I find that this “f*ck cancer” phrase isn’t even powerful enough anymore.  It doesn’t hurt cancer.  It doesn’t kill it.  And it doesn’t make me feel better.  Cancer comes in so many forms with so many words, and sometimes people survive it, and sometimes they don’t.  Those are the facts.  And I am so tired of all of the different stories.  I’m happy for the ones that include words like “remission” and “survivor” and “cancer-free”, but they all still involve cancer to begin with and therefore, I think, a quiet, far-away fear that maybe it will come back.  There is a wonderfully insightful song by Melissa Etheridge called “I Run For Life” that well describes the scars, the haunting, and living as someone who has had cancer.

I went to high school with a guy who was always a really solid guy.  Good to know, someone you could count on, funny, honest.  He came from a good family, we went to the same church, and I don’t recall a bad thing I could say about any of them (the guy or his family).  I guess it’s fine if I say his name, because none of what I am going to say is a secret.  His name is Joel, and he met and married a super nice gal named Amy.  I never got to know Amy very well because we lived in different cities when they got married, and then they had kids – Joel is a couple of years older than me and I guess Amy is around that age, and their sons are close to the age of my nephew who is 10.  So, you know, we’re all grown up and busy and sometimes I would see them at church and my sister said Amy was FANTASTIC and I agreed that she seemed nice, and I knew Joel would only have married someone very nice, and I always liked seeing them twice a year when I went to church during a home visit.  We even scheduled a triple-date once with my sister and me and our spouses and Joel and Amy, but then life interfered and it never happened.

For as long as I can remember, Amy has had cancer.  Her CaringBridge site (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/amymadden/journal) was created in 2010 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, which – if I understand and recall correctly from reading the posts – metastasized, sometimes showed signs of improvement/steadiness, and has now spread to a point where they have decided that this young, lovely, mother of two, wife of my friend, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and friend of many, is not in a position to fight any more.  I hate writing it that way, as if she is a quitter.  She isn’t.  There’s nothing but fight in a woman who has so much to live for, and a woman who’s spent the last 9 years trying to live a full life with cancer inside of her.  I can only imagine (imagine all I’ve done since I read the post) what it’s like to (1) be diagnosed with cancer, (2) have a cancer you know won’t go away, and (3) be told the day has come where your successful treatment options have ended.  Today is the day you talk about hospice and – with more finality – about how long.  Today you look at your family, including those children you were meant to raise, and you know there are things you will leave unfinished.  How?  Why?

I was thinking tonight that one of the ways we honor those who are leaving us is to acknowledge all of these losses.  I will think about everything Amy should be able to do and cannot.  I will think about everything her children and husband should be able to do with her and cannot.  I will think about the milestones she will miss.  I will think how impossibly hard it must be to be a young child without a mother, and a father without the mother to his young children.

I don’t think God wills these things.  When people are healed, we say, “God is good!” and, “He answered our prayers!”  What do we say now?  That He denied us?  That He found some benefit in taking this precious life?  Absolutely not.  I know He is more powerful than cancer and I don’t know why this is happening…again.  I know that’s where faith comes in, but sometimes faith feels like letting a lot of stuff slide.  I know God knows we’re angry and hurt.  I know He understands.  I wish He could make me understand.

I hope you read Amy’s CaringBridge site and get to know her and Joel (the writer).  I hope you find a cure for all cancers.  But one of those is more realistic than the other, so please get to reading.

And pray, or send good vibes, or ask me where to send a card, or do whatever it is you like to do for people who are probably the saddest they have ever been at this moment.  (I’m referring to the Maddens, not me.  But that is not to say there aren’t some tears in my keyboard right now.)

Thank you, as always, for your love and reading.

The title of this blog is as much an update on the fact that the move hasn’t killed me as it is an update on the fact that Pete and I are still in the process of relocating.

