This Land Is Our Land

This morning I began painting our living room. We chose a color called Kira Caramel, which is a neutral beige color that I think is sort of the color of butter. It’s so good to get rid of the dark blue walls! While I like to paint rooms different colors, I most generally prefer warm, subtle colors that make a room feel light and airy. Colors that are considered “cool” (like blue) or that are too dark tend to depress my spirits. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a person is said to be “blue” when they are depressed.

The newly painted walls are looking good, but I ran out of paint about late afternoon. It takes a lot of paint to cover up the blue. I will finish when we get another gallon. After I finish the living room, I will paint the kitchen, which we decided to paint Sunbeam Glow, which is a warm yellow color. Then we can put in new flooring. We wanted to get the painting done before the floor so that we don’t get paint splatters on the new flooring.

After I put away my supplies, Danny and I walked down the driveway and then back up. We walked rather than ran because it was too humid and hot today. Neither one of us had the energy to run.

I was puttering around, cleaning the kitchen and putting some stuff away when I glanced out my kitchen window and saw the doe with two fawns. Awwww. They were so adorable! I grabbed my camera and started videoing them, of course. If I keep seeing sights like this, I am going to have to get a better camera.

I love our property! We really feel as if this place is a gift from God, a place of natural beauty and quietness where we can get a break from the chronic stress we have been under for so long and renew our spirits.

One matter of concern is that from the moment one friend saw our property, he has talked about bringing his friends (whom we’ve never met) to stay at our place so they can go snowmobiling, etc. At first he wanted them all to stay in our house, but when EJ said that we have no guest rooms (our third bedroom is our library, which is stuffed with books) and we don’t want strangers in our house, he said they’d stay in tents in our yard, and then he talked about asking a local campground if they had an abandoned RV that he could bring up and keep at our place. The RV seems to imply that him and his buddies staying here would be a regular occurrence rather than a one-time event.

This makes me feel that the friend doesn’t care so much about visiting us as he does about using our property as his private retreat, his base camp, to invite his friends to whenever he wanted to. And that causes EJ and me anxiety because using our land in such away is not our plans.

One thing I resolved is that when we moved to the Enchanted Forest I would set healthy boundaries and not allow anyone to disregard them. This is important because victims of Narcissistic abuse often find it difficult to set boundaries. Narcissists are like invaders who disrespect and ignore boundaries, sweeping in to force their demands on others. Victims are not allowed to be separate people, to say “no,” to set limits, to have their own opinions or possessions, and so on, and in the process their confidence and identities are destroyed. So victims often struggle to say “No” and this opens the door to others coming in to take advantage of them. Learning to set healthy boundaries–to make a distinction between “me” and “you” and “mine” and “yours”–is important to healthy relationships. I have been working on strengthening my boundaries, and I have been making progress, and I have resolved that I would continue to set healthy boundaries here in the North.

EJ and I discussed that our boundaries in this case is that as much as we love and value our friends, we did not make all these changes, and take all these risks, and make so many sacrifices, and work so hard to buy this property for our friends. Our friends are not co-owners of our property and neither are we in a co-op or time-share with them with us all having equal rights to the property. We are not managing a public campground, a semi-private retreat, a hotel, a Bed & Breakfast, or a deer/fishing/snowmobiling base camp. We bought this property for us. This is not our seasonal vacation property, this is our home and our land and we want it to be peaceful and quiet and enjoyable, a place where we can de-stress, recover from abuse and cancer battles, relax, and enjoy life. We all desperately need this beautiful, quiet place to rest. The thought of having strangers camped outside our door fills me with anxiety.

It might seem selfish of us, but if we can’t say “no” we could soon lose control of our own land. While we would genuinely enjoy occasional visits from friends, we have no intention of becoming Bed & Breakfast hosts or campground directors of any sort. We don’t want strangers staying here or RVs permanently parked here. If a friend is looking for a “base camp” to enjoy fun activities with his buddies, I’m sorry, but they all need to rent a cabin together or buy their own vacation property. We bought this property for us, not for it to turn into a private campground for others.

And that is my very first boundary in the Enchanted Forest.