"the hardest thing in this world is to live in it"
Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.
I’m taking a lot more pictures of the cats, of late. Sadly, I think it’s motivated by realization that Lunar is getting old…
Anyhow, more pictures are here, with a couple of snapshots:
(When he sleeps on me like this, he can, if he positions himself right, actually pin me down.)
(Yes, Lunar likes Whose Line is it Anyway? What can I say, a cat with taste…)
(Caught in the middle of a yawn,…)
I came across this entry, in a friend’s journal, from a little over five years ago, and I think it’s a beautiful example of why this friend is one of my favourite people, and someone I deeply love and admire. A few sentences have been deleted, to protect privacy.
I just had a weird thing happen … I remembered, for the first time in years, the one truly noble, selfless, completely unquestionable act of kindness that I performed.
It was years ago …I don’t remember the date, but I remember that I was going to see [someone] who I wasn’t dating yet. It was a cold, rainy night, and for some reason I was stopping in Bellevue on my way up to 520. As I pulled up to the intersection of NE 8th and the 405 offramp, I saw two kids standing there, huddling in the cold, trying to hitch a ride.
I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers, but this time, I just had the urge to. So I rolled down my window, and said “are you two hungry?” They were, so they got in my car and I drove them over to breakfast place that’s right there. I can’t even remember if it’s a Shari’s or a Denny’s – it’s one of those plastic yellow places where the food’s always consistently mediocre and it exists only for late night travelers and the walking wounded of 3 AM. But it wasn’t 3 AM. Heh.
ANd so I ordered food, and we started talking, and it turned out their dad had gotten arrested, and they were trying to get up to their mother’s house in Bellingham. Divorced parents, see. And their mother couldn’t drive down, so they were hitchhiking.
And I don’t know why I did this, but I got them fed, paid the tab, and drove them to the Grayhound terminal in Seattle. Bought them tickets, and sat there with ’em ’til they got on a bus. And after they were on the bus, I called their mother – having gotten the phone number from them – and told her her children were safe and on their way. And she sounded so grateful.
The only thing wrong with this is the statement that it’s the only unquestionably noble act of kindness my friend has done; I know this from personal and intimate experience. There have been numerous times where I’ve been on the receiving end of the kindness that comes from having such a large and generous heart.
A friend and I were chatting earlier this week during the TV show House, and I did a quick math count of the amount of pain medication I have floating around my own house, at the maximum (right after I’ve filled my prescriptions) and what I have on hand currently. I mostly did this to show that the numbers they were discussing on the show weren’t as high as they were implying.
Anyhow, it came up that I really have stopped talking about having and living with a chronic pain problem. I didn’t think this was true until I took the time to look through both journals, and yeah, I guess I have stopped talking about it. I suppose part of it is, really, what do I say? “Woke up this morning. Arm hurts. Got coffee. Dropped yet another mug, because at early’o’clock I can’t seem to remember to use my left arm…” I don’t want to turn myself into a victim, or a pitypoint. Yep, got a chronic pain problem, it’s irritating, it slows me down, next?
It has been implied, however, that this is just a way of holding it in and not dealing with it, or sharing and allowing those friendly towards me to be supportive. I’d argue, but I’ve been told that there are more of them than me, and I’ll lose.
I guess talking about it makes it real, and I don’t really want to make real the fact that things have been rough lately. I had a lot of writing and typing to do in the last week, which has made the general pain worse, and I seem to be having some new symptoms. I’m not certain if it’s related or not, but I’m having dissociation issues, where I can get comfortable, cross my arms or whatever, and a bit later I realize that I have no real sensation of my arms, especially my right one, existing. I can’t feel it under my left fingers, or feel my left arm under my right fingers. On top of that, which always causes a bit of a freak-out when I realize it’s happening, is the pin-pricks of upset nerves. It’s the whole tingling-when-waking-up feeling, racing up and down both arms.
Unfortunately, I suspect this might mean the problem is spreading. However, I am hoping that maybe there’s just some circulation issue going on, separate from the CRPS. I’m going to have my blood glucose checked again, too…
So that’s the health update in a vague nutshell. I’ll try to be a bit better about talking about it, but truth be told, I’m still feeling very self-conscious, knowing people actually read this. There’s the balance of information and privacy that I’m still wrestling with, and so far as the CRPS goes, I’m simply not certain how comfortable I am discussing it on any broad scale. I don’t want people seeing me as anything other than how I portray myself, and it’s hard to not feel like talking about the pain will undermine the portrayal that is out there.
I don’t often talk about my family; I’m not sure why this is. But I’ve noticed that when they do come up, someone’s always surprised to learn some detail or other – generally that I have younger siblings.
I was talking to my mother this evening, about my dad’s continuing job hunt. (Dad has been out of work since Honeywell acquired the company he worked for and laid almost everyone off.) She mentioned someone in Arizona having something to talk with Dad about, someone Dad laid off a little over a year ago. Mom was sort of surprised this former employee not only kept in contact with Dad, but had been doing his best to help however he could.
It didn’t surprise me, though, when Mom told me about the laying off of the employee. The guy contacted Dad a couple of days after being laid off (which Dad did over a nice lunch, making sure to have a good severance package with him) and told Dad thank you. Seem odd? Dad was being thanked for allowing the former employee to keep his dignity through the lay-off process. And that’s the kind of person my father is – he inspires deep loyalty in people because he’s kind, and treats people how he would want to be treated. Dad would never do anything to intentionally demean someone, or undermine their self-confidence and dignity.
I think one of the hardest parts of being laid off, and looking for a new job, has been the realization that people aren’t, at their core, nice – people haven’t been treating Dad as he treated those around him when he was the executive in charge, instead of the job hunter searching. And as much as my mother drilled social manners into me, my father taught me business manners – callbacks, thank you notes, consideration and politeness. Not getting those things is foreign to him; I guess in a lot of ways he’s in that last little era of people where business wasn’t cutthroat competition, and you treated your employees and vendors well because keeping employees happy was the best way to a longterm successful business.
There’s a good job opportunity right now, at a company that espouses the things Dad values. They have a high retention value, and most employees have been there a long time. They’re around his age, closeknit, and similarly tempered. He’s reaching the end of the interview process, and it all still looks good. I hope he gets it – both my baby sis and I have a good feeling about it, and I think Dad does, too. He just doesnt’t want to get his hopes up.
Dad being out of work has been hard on everyone, especially him. The fact that the three of us kids are grown adults doesn’t mean much to him; he still wants to provide for us, buy us things, fly us home, take care of us. Being out of work has made this harder for him. On top of that, like many men of his generation, who he is, is tied up in what he does.
If you’re so inclined, keep kind thoughts for my father in your prayers, meditations, or thoughts. There aren’t many people out there who can lay someone off, and in the process gain a loyal friend, and he deserves a change in fortune.
Posted over at the Women’s Bioethics Blog, a late night, insomnia-fueled post-election round-up of interesting, mostly pertaining to bioethics-y things, results. So, you know, the stuff that interests me, which probably explains why it took me nearly an hour to write it all. We won’t talk about the time I should have sunk into reading Heidegger that instead went into fact-checking that every Better Know a District congressional representative that appeared on The Colbert Report did indeed find themselves re-elected…