We finished moving out of our little apartment in Asheville this past Tuesday and will be done paying for said apartment the day after tomorrow.  Score!  Score!  Being down to only one residence in this city is nice.  Being down to only one residence, period, will be even better.

The new job is going well, I think.  As much as I wanted out of law, a friend was right when she pointed out that the things I already know how to do are comforting while I figure out how to do everything else.  I think changing careers while relocating and consolidating households might have been too much.  I am learning new software, new kinds of law, a new office, new cases, and returning to a county I haven’t worked in for 14 years.  We are still packing the Charlotte apartment (and 2 storage units) and unpacking the new Asheville apartment, and Pete and I are adjusting to being home together more.  (I sure have enjoyed not making the Friday night commute to Asheville or waiting on Pete to get to Charlotte.  Tonight, I just came home and napped!)  I seem to get along with the folks at work, and I made one person laugh this week.  It’s a start!

I still miss my Charlotte people and places, and I will continue to miss them just like I have missed my Asheville people and places since I left here many years ago.  “Grief is the price you pay for loving someone” doesn’t just apply to death.  I am a person who loves people and makes lots of friends.  That leaves me with many people to miss.  And many blessings.

People will show you how much you matter to them.

This keeps occurring to me during my farewell tour from Charlotte. And it goes both ways, of course.  There are people I haven’t seen, and people who haven’t seen me.  There are people I’ve been in touch with and people I haven’t.  Sometimes it’s just life, and sometimes it’s a slight.  Sometimes it’s fluid perspective, not an indisputable fact about where the relationship actually stands.

I still feel inclined to explain (defend) myself when it comes to the move and job change, but I’m getting better about it. My therapist brought me some helium balloons last night to symbolize me being light and free, letting go.  I am confident in what I have done here – which is my absolute best.  The only thing I could have done better for some is to stay, and that was no longer an option I was willing to entertain.

One of the happiest and saddest things about moving is finding out how much you mean to people, and how much they mean to you. How much you will miss them and be missed.  I have been given hugs, kisses, gifts, cards, dinners, parties, offers to help move, promises to visit, offers of lodging when I visit my hometown…

I am confident enough to know that these people are enough for me, and I feel no voids left by the people who are scarcely aware that I’m moving on.

I haven’t felt this self-assured since I was in college, probably. But I think this self-assuredness is a lot more intelligent, experienced, and well-rounded than it was 20+ years ago.

I wouldn’t mind having that college body back, though. The wining and dining of this farewell tour added to decades of a sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits, and a middle-aged metabolism are looking awful in photos lately.

But improving my physical health is on the agenda for the “new life.” Stay tuned for my appearance in Sports Illustrated’s Average Woman’s Swimsuit Edition!

I spend more time lounging on the tiny balcony of my tiny apartment than I ever did on the patio in the back yard of our house.  I think Pete and I both agree that this is partially because our house was burglarized and they entered through the back yard, so I was always a little nervous that they – or some other “bad guys” – would come back while I was sitting out there by myself.  Another reason is probably also that I have more down time here (lots less to do in an apartment than a house), and I never tire of watching the traffic on 277.  It’s like my own private NASCAR.  And every once in a while, there is a pause in the traffic, which fascinates me.  One of the things I enjoy about living uptown is finding those non-citified moments: the ceasing of traffic (albeit brief) and the weekends when things close and gets a bit quieter.  Living in the suburbs, nothing ever really changed for me.  I drove an hour from work to home and the traffic was still there.  I didn’t find any retail or dining any better than what I just left behind in the office zip code.  The roads remained busy once I left the peace of my neighborhood, which I had to do to get gas, groceries, or food.  Moving uptown has been a tremendous, simplified blessing for me.

I had a vision when I moved here that I would write some kind of Carrie Bradshaw piece about how although my world seemed to have gotten smaller, it had actually gotten so much bigger.  Here is a sign from 277 that I can see from my balcony.  

