Hey you! Yeah, you!

      I've been having this reoccurring dream lately.  It's a dream about someone I love that is no longer in my life, and it leaves me feeling as if I have just taken off my helmet in outer space.  Needless to say, I don't like it.  It makes me feel things that I'd rather not feel.  So why is this dream haunting me now?  My guess is, it's the holidays--the time of year when all the ghosts of Christmas' past come knocking at your door.
      Maybe you've lost someone you love too--a parent, a sibling, a friend.  Maybe you will be waking up on Christmas morning without your child.  Maybe your spouse left you for someone else.  Maybe you are sick, in financial strife.  Maybe you are an addict, or you are worried about someone who is.  Maybe your heart is utterly broken.  And during this time of year, when the expectation to be merry and bright, and all of the holiday cheer is too glaring in the face of your pain, it feels like a suffering of another kind.
      Guess what?  You are stronger than you think, you are loved, and you are not alone.  And I pray, to whatever God it is that made us the human, delicate, feeling creatures that we are, that you do not go to that dark place.  There is no one there to comfort you.  We are all here, standing in plain sight, fighting our own personal battles every single day.  Hey you, it's going to be okay. "The best way out, is always through."-Robert Frost

Being a Person is Hard

Being a person is hard, and life is pretty weird. Undoubtedly, we all fall somewhere in between this, one being: not very hard or weird at all, and ten being: I’d rather be a goldfish because nothing is hard or weird to them, they eat their own poop and don’t remember it, scale. For a while, I was a solid ten on this scale that I just made up. Everything was hard and weird, and being a goldfish would be much, much easier.

I used to get dizzy a lot. Really, really, all of a sudden, grip on to the nearest object and/or person and fall down anyway dizzy. It went on for a pretty long time before my boss ordered me to get my head checked. It wasn't good for business for his customers to be seeing an employee of his bumping into walls and clutching onto strangers lapels to steady themselves. Not good at all. So I took his advice and I saw a doctor.

After a thorough examination, the doctor told me that I had stones in my ears. I had no idea what that meant but I didn't ask any questions in case it was something really bad that I didn’t want to know about. So I half listened, half imagined my head as a busy little rock tumbler, polishing these