Saving Lives

Years ago, someone saved my life. No he didn't push me out of the way of a careening bus or anything. But I was a sucker for him straight away. He had this lovely long strawberry blond hair that would make Robert Redford jealous. And green eyes that were the most amazing color, like new aspen leaves in spring. That's how he got to me, with the strawberry blond hair and the big eyes. I fell for him not long after I met him.

He claimed he was lost. Somehow he'd lost his way, his family had disappeared, he was all alone in the world. I believed him of course. I found out years later from his former family that in reality he was a habitual liar when it suited him, but I never held that against him. He did what he had to do. Ultimately he did what he was supposed to do in this world; he saved my life. I think he was born to be at the right place at the right time and it was all somehow planned. Whether he knew that or not I was never able to get out of him, but I'm convinced of it.

See, a lot of our conversations were one sided. I talked and he either listened contentedly or ignored me, depending. I never took it personally when he ignored me. He was attuned to a higher calling, he was listening for more important things than the sound of my voice most days. He was closer to God or the Gods or the universal spirit than I. He had a wisdom about him that was both ethereal and ageless and at the same time very down to earth and to the point. I never knew which point of view I was going to get from him on a given day. He could be brutally frank in his assesments sometimes. Many is the day I wanted to kick his butt across the room because he was being a stubborn SOB, but I never did. In the end I'd just take several deep breaths, curse the Gods and then trusted that he knew what he was doing. How someone could be both of the Gods and a royal fucking pain in the ass at the same time is one of the mysteries of the boy. He was unique.

Those of you who've met him probably know who I'm talking about by now. Cinny showed up at a time and place in my life where I needed to move on, literally, but I didn't know how. He was the most unaffected, happy go lucky, sweethearted individual I'd ever met. How anyone could dislike him I will never understand. He was ten pounds of pure personality with the sunniest disposition of any cat I've ever known. But my oldest sister took an immediate disliking to him. This is not surprising given her sour personality. I guess it was like nails on a blackboard to her to see a creature so happy and positive bounding around the place.

I was living with both my sisters when he showed up. When I was young I used to wonder if I'd ever be free of my family. I was afraid I'd die in that house I'd grown up in, that I'd never find the strength to leave or never be allowed to leave. After my mother and then my father died still I couldn't leave; I was too afraid I think, too convinced that I couldn't survive on my own. Growing up in an abusive family like mine you come to believe you're somehow fatalty flawed, fated to live and die in a cage. I didn't think I'd ever escape that house. I wasn't welcome or wanted there, but I didn't know how to survive out there either. I grew up in some inbetween place, some no man's land where there was just me, unwanted and unconnected to the family that brought me into this world and ill equiped to live in the real world that I didn't understand and that didn't understand me.

So along came this cat. I'm a sucker for soft and cute I will admit, but more than that he was so determinedly happy. He had done nothing to anyone and shown nothing but love to total strangers without qualification. My oldest sister didn't want to keep him. We argued about it, it was two against one but that didn't much matter. One day while I was at work she took him to the pound. When I came home that day and he didn't come running up to me I instantly knew why. I sprang him the next day and took him to live with a friend while I started looking for an apartment that took cats. He spent a month living with a friend who had just had knee surgery and couldn't walk. He spent most of that month camped out in her lap purring. Once again he was where he was supposed to be. The kid had a knack for being at the right place at the right time.

I moved out and took him with me. He was my best friend for a lot of years. I will never forget the time he decided to play in the christmas tree with his housemate and got caught up in the bead garland. He paniced and ran down the hall with garland wound around his neck. When I came out of the bedroom to see what all the noise was about he tried his best to look nonchalant with bead garland wrapped around his neck and trailing out behind him, the other end still attached to the tree. "Do, what do you mean what did I do?" I still laugh when I think about that look on his face. Like I said before, the boy was a habitual liar, no doubt.

He saved me and gave me my life. Without him the last 12 years would have been very different, if I even would have survived it all. I owed him big time.

I let him go today. He was unhappy and in pain with a half dozen physical problems. He told me last night, in his own way, that he'd had enough so I set him free this morning. He saved my life and the best I could do for him was set him free. It somehow doesn't seem like it's enough for someone who gave me so much.

Leaving the Parking Lot

Well truely, this just sucks. How does that Hiatt line go? "You think you come so far, in this one horse town, and she's laughing that crazy laugh because you haven't left the parking lot."


I have gray hair. I'm 46. A few grays is inevitable. I don't have a few, I have lots. I let the hair go too long between dye jobs and took a good look today. I'd say I'm about half gray now. *insert inconsolable crying here* I'm only 46 and I have gray hair and I'm entering menopause. I'm not enough of a writer to convey the grief I feel. And yes, I have the mood swings to go with all this. I'm starting to think that my mood swings have mood swings.