My square footage is less, but I’m within walking distance of 2 major hospitals, restaurants, shops, my job…and I can hop on 277 and choose my own adventure, assuming it moves.

Now that I’ve sold you on my location, I am moving again.

I still hate moving.  I hate it because it’s a lot of work, but that’s just the easiest part to express and it’s probably at the bottom of the list.  I hate moving because moving means relationships will change.  Some of you in Charlotte who I love so dearly, I know I will see far less of.  (But please come visit!  We will have room for guests!)  I just watched a plane from my balcony and thought about how it was headed towards my old neighbor-friends in Steele Creek.  My sister said whenever she sees a plane where she lives (about 45 minutes from me), she likes knowing it’s headed towards me.   We all think of each other even if we aren’t blessed with the convenience of seeing each other without trying.

I am leaving a job that I would have had for 12 years come November 12th.  I am starting a new job on June 17th and I will instantly go from the girl who knows almost everything and works with people I care a great deal for to the girl who knows very little and hopes to care a great deal for these new people.  (And, I might add, I hope they eventually care a great deal for me.)  I also hope I can leave this job behind at the end of the day.  I’ve been told I can, but I acknowledge that part of the problem is me.  I am a control freak over-achiever.  Here’s hoping Asheville helps resurrect the “f*ck it” a good friend told me I need more of.

Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know . . .

Sometimes, I decide to write because words repeat in my head.  They seem to need to get out and be heard.  Today’s words are as follows:

Six years ago today – which happened to also be a Friday – I started my day having a mom and a dad and ended my day as a child with only one living parent.  It was a truly horrible day that suddenly seemed unavoidable.  Mom had cancer, she was on chemotherapy, she got a fever and went to the hospital as instructed, she came down with pneumonia, the pneumonia wouldn’t go away, and the doctors said they could not keep her on the life support as she was in ICU indefinitely.  We had to move her to a long-term vegetative care facility or take her off life support.  Dad, Jenny, and I agreed (and it was in her estate planning documents) that she would not want to be on the long-term support.  But it felt like murder to withdraw the machines keeping her alive and watch her try unsuccessfully to breathe on her own.  It is still one of the worst memories I have.  And I don’t think she ever could have done that to (for?) me.

I never went to chemotherapy with Mom, and I am surprised and disappointed by that.  It was her fourth battle with cancer and I really thought she would beat it like she always did.  Mom never met a stranger and I know I was working during her chemotherapy appointments, but if I had it to do over, I would have gone, at least once, to show her I understood what she was going through – that it was significant and unpleasant and a life-or-death battle.  I didn’t go because I didn’t understand.  Isn’t that silly?  I just really didn’t think she would die.  It was completely inconceivable to me until I heard “life support” and a doctor described how much oxygen she was relying on to breathe and how much pneumonia mucus was clogging her lungs.

Six years ago, my life changed forever.  It is not better.  I have recovered and strengthened and moved forward, but life will never be better without Mom.  The world will never be better without Betty Aileen Hood Lynn and the kindness and love that she took with her everywhere, to everyone.  I represent her as best I can.  I look more like her all the time, I still wear at least one dress that was hers, I send cards like a champion, and I still haven’t thrown away all of the things she accumulated.

She has no regrets.  She holds nothing against me.  That’s the beauty of where I believe she is, and it’s also who she was in life – not so much the lack of regrets, but the forgiveness.  I know she is reading this over my shoulder as I write it, hands on my shoulders, telling me it’s OK.  Because she always will be the best mom ever.

 

I long ago concluded that patience is a virtue I was not blessed with.  I don’t like waiting and I don’t like the unknown.  I watched the movie Secretary with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhal and understood that if being a submissive meant sitting at a desk for hours in the exact same position, even while waiting for the promise of my lover to return, that was not the lifestyle for me.  I don’t even think I could pose for a portrait.  What a loss for the world, me unable to model.

But sometimes life springs things on us that we instinctively realize are larger than our control, and we surrender, for to do anything else would make the situation worse and drive us mad.

