  Everything is my fault.  I'm an abusive mom.

At least Sage still loves me. I expect I will get my child back someday too.  My child is about to turn 15 so maybe I'll get them back in 3-4 years?

I was given so many negative messages about myself when I was growing up that it is easy for me to believe the put downs I get.  I have to step back and think about things to realize just how spoiled my child is.

My child said that I was abusing them by taking way their Iphone as a punishment after they slapped me, kicked me and threw something at me.  The abuse was cutting off their contact to their friends and "family" by taking the phone.  I have pointed out that they are free to use our land line to talk to their friends. But my child claims to have "social anxiety" so can't talk on the phone or do anything else ever.

Also my child is a vegan, so that complicates the hell out of grocery shopping and we basically can never eat a normal meal together.  Neither of us are willing to eat at the kitchen table yet anyway.  The table is set up in the dining room where my husband's hospice (death) bed was set up.  The table belonged to my dead mother.

My biggest problem this last few weeks though is that the snow had kept me housebound.  We got 17 inches of snow at my house and I don't own a high clearance vehicle.  I did get to go snowshoeing from home and that was fun, but my knees and back hurt the next day even though I only went three miles.




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My car has been dug out for awhile now but all the shoulders on all the streets are blocked off by berms of snow from the plows.  So I think even hiking on a trail that meets a paved and plowed road will be difficult.  So I decided to head for the Ocean.  I figured there would be less snow at the Ocean and I have not "hiked" there in a while.

I took me a while to pack and plan for this trip, I have a bad case of widow brain this week.  I was hoping to go to church with a friend and if they contacted me I was going to do that and hike Green Mountain after instead.  I am practically an atheist, but for some reason I am finding great comfort in going to church.  I guess I'm just that miserable that going somewhere where I couple of people will look me in the eye and say "nice to meet" you cheers me up a lot.  I don't believe in most of the stuff the preachers say, but I do find it interesting to listen to them anyway.

So if I was going to do Green Mountain I would need snow gear, but for an ocean hike I would not.  I did not hear from my friend until I was already on the road so to the Ocean I went.  but I was oddly missing my chance to go to church, church has been cheering me up. So as I approached Aberdeen I asked SIRI to find a church.  I listened to SIRI go through the list and I settled on "Rivers of Life".

SIRI guided me to the building and I saw that cars were parked everywhere, so I knew that church must be in session there.  I went in and sat down and mostly just cried during the sermon.  The sermon said that cancer was caused by sin. OK , that's a new one to me.  The sermon also said that we were given dominion over the animals and the earth.  I have never believed that.  As John Trudell says, "It's like aliens have landed".    I think we are part of the earth and animals are just as important as we are, no more or no less important, but the same.

In spite of hearing a bunch of stuff that I don't believe,  I did feel quite a bit better after leaving at the end of the sermon.  I hit the beach at about noon.  But first I had to spend half an hour at my car sorting out my stuff.  I had to decide what to pack and what to hide.  I am very careful to hide everything that is in my car.  My car has never been broken into at a trail head, but my cars did get broken into in my own driveway and on the street in front of my house several times.  All those broken windows are expensive!

While spending all that time getting ready I realized I had no dog food.   A store was nearby though, so I went back and bought two cans of dog food for almost $5.00 with tax.  Then I drove back to the parking are at Twin Harbors State Park and started my hike.

I was miserable.  I always used my phone to send my husband lots of photos of the beach.  But my husband is dead now, so I felt like there was no point in taking  pictures.  My husband enjoyed my pictures but I always felt a bit guilty and sad when I sent them.  Guilty because I got out of the house and left him home and sad because he could not join me.  Every time I have left the house in the last 4 years I have felt guilty about leaving my husband and sad the he could not join me.

So I did not take very many pictures, my heart was not in it.  I carried my phone and my husband's phone on this hike so I could play on both of our accounts on an AR game that I am really enjoying.  I don't kick myself for taking a cell phone to the ocean because I really enjoy my AR games and that is what it's all about, trying to enjoy myself, not feeling that I have spend every moment looking at the ocean.

I knew I was not going to to do my usual hike to Westport and back because I was too worn out from all the grief.  Grief is so exhausting.  My goal was just to get to the surfer area and turn back, but soon my goal became just to reach the condo complex that is getting ready to fall into the sea.

I was sidetracked a bit by my game and went into a neighborhood to reach a item in my game, then I made my way back down to the beach and then to the condos.  I wanted to have lunch in the woods and away from all the people.  I was disorganized too and did not know what woods I wanted to be in.

When I reached the condos I went back up to the streets and started doing a road walk back to
Twin Harbors.  I used google earth satellite view on my phone to find  a patch of woods.  But the woods were too dark and dreary and wet, so I decide to go back down to the beach for lunch in spite the sun being too low and too bright on the beach.  I ended up on a road that was posted, so I carefully threaded my way through the Scot's broom, sea grass, pine trees and brush until I was back at the beach.  By staying in the woods I hoped not to be seen.

Back on the beach I found a log to sit on that partly faced the ocean while keeping my back to the sun.  There I gave Sage her can of dog food and I heated water for coffee and noodles.  Two people walked behind me on the beach and then circled above me on the trail in the grass.   I did not understand this and it made me a bit paranoid. I felt that people were being noisy because I had my back turned to them.  I still don't know if it was all paranoia or if there was some truth to it.

I was never really happy on this hike but when I was lost in the woods and snaking my way through the brush, while trying not to drop all of my stuff, I was distracted enough to forget about my grief for a little bit.

I hope this coming week is better.  I think that every time I do a hike that I have not done since my spouse died I am going to feel extra bad.  But honestly I'm just going to feel bad no matter what I do for awhile.  The only time that I don't feel really bad is when I am with other adults.  The problem is I have no close friends and I have almost no relatives who are not toxic.

I miss hiking with my oldest child, but she never wants to hike with my anymore.  I ask her if she wants to hike with me every time, even though I know the answer will always be no.

As I got near my car I saw a row of cars parked on the beach, it must have been a clam tide.  I wished I had my shovel and license.  I also wish they would okay some day time digs.  Why must all the digs be at night?

When I as a kid clam digging was always open and dug my first limit when I was 8.  My grandparents gave me my own hand painted shovel as a reward for digging my first limit.

Is it time to for me to move to a place that does not have so many memories for me?  My husband said I was haunted by my reminisces. If I moved to another state or country there would be less things to haunt me.

6 miles with 50 feet elevation gain