Category Archives: acceptance

acceptance, Mindfulness, personal

Professor Tiger Lilly

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tigerlilly1fence

This is Tiger Lilly.

She came into my life when she appeared on a coworker’s carport; she was so tiny that  she fit, not just in my hands, but within the length of just the finger part of my hands. Not even as big as my palm.

I always feel the push-pull when I see a tiny animal: I really, really want to take it in; I really, really can’t take any more animals. At this point, I had three geriatric cats and my super-duper dog.

This was well before Jitterbug flew the coop.

I had three cats; I didn’t want to take another one in.

But she had a bobbed tail.

A couple of years before this, one of the supervisors at work had a pair of white bob-tails.  I’m pretty sure I “squeed” (which I try, at all costs, to avoid) when I learned this. “I want one,” I told her.  “I’m keeping them,” she told me.

So that was that.

But then I learned that she gave them to a kid with cancer.

I couldn’t be mad at her for giving them to a kid with cancer!  But I was. Just a little bit. I’m not proud of it.

I made a rule: I would not get another cat unless it was a bob-tail.

There’s something about them.  I like things that defy expectations and stereotypes. Things a little bit different.

So when a coworker came to me and said, “I heard you’ll take in cats,” I said, “No, no, no.”  I was firm. I was steadfast. I was absolute.

But then I saw it: this tiny, skinny thing covered in shit. I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. It was tiny and helpless and dirty, and I’d like to think I was well on my way to remaining a bastion of resolve. There was another lady who loved cats; I could find it a home with her.

But then I put it on my chest, shit and all, and it started purring immediately. I ran my fingers from its tiny head down its bony spine to discover it had a tiny stump of a tail.

And whatever backbone I had, whatever decisions I had made logically were out so far out the window, they had already flown to South America for the winter. My decisions were probably drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.

Whatever resolve I had mustered disintegrated like teeth on methotrexate.

And so it came home with me, and it so teen-niney, I had to check out a YouTube to see how to determine the sex.

There’s a joke here about the NSA or the cops checking my computer history, but I’m not quite capable of reaching it.

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acceptance, adaptation, RA

I Got It

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You know what Honey Badgers Don't Give?

You know what honey badgers don’t give?

It’ s a bit frightening to see a three year old with the attitude, spunk, foot stomping, and mad manipulation skills that took me nearly 19 years or so to master.

I fear for her parents.

She and her brother are like the sun and moon–I’m just not sure which is which.  She–the younger by 2 years–is blonde and fluffy; he’s dark and slender.  Their physical attributes are the least of their dissimilarities.

While the boy craves approval, and, thus, rarely actively misbehaves, the girl is a three-year-old honey badger with curls.  Approval isn’t something she strives for, instead, it is something she bestows upon those around her if the mood so hits her.

Despite these differences, despite their sibling squabbles, it is so evident that they love each other, very, very much.  If one falls down, the other is right there, even in the middle of having a hissy-fit, to pat the other on the back and say, “It’s all right, Bubba,” or “It’s all right, Boo.”

They hug. They dance. They fight.

They are amazing.

Two of the girl’s favorite phrases are “No” and “I got it.”

“I want” ranks pretty high up on the list, too.

We’ll ask her to get her shoes; we’ll say to someone else, “I’m going to get a glass of tea.”

If it involves getting something, she’s all about it, assuming her mood is amenable. “I got it.”

When she doesn’t want to share, the answer, if not the tone is the same. “I got it.”

When she’s really pissy, she has a mantra: “I got it, I got it, I got it.”

Continue reading I Got It →

acceptance

Moving In and Moving On

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Well, the move-in is on pause, as is the sense of accomplishment.

I had figured out the issue, or, at least corrected it so that I could begin transitioning over to lyricalfool.com, only to get an email that my website had been “infected.” Apparently, someone(s) had inserted malicious code so that folks could find themselves with viruses should they click on any links.

I, knowing absolutely nothing about code, am having to sit on it until I can get assistance. They’ve shut it down for now, which will at least keep it from infecting other people.

So there’s that.

The past three weeks or so have been a single run-on sentence of utter frustration, with my hitting the peak (or so I hope) yesterday as I dragged myself down the hall to the bathroom. (Picture: every single Vietnam movie where armed boys are crawling on their knees and elbows through the jungle, minus the boy part and the gun part and the fearing for my life part.)

Sometimes, so many things go wrong in a finite period of time that it seems ludicrous, as slapstick as Three Stooges. Sometimes I can’t see the slapstick of it until it’s passed, lost in the whirling maelstrom of stupid shit going wrong, and the sheer frustration of the inability to change or fix anything.