Pete and I met with a physical therapist today.  Turns out she’s a doctor, too.  We found that on the printed physical therapy schedule we received as we left: 8 appointments over the next month.  I am eventually going to write these folks a letter of gratitude.  They first scheduled Pete for March 14th, which would have been the day before what is now his last scheduled PT appointment.  I told them that wasn’t workable.  He was bedridden, unable to work and drive and do basically anything.  They put us on a cancellation list and got us in today.  That’s a gift.

So is the ability to figure out that the inner ear is connected to the eyeball, and a bunch of other stuff we learned today.  Pete has right-beating nystagmus in his eyes.  He told me this, but I couldn’t see it with my untrained eyes, although I could feel it when he closed his eyes and I touched his eyelids.  The PT doctor and a doctor the other night saw it, and the PT doctor put some goggles on and we watched on a screen while Pete’s eyes darted repeatedly back and forth.  They are moving to the right – which is the direction Pete said he felt like the world was moving – to compensate for Pete’s left inner ear (vestibular) nerve being damaged by what the doctors all have suspected is an infection, maybe a virus, that’s long gone now so we can’t even kick its mean little ass.  The communication has been broken down and Pete’s ear thinks he is turning right, so his eyes keep looking to the right.

Pete is in the acute stage right now, and this is day 5.  He has work to do at home, such as trying not to take it too easy while also understanding the limits of the vertigo.  Today, he helped me carry groceries inside, which was no small task up a flight of stairs 3 separate times.  He then slept for hours – as did I, probably because I made so many trips to Asheville this week.  He is using his eyes more, but still has double vision, so he can feel them straining.  The nystagmus should heal by Monday (please, God) and the damaged ear nerve should also heal itself.  There are exercises that will send signals to help heal, and part of that is physical therapy twice a week for a month.  Physical therapy for an ear!  Pete should be fully back to normal within 4 to 6 weeks, which sounds like about the time when we planned to retire.  If that joke didn’t translate: 4 to 6 weeks sounds like forever when you aren’t working, not to mention the cabin fever setting in.  But I think at this point, we’re just wondering if God is moving in beautiful mysterious ways or trying to render us both unemployed in 2019.

From my own perspective, I know that I could not be as present and dedicated to Pete if I hadn’t already quit my job.  I would be significantly more preoccupied with what was going on back at the office.  But I’ve let go, to an extent.  Asheville, and Pete, are where I was headed . . . and I keep thinking that God is just trying to drive that home to me.  “Quit wondering if this was the right choice.  I will bring you up here several times a week until you quit asking.”  Heck, maybe this hellacious adventure leads me to a job somehow.

Pete, to his credit, has been a very good patient.  I thought he would be more resistant like my dad, but he has accepted the situation and grown to enjoy me driving him around.

NEVER.

Pete and I hate riding with each other.  Imagine riding with someone whose driving you hate and having vertigo.  Maybe it’s just going better because his eyes are closed.

But seriously, he has scarcely been curt with me at all, nor I with him.  Health crises put things in perspective.  The little bullshit you used to bicker about doesn’t matter so much when your spouse is ill, or when your spouse is caring for you while you’re ill.  Your primary focus is recovery and getting back to independence and whatever parts of your old normal life you want to resume – like working, driving, watching TV, unloading the dishwasher without taking a break, showering without fear of falling.

As Pete said today, this is good practice for when we’re older.

And I thank God that he has a condition that will be healed – not a “brain issue”, which was the other option.  I thank God that I can be here.  I thank God that we are receiving treatment.

I thank God.

Apparently a crippling illness is what it takes for my husband and I to finally spend Valentine’s Day together . . . and a few unexpected days earlier in the week.

As I’ve previously written, Pete and I have lived apart since 2012.  This past weekend, he sweetly suggested we have dinner out for Valentine’s Day while we were together.  He left for Asheville on Sunday as usual and all was fine.