Life is indeed a journey. I know this. I've taken comfort for several years from knowing I'll live to grow old. Long story, but I know I have a relatively long life in this world ahead of me. I do believe that change is life and it's all part of the process and I embrace the process. I do. Really. I do. SHUT UP, I DO!


So why is it so hard right now? Why am I having such a hard time with it? I'm not afraid of dying some day. I haven't been afraid of death for quite some time. It's not death that scares me. I think I have trouble shaking this feeling that I had other options and I regret not taking them. And that's nonsense. I'm here for a reason, for a purpose, and obviously that purpose was never to be stunningly gorgeous and thin and wealthy. Yeah. My reasons for being though seem too far outside what this physical world believes are the reasons for living. They're convinced it's about being rich or beautiful or whatever amazing thing is in this week. How does that old line go "He who dies with the most toys wins." I know better. That's just a cover in the end for why we're really here; to learn and grow. The toys and the looks and the celebrity are carrots to keep you breathing.


See I know all this. I think I've come so far. But then I spot the gray hair enmass and none of that matters. Have I even left the parking lot? I had or am having, you can never tell with forums, a discussion with some other Pagans about definitions. The word spirituality came up. I defined spirituality as the part of me connected to a greater whole, the part that is not physical of this physical world body. I am both. I am physical and I am spiritual. But am I really? See, there's the buggy little thing about it; who really knows? I mean I assume because spiritual beliefs have played such a big part in the evolution of the human race that there just must be something to it. Right?

You can never be 100% sure can you? Once you die the truth whatever it might be will become obvious, but you can't know before that second can you? On the other hand what does it really hurt to believe you are as much a spiritual being of soul and energy as you are a physical body? What's the harm in believeing? Wait for it . . . because then the "dies with the most toys" people will be right if you are wrong. There is no lesson, there is no God to stand before, there is no Summerland, there is no eternal soul. It was really all just about the toys.

This one is right up there with pancakes or french toast with your eggs, ya know?

Underwater

That's what it feels like these days; that I'm underwater, struggling to make it to the surface and breath again. Drawing that breath, that simple single breath that would be so lovely, that would mean life.

There is no constant state of bliss here, or even acceptance or in fact any kind of even, consistent existence; an even calm breathing in and out. It's like I spend all my time and energy trying to create that; trying to get to the surface and breath again. Part of that is merely living, I know that. We spend a good part of each day recreating or lives in one way or another wanting tomorrow to be better, happier, stronger. But it's more than that. It seems that each step forward I take knocks me backwards two steps in ways I couldn't anticipate.

Give you an example. I bought a treadmill about four months ago. I used to be a runner, doing two or three miles a day when I was in my twenties and I loved it. I have no illusions about running again; I don't think me knees will allow it. But I had hoped to do some fast walking on the treadmill, timing myself, pacing myself and building endurance and muscle. See that was what started this; endurance. I weed wacked the yard. By the time I got done I was seriously winded and exhausted. I decided that 46 was not supposed to feel like that. What I now understand is that it wasn't just being out of shape that did it, it was more than that. But I bought the treadmill hoping to regain some endurance and seriously thought it was as easy as that to do. For many people it may indeed be that easy. But after almost 20 months my body has still not recovered from Celiacs and a hemoglobin of 7 and vitamin and mineral deficiencies and all that comes with this disorder.

I can't just go out and recreate my body. My body can't stand the strain just yet. And I'm frustrated because maybe it never will. Maybe this is as good as life will ever get. No one knows how completely I can recover, not the doctors, not me, no one. I've built up some endurance and some additional muscle. I can weed wack the yard without passing out. Yes, it's better than it was after four months of working out. But with that has come pain, very slow recovery, tendinitis and a plateau I can't get off.

Every time I think I understand the depths of this disease, the reach it has into my life, my past, my future I realize I've misjudged it yet again. I thought I would simply get better and better and that was how I would progress. But perhaps there is a limit to what I can do in the future. I hate limitations. It's one thing to not want to do this or that. For a long while there I didn't want to power walk or run. It never entered my mind for years. But now that I want it I've found I can't just have it if I work hard and behave myself. That idea that you can have anything you want if you try hard enough has it's limitations. I hate limitations. I can't work out more than three or four times a week or my body is incredibly sore and just getting out bed in the morning is hard. Forty six isn't supposed to feel like this, but apparently forth six with Celiac Disease is. My vitamin and mineral levels are still low. And I'm still weeding out allergies and intolerances. Okay, I'm also still trying to accept that I have allergies and food intolerances. But hey, you try avoiding corn and see how far you get!