But other days, such as yesterday, I can laugh in the middle of it, as I did yesterday, pushing myself down the hall on my elbows and knees, thankful that I had replaced my original carpeting (OUCH) with laminate flooring. I can laugh because, once someone sees you at your most exposed (literally) and vulnerable, there is no going back from that.

I wasn’t humiliated, exactly; not even particularly embarrassed.  Just…exposed. Vulnerable.

In the catalog of embarrassing moments in my life, like breaking down in tears in front of a professor, my mother discovering on my wedding day that I had a nipple ring, being so drunk when I was an early 20-something that I a) passed out in front of my bedroom door, blocking anyone who could help me and b) lost my glasses ON MY FACE, and so on and so forth, this should have topped them all, embarrassment-wise.

I mean, really. It really, really should have.

But it didn’t.

And, while I can’t quite figure out the why of that lack of embarrassment, I’m grateful for it, and the fact that I got through it laughing.

That’s something.

And, as for today, I can move. I can walk. I can work, so I’m moving on down the line.

That’s something, too.

acceptance, adaptation, RA, Rheumatoid

Looking for the Next Right Action

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RemytheRARAte

Remy from Ratatouille, or, as I like to call him, Remy the RA Rat (Bastard).

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -Joseph Campbell

This is my starting point: Joseph Campbell. You might think it’d be easier to let go of the “live we have planned,” if in fact, you didn’t have one very planned at all. I have found that this is not exactly the case.

I am sitting on my porch, the rain on pause, at least temporarily, like prison guards on break, allowing the mosquitoes to break free from their larval lockup and wreak all sorts of vampiric havoc on woman and beast alike. Indian music is undulating in henna and saris, emanating just beyond the northeast corner of my yard.

That’s something you don’t hear every day in Southern Mississippi.

It’s a whole new world.

When I had “a maybe diagnosis,” I was okay. I was surprisingly accepting, and I found myself thinking, “I got this.” Life is all about adaptation, and I was up for the challenge. There was a space between what I was experiencing and the possibility of a label, some ocean of unknowing that I was comfortable in, that I could tread with no expectation. I had some good days and some bad, and some really, really good days, and some pretty bad ones.

But I was adapting.

The past couple days, I’ve been lost. It’s too soon for me to be pessimistic; and I’m not really pessimistic so much as just…stumbling.

I have a picture of this little mouse that probably looks a lot like Remy from Ratatouille, moving around the inside of my body is ruining tissue like power cords, his little teeth gnawing and shredding everything in sight. Today, he’s in my hip, running in circles with bits of black plastic flying over his head. I can type, and I can walk, but I can’t sit down or stand up. Yesterday was in my hands, his teeth scraping against the nerves, not doing any damage exactly, not causing any swelling, but setting every bone in my hands and wrists on fire.

I need to take away his matches.

Tomorrow, Remy may be napping, or decide to take a vacation to Belize and have a layover in my ankles.

That’s the thing about this rat, he’s more indecisive than I am.

I’m messing with my WordPress, trying to find something that suits me, and I haven’t quite found it yet. I thought I knew WordPress, but judging by my success rate on my own domain, I know very little indeed.

The point is: life isn’t about to change. It is changing. Every day, every hour. Walter White knew what was up:

You see, technically, chemistry is the study of matter, but I prefer to see it as the study of change: Electrons change their energy levels. Molecules change their bonds. Elements combine and change into compounds. But that’s all of life, right? It’s the constant, it’s the cycle. It’s solution, dissolution. Just over and over and over. It is growth, then decay, then transformation. It is fascinating, really.

(Breaking Bad, 1.1 “Pilot”)

I’m stuck, right now, looking for the next right thing, the next right action. Tomorrow will be better, whether Remy is partying down south or hanging with Mike in Belize. I just have to find that next right action, that next right step. Any step, maybe.

In the meantime, I think I’ll play some Koko Taylor on repeat.

acceptance, addiction, love, mental illness

Relapse and Resurrection: The Fall and Rise of the Addicted and Mentally Ill

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How perfect for Easter Sunday: Please–if you have addiction or mental illness, if you have a friend or family member who suffers from addiction or mental illness, if you work in mental health or are just open to seeing the world through new eyes–READ THIS.

There is hope. Recovery is possible. Some of the most brilliant people I know have addictions and mental illness. It doesn’t change the fact that they are awesome people. Their behavior may be terrible; I am not discounting the distance that may be needed in loving them from afar, but they are people, and fall within the category of “one another” whom Christ commanded His followers to love.

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:34