He texted me Monday morning: “I think I’m sick.  Staying home.  Swimmy head.  Headache last night.  Kinda nauseous.  In waves.”  Sounded like the flu, which has attacked so many people we know lately.  I’d had a headache Saturday night, and we both mentioned being really tired, so I waited to see if I came down with it, too.

Monday afternoon, Pete actually called out his vertigo symptom and had a low fever.  He was afraid to drive with the vertigo, and I was regretful that I couldn’t take him, being down in Charlotte.

Tuesday, there was no change, and I had looked up Pete’s symptoms online and concluded he could have a brain tumor, among other things.  Of course the brain tumor option stood out to me because it killed my dad.  I said, “I can come up and take you to a doctor.”  Pete and I are both stubborn and independent.  I awaited the text reply where he would turn me down.  I think I was telling my friend at work that he would tell me no when Pete replied, “OK.”

I had a work call scheduled at noon.  Pete’s acceptance of my offer came at 10:27am.  That was a long couple of hours until I could get on the road.  When I entered our Asheville apartment, it was dark and Pete was in bed, a ceiling fan on to alleviate nausea side effects such as sweating.  Pete’s doctor couldn’t see him that day, so we went to a partnering clinic that mercifully accepted walk-ins.  Pete walked with his eyes closed down the stairs out of our apartment.  He lay the seat back in my car.  He didn’t enter the clinic until he had to.  He lay down as much as he could, eyes closed every possible minute.  They made him stand, sit, walk, do this, do that, and the doctor finally said that he has “true vertigo”, suspected to be peripheral (as opposed to central), cause undetermined.

Going through this, we have found several people who have had vertigo or known people who have had it.  Apparently, around 40% of people get it.  Pete’s description is that it’s like the drunk spins.  The world, the room, are moving.  His eyes feel like they’re moving, but they are perfectly still.  We could feel them pulsing at one point through his eyelids, but to look at them, they weren’t darting around like they felt they were to him.  Today is day three, and only tonight is he able to open his eyes for more than seconds at a time, following a visit to his primary doctor, a steroid injection, and two doses of an anti-nausea prescription he received yesterday at the walk-in clinic.

We haven’t held hands this much in 14 years.  Because he can’t open his eyes without the world moving, he walks unsteady and almost entirely unsighted.  I guide him when we go to doctors.  Inside the apartment, he holds onto walls, counters, etc.

Some of you have been through his with people you love.  I have, with my parents.  It’s different this time, because I believe the expectation is that Pete will recover.  And it’s different because he’s my spouse.  And it’s different because I’m not with him.  I’m so grateful I’ve been able to leave work and go be with him, and I’m so grateful we’ve already chosen to close the CLT-AVL gap in a few months so this won’t be an issue . . . and maybe God is using this to make that decision crystal clear for me, since I spend a portion of every day reciting my reasons why.

The fact is, nothing is guaranteed.  Pete, who is not known to miss work, will miss this entire week.  And while we hope that’s all, he’s 2 days into a 10-day medication that cancels the effects of the vertigo by somewhat knocking him out.  Another medication has a 30-day run.  We see a new doctor Friday (Blue Car, don’t fail me now!  I am burning up the roads this week.), and that establishment mentioned follow-up appointments.  How many?  How often?  When can he drive again?  How much work will he miss?  How much work will I miss to be there for him and take him where he needs to be?

I told Pete today: I am stressed, but I am not worried.  I’m stressed because I don’t have answers and I don’t like spontaneously missing work even if I have already given notice and tried to get my replacement in there well before this.  I’m not worried because I do believe Pete will recover, and because I know I am doing what I need to do.  When Mom got sick, I relied on Dad to accompany her to doctors’ visits.  When Dad got sick, I relied on my sister to be his caretaker.  It’s my turn now.  Pete is my spouse and my responsibility – not in a burdensome way, but in a way that I understand that with him is where I need to be.

Something like this knocks a lot of unimportant stuff out of the way.  I think I needed that.

But I also need Pete to get better.  Because we aren’t done doing things yet.

He posted on his own blog today.  I haven’t seen it show up yet, but if you are aware of his blog on his website, keep checking over there and I trust it will appear eventually.

I think I should sleep now.

Thanks for reading.

I think the time has finally come to be direct and tell you: I am moving back to Asheville.

Some of you already know because I have contemplated this decision with you, asked for advice, asked for support.  Some of you suspected because I hinted.  If you listened closely, my answers had changed when asked about my work situation and living apart from Pete.  Some of you may be completely surprised.  I certainly was surprised when I realized that I needed to make this change.

I previously lived in Asheville for only 5 years, where I made some wonderful friends that I still have.  Unfortunately, the cost of living in Asheville coupled with my inability at that time to earn a livable wage left me looking at maxed out credit cards, considering whether I could take on a third job, and searching for homes I could not afford, homes that would not appreciate, and/or homes I never could have maintained/repaired.  Instead, I came back to Charlotte, got a significant salary increase, and bought my first home quickly.  Having Mom & Dad nearby to show me the new-homeowner ropes was a HUGE bonus.

Those financial memories left me thinking Asheville would always be a nice place to visit, but never somewhere I would try to live again.  But I’m married now – not doing it on my own.  And I’m an established 40-something, not just getting started in my 20s.  Admittedly, I could have made some better decisions when I lived in Asheville the first time, such as not living alone in a 2BR apartment and eating out so much…but I tried to make more money, and short of working multiple jobs, it wasn’t happening for me.

I expect to earn less money in Asheville than I do presently.  I also expect not to damn near kill myself to get the job done, as I have often felt I do presently.  Frankly, I refuse to do that anymore.  I am rejecting that premise, that requirement, and that is part of my motivation towards this change.  In an earlier blog, I shared a post by a widow about how “big law” killed her husband, and I talked about how the decedent and I seemed to have some similar personality traits when it came to our work ethic.  I don’t blame my employer or our clients or opposing counsel or myself for the late hours and burdensome work load.  It seems to be par for the course in family law (and other kinds of law), and I am simply done with it.  I know my boss works late at night.  I know he works on vacation, days off, weekends, and holidays.  I know he has tried to avoid having me work when I was scheduled to be out of the office, or when I had a family emergency – and I truly appreciate that.  But sometimes, in this work, it’s just unavoidable.  And I’m tired of being unable to avoid it.  I’m tired of making plans with question marks.  I’m just…tired.  And in the last 11 years at this job, I have set standards I cannot change now just because I’ve decided I want to do less.

I have enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond.  Further, leaving something I know for what is presently completely unknown (specifically what kind of job do I want?) is very scary to me, and feels foolish.  I feel that God is guiding me into the next phase, but as always, I would appreciate more concrete assurances of my complete happiness and financial security.  I guess, “Living with your husband,” is a nice start for a plan.  Pete and I have been apart since he moved to Asheville for his job in 2012.  We tolerated it because we didn’t know how long it would last, and because I had a secure job that I enjoyed and Pete had his dream job.  I can’t justify being apart anymore when my job does not make me happy and when it sometimes interferes with the limited time Pete and I expect to have together.

I am excited to renew my friendships in Asheville and sad that I will see you guys in Charlotte less often.  I look forward to full weekends with my sister and nephews, who always ask if we’ll spend the night – now we will!  (I look forward to full weekends with Shawn, too, but I don’t think he’s ever been that invested in our sleepover plans.)  I hope to find a job where I thrive again, using my exceptional office skills and also finding some “creative” and “social” tasks as my therapist has deduced would benefit me, qualities that are lacking in my current work.

