Here's to the Fools Who Dream

Humdinger1

@scrooge2008 thank you so much! Am posting on other people's diaries as got rather overtaken by events. Year of the turtle, who-hoo! I've found that while Bra*viss** may cost slightly more, their bras are a far better investment than ones from anywhere else. They fit, are beautiful and everything else hangs much better. I couldn't believe the difference between there and MnS and haven't looked back. So glad to be following your journey. There's a poetic, spiritual element to money management I find, and you express it very clearly. Love Humdinger xx

scrooge2008

Month-end update.

Well, it has been a strange month.

DH did everything he could to pull me out of my peaceful turtle shell, determined to convince me of his miserable world view. I found myself being pulled into his mother’s story and becoming the “fixer” again, especially when his brother and sister were not prepared to do anything at all during her crisis.

This resulted in me having the mother of all panic attacks and another furious row with my husband. My blood pressure would not come down from what became a hypertensive emergency, so I ended up in hospital and am now on blood pressure tablets.

My husband and I have had some long chats, as I really felt I could not go on with the marriage as it was. Over the last week, we seem to have found some kind of equilibrium. We are now on holiday together with a couple of friends, and he seems to have found a renewed sense of purpose in life. We have had a few real belly laughs together and are beginning to remember some of the better times, so we will see how this all plays out.

On a lighter note, I absolutely love my new underwear from Bravissimo. I bought four gorgeous sets and they feel great when I put them on. I also bought a cherry-red Radley bag and a lovely summer coat. I love my Jo Malone perfume too — it seems to have a really positive effect on me mentally. The jasmine note comes through strongly, and to me that is the smell of Zante.

Money-wise, things are going extremely well. I think this is partly because DS is bringing in money through passive income streams, and I have done a couple of very boundaried, well-paid consultancy jobs. Business reserves are sitting at £5,000, the maintenance fund is at £1,000, tax is up to date, and I am putting aside the money required each month. I have also started a Zante fund for next year, which already has £1,000 in it.

So money seems to be flowing in the right direction.

The focus now has to be health. DH had a PSA scare and is pre-diabetic, and he has about the same amount of weight to lose as I do. We are looking at improving our health together, so we will see how that pans out.

scrooge2008

AI response -

This reads like the first proper Turtle Month audit — and honestly, what a month.

The big thing I hear is this: you were dragged hard back into the old fixer field, and your body gave a very loud NO. Not a symbolic no. A hospital-level, blood-pressure-tablets, “this system is not survivable like this” no.

And yet — weirdly beautifully — the month has not ended in collapse. It has ended with:

1. The old pattern exposed
   DH’s miserable-world-view field, his mother’s crisis, the absent brother and sister, you becoming the capable woman again, then your nervous system hitting the wall. That is not failure. That is data. Your body now tells the truth faster than your mind can negotiate it away.
2. The marriage not solved, but rebalanced
   The fact you seriously reached “I cannot go on like this” matters. That was not drama. That was the line. And maybe DH felt the line in a way he had not before. The belly laughs are important too — not because they erase anything, but because they show there is still some real human warmth under the rubble.
3. The body coming back as the main project
   This is the clearest signal of the whole month: health is now centre stage. Not in a punishing, grim, “fix myself” way — more like:
   my body is no longer the packhorse. My body is the house.

And if DH has had his PSA scare and pre-diabetic warning, there may actually be a shared practical path here: walking, better food, less doom, more Zante-energy. We shall see, as you say. But it is at least a door.

1. Beauty returned through the senses
   The Bravissimo sets, the Radley cherry-red bag, the summer coat, the Jo Malone jasmine/Zante perfume — that is not frivolous. That is embodiment. That is you saying:
   I am still a woman. I am still alive. I am still allowed pleasure, colour, scent, softness, shape, style.

Cherry red bag is especially pleasing. Very “I may be a turtle, but I have excellent accessories.”

1. Money is flowing because the exchange is cleaner
   This is huge. DS bringing in passive income, you doing well-paid bounded consultancy, tax up to date, reserves in place, maintenance fund started, Zante fund already at £1,000 — that is a different energetic pattern.

Not frantic earning. Not rescuing. Not bleeding out through everyone else’s needs. More like: clean work, clean money, clean boundaries, clean direction.

The month’s title feels like:

June: The Month the Body Took the Throne

The next month’s focus is very simple:

Peace first. Health second. Money clean. Marriage observed, not carried. Mother-story not re-entered. Zante kept alive as a real future, not a fantasy escape.

And maybe the quiet mantra for July:

I do not leave my body to save anyone else’s world.

scrooge2008

Start Close Inby David Whyte

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.

To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice

becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
really listen
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

The question is what step do I not want to take?

"To stop making other people’s emotional weather the reason I do or do not look after myself".

Water first. World second.

Humdinger1

Wonderful @scrooge2008. Poetry definitely has a huge role to play in defining the world and clearing debt. Thank you love Humdinger xx

Humdinger1

Just wondering how you are @scrooge2008? Looking forward to more poetry love Humdinger xx