#I built a little bridge over my moat that’s open on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and alternating Saturdays :D)

[artificial-condition]

Having a gap year was really great for me because it was the first time in my adult life that I was able to just sit with myself. Figure myself out. Work on myself. Even though I had been an adult for several years, I feel like I really matured in my year of nothing. I now feel much more firm in who I am, even with opposition; I have always been a big pushover, letting other people do whatever they wanted and letting my desires go to the side, but now I am much more likely to assert what I want and tell people no. I’ll just do and be without analyzing what others want or expect of me, and it’s so refreshing to let that go. People really do grow in the cracks

#my thoughts #I’ve worked on myself mentally #I feel like a fortress but not one with huge spikes and a dangerous moat to keep people out (like before when I was so afraid of people) #(because they could hurt me) #but instead I am like a fortress in that I am well built and stable and not easily knocked over #I built a little bridge over my moat that’s open on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and alternating Saturdays :D) #but also I’ve just really taken time to build habits like eating things (when I actually need to) that are sustaining #and got glasses for my eyesight to reduce headaches #finally went to the doctor and got migraine medication #went to the doctor TWICE MORE and tried different ones #made sure I got consistent sleep #learned how to balance productivity and fun so that I’m not wearing myself out to the point of dropping from exhaustion or a headache #I learned to listen to my body #I explored my sense of fashion!!!! which I didn’t think I cared too much about before!!! #(this was due to seeing fashion in the lens of my body not fitting into the things I liked therefore not thinking fashion was something for #me. but I pushed my boundaries and started wearing things that seemed fun ANYWAY and stopped caring about if it was *right* and #started thinking of it as a way to HAVE FUN and EXPRESS MYSELF) #(I *knew* that fashion was a form of self expression but I didn’t really get it until this past year.) #anyway. it’s been a good year in hindsight even though throughout it I had flashes of panic thinking I wasn’t going anywhere #but I grew in a different way sitting still than in the years I was *moving forward* #I’m ready to move now and I have new life skills to bring with me :)

[veryfineday]

Thursday 9 February 1832

8 1/4

12 10/..

N  N

called at 7 but sleepy or not inclined to get up - besides it felt very cold - rain in the night- fair and fineish, and Fahrenheit 46º at 8 20/.. in my room downstairs and breakfast at 9 25/..  fog coming on - not in a humour for walKing, as proposed last night, along the shore to Beachy head - gave up the thought - doubting even that the fog would allow of our going even per fly price 10/.[shillings] - 4 miles there - having determined to be cheerful and take no notice of last night  went in as if nothing had happened and we got on very well but neither of us took much breakfast -

the morning getting worse, and turning to rain soon after 10, we determined to leave our cold quarters as soon as we could (good enough sitting room very small bedrooms well cooKed beefsteaK and vegetables and good pudding, and bad Burton ale at dinner - bad breakfast -) - off from Eastbourne, a small straggling town, at 11 - very foggy for above an hour, so that could not see Beachyhead or the downs at all, and raining - about 1/2 way to Pevensey the small poor hamlet of Little common -

at 11 3/4 westham, a neat village, with good old gothic village church, and the great west entrance to Pevensey castle at the end of the village - the great east entrance opening into Pevensey, a small less good village than westham with smaller and less good church -

Just out of Pevensey turn left at 11 50/.. to Hurstmoncuex (pronounced and by the common people Hurst-mon-sus) the Lordship and estate of Godwin earl of Kent as appears by Doomsday booK - called 5 miles from Pevensey - rather worse road - pass thro’ little village at 12 20/.. -go too far beyond it (the postboy has never been there before) - turned bacK - then turned right thro’ a field or part of the park, terrible - no road - obliged to avoid the deep cart ruts and drive over the greensward and furrows - springs good to have borne it -

stopt at 12 3/4 and waited above 1/4 hour while the postboy went to the village and brought 2 men to open the gate - in vain - obliged to go round - raining fast all the while - very picturesque large old pile of bricK ruin - castellated house temporal Henry vi. - much of the interior taKen away about 20 years ago to build a modern house at the other end of the parK - 10 minutes in the ruin - dry-moated round - the bricK arches of the bridge over the moat (great (castle) entrance) still remains - this great gateway, a square flanKed by round towers, handsome - the wells here and there picturesquely covered with ivy - well worth seeing - said to be (vide Hastings guide page 70/106) ‘the largest and finest piece of bricK-worK in the Kingdom, for the time it has been built’ - But one should have a fine day, have the carriage in the village and walK thro’ the parK - 10 minutes in the castle and off bacK again at 1 1/4 -

at 2 35/.. stopt at Ninfield, good lone standing ale house to bait the horses - had a fire lighted, and sat talKing very comfortably till off again at 4, and home (10 miles) by Bexhill at 5 20/.. - 16 letters 10 came yesterday 6 this morning in answer to the advertisement - Lord Skelmersdale had called and miss wilbraham had called this morning and yesterday wondering not to be admitted - fancied miss H-[Hobart] ill, and had written a note to her and to me, liKe the one on Tuesday night about the boatman Roper, and going on the sea -

Came upstairs at 6 - dressed - wrote civil note to miss w-[wilbraham]  dinner at 7 10/.. in 1/2 hour - music - coffee at 8 1/2 - played and lost 2 hits at bacKgammon till 10 20/.. - then read from page 112 to 145 chapter 45 volume 8 Gibbon, and came upstairs at 11 1/4 - Fahrenheit 60º at 11 20/.. in my room - fair for the rest of the day from about 3 - rained from about 10 1/2 till then - tolerably fine morning at 8 1/4 when I got up - could see the downs, the Beachy head range, well enough - Fahrenheit 41º. at 12 5/.. in the balcony -

on getting into the carriage felt grave and more annoyed than I had done at breakfast  Miss H[obart] soon observed I was not sitting as usual  I turned this off looked out of the window or anywhere but at her  and from Pevensey to the village near Hurstmonceux  pretended to be asleep   when arrived there and she thought the carriage had not room to turn  she would get out  so let her I sitting still  this nonsense and altogether made me rather cross  she saw this and that while in the ruin all was not right 

we had just got out of the bad road into the high road again when our silence was broken  she said if aunt Lady Stuart  had been with her  she would not have got out and why said I di[d] you with me  I said it was sso silly it had made me cross with her for the first time in my life  she then said as if naturally and with some feeling she was ssorry she had done it  come said I that seems ssaid naturally and it satisfies me and my crossness is gone  but I congratulated myself on having been able to be cross with her  it was a good sign  I saw she did not quite relish this well said she we are so thoroughly unlike  we never can get on together but in a very common way this led to a talk much in our usual style  but I gently and dexterously qualified a little  and our mutual explanation ended in our being good friends by the time we stipt to bait  and it is nonsense to write more than that we went on comfortably the rest of the day 

I offered to read Gibbon to her while we stopped to bait but she said she would rather hear me talk  and I told her truths about her temper being naturally suspicious etc.  all which she took well  then told her one thing or other  that it was passible for regard to be more mental than she supposed  mentioning the story of Mrs Doctor Edward Alexander without name  having kept her husband to his promise of non intercourse    wrapped it up beautifully which Miss H[obart] always likes  and thus cozily we went on  she said she should never like the thought of Eastbourne  meaning that my being cross with her was a sign I was right in thinking how much it had helped me to be more rational perhaps too much so  for I would stand up for Eastbourne saying  its influence if not the moment agreeable had been wholesome - perhaps the fact is she likes me in spite of herself more than she thinks she does or wishes to do -

#anne lister code breaker #1832 #vere hobart