I am browsing jobs in/around Asheville, though it is too early to really do any active applying because I will be moving this summer when my lease ends.  If you hear of job openings you think may suit me, please let me know.  If you know any paralegals looking for work in/around Charlotte, I will be happy to talk to them, and I will be honest.  I am not leaving because I hate my job or because I dislike the firm.  I am leaving because a series of events in my life spawned changes within me that have rendered me incompatible with my current situation.  I have great affection for where I currently am, and I need to leave that job in good hands.  It is too important to be done by someone with one foot somewhere else.

Letting go has been a constant challenge for me.  I remember sitting in high school science class, ruminating on something (that is my therapist’s word, “ruminating”), when a classmate told me, “Let it go.”  I probably only remember that moment all of these years later (1) because I don’t let things go and (2) because it struck me at the time how insightful this guy was.  This classmate who was outwardly very different from me had actually accurately assessed something I was struggling with.  I have replayed that moment and said “Let it go,” in my mind many, many times in the decades since.

This thought comes to me today for a couple of reasons:

1. Some of my relationships are changing in ways that indicate they may not survive. Friends evolve, sometimes in different directions.  Partnerships that were once well-oiled machines start to have grinding gears.  People want conflicting things out of life and sometimes it means they no longer fit together like they once did.  This is painful and sad to me, but I am working on putting myself first and not sacrificing my time for things I don’t enjoy just to make other people happy.  Sometimes letting go is just letting things be and seeing how they progress, and sometimes it is making a deliberate change and saying, “I can’t be with you/be here anymore.”  Friendships and relationships in general should not feel like work.  This doesn’t mean they don’t require effort, but you should enjoy them.  If I find myself bemoaning time I have to spend with someone, that isn’t kind, and it isn’t healthy.  If I am always the one asking someone to spend time with me, always suggesting dates and never getting a response – I actually am getting a response, aren’t I?  LET IT GO.

And jobs – well, they have to pay you to show up, and one of the reasons why is that you may not always enjoy it.  Fine.  But if you find yourself being irritable because you can’t shake work after you leave, or constantly complaining about your job…if the fire is out and you can’t reignite it…if you find yourself looking for gratitude by comparing your job to Deadliest Jobs or Dirtiest Jobs or some other far-fetched scenario just so you can convince yourself your job could be worse (“At least my boss never locked me in his office from a secret button at his desk!”), it might be time for you to explore other options.

2. Some of my relationships have ended. A friend unfriended me on Facebook and while this may seem trivial (and often it is), this is a person I care about and I know that this unfriending signals something deeper than a desire not to see inane status updates.  I am considering reaching out to her off of Facebook, but why?  She made her choice.  And this is something else I am working on, something I have been dealing with way back into my dating days (or days of wishing I had someone to date): you cannot love someone enough for both of you.  If someone has chosen to exit my life, as much as it hurts, I suspect that is not my problem to fix.  I have had friends who quit speaking to me and would never tell me why, even though I asked – repeatedly – and apologized for whatever unknown thing I did to so grievously offend them.  That wounded me because it was so foreign to me, but later in life, I had relationships that I ended without explanation because I finally grew wise enough to understand that some people actually never listen to your words.  They only hear what suits them.  They only speak.  Perhaps, for my former friends who dumped me without a word, they felt we would never see eye to eye and it simply wasn’t worth the effort.  I don’t regret trying to apologize, because I cared.  But at some point, I had to let go, because they weren’t coming back.

I have some relationships that I was forced to end with fewer words than I would have liked because those relationships existed in a professional setting and I lacked some control about what I could say.  I was considering reaching out to one of those people and then I realized it’s been 8 years.  That seems really silly.  That seems like it might do more harm than good, sort of like if I ever find the ex-girlfriend of a guy I used to see and send her a letter of apology.  “Hey, I just want you to know I’m really not a bad person because I slept with your boyfriend.  See, I was crazy in love with him and also I was super young…”  A good response to that letter would probably be, “Hi, thanks for asking for forgiveness for this sin you committed 20 years ago.  That would have been the time to do right by me – not now.  Thanks for stirring up painful memories.  I’ve moved on.  Too bad you haven’t.”

LET GO.

It is very hard to be present when you are fixated on the past and worried about the future.  I know this, and I am trying to repair myself so I don’t sacrifice the gift of now for what I can’t change behind me and what’s unknown ahead of me.  I’m not sure how good I’m doing since I’m writing about these old memories, but since I have probably counseled myself into not reaching out to them, I guess I’m making a little progress.

Thanks for reading.

My friend Ross has completed a very touching series about pet euthanasia on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/rosstaylorphoto/?hl=en).  I’ve known Ross since junior high or high school.  He is an incredibly feeling person, and I can tell in reviewing these posts that he feels every emotion in the rooms where he is watching these animals pass and watching their human loved ones – including their veterinarian care providers – grieve.  He talked about the paw print people sometimes receive when an animal passes – Pete and I have one of those for our beloved Zenith, whom we lost in September 2016.  We were not blessed to be with Zenith when he left us, but we were fortunate enough to have a vet who was also a friend, and we were comforted that she could be the one to send him across the rainbow, or whatever the saying is.  It’s a peace and a closure I wish we had with our still-missing Julius – although I don’t wish for Julius to be dead.  I wish for someone to find him and contact me on moving day as I relocate into a house, because I would of course then go to him and he would return to us and we would make it up to him forever.

But I digress.

One of Ross’s posts mentioned a friend who said she was with her friend during her dog’s euthanasia because she couldn’t let her go through it alone, and I remembered that my mom had a dog (Buttons) who had cancer and she had decided to have him put to sleep rather than have him endure treatment.  She thought treatment would be frightening for him.  I don’t think it was going to cure him, and he wouldn’t know what was happening, and it would just prolong his life rather than improve it.  (That kind of reminds me of Dad in the end, too, now that I write it.)  I don’t think Mom asked me to go to the vet with her.  I think I volunteered, so that she would not be alone.  It was one of my rare Super Daughter moments.

When Mom died, I thought it was the first time I learned to be unafraid of the physical presence of death.  I thought I was sort of forced into it, because she died and we were by her side and wouldn’t have been anywhere else.  But in reality, it was animals who taught me how to handle death.  My friend Nicole’s cat who got hit by a car and I removed it from the street so she wouldn’t have to.  Countless pets I buried, some who returned from the grave thanks to other critters who didn’t know or care to leave them alone.  There was a cat whose exhumation I insisted on just to confirm it was my cat (I hadn’t been the one to find him dead), and then I reburied him.  (Bless that stranger who humored me in the pouring rain with that task.)  Buttons and my cat Schatten, whose medically induced passings I attended and whom I hope I helped comfort in their final moments.

And even before that, I remember what most would call an “inappropriate” conversation with my dad about embalming at my grandmother’s funeral.  He was just explaining to me why she didn’t feel like a regular person.  I don’t remember asking…I just remember him telling me about the embalming process.  And I appreciated it, because she was the first deceased person I ever remember seeing or touching.

There is a stark contrast between a deceased human and a deceased animal.  It is less expected in our normal lives to see “a dead body” outside of a funeral, but we see dead animals all the time.  The universal pain comes with the grief we feel when a person or an animal we love dies.  How we respond to a corpse or blood or vomit or poop – all of that varies from person to person and from situation to situation.  I know parents who gag at bodily excrement.  I don’t think I mind any of it, but I also have a poor sense of smell.  I’ve been puked on, peed on, pooped on, bled on, and died on.  I don’t “mind” any of it – although obviously my preference would be for every living being to be alive and healthy.  I think I should have been a nurse, but God didn’t give me the math and science smarts, so I guess that isn’t where He wanted me.  I’m a helper, though.

I am comfortable in an office.  It is easy (usually).

But I am also comfortable with sickness and death – which is not easy for everyone.  Is this a calling?

How do I know?

Where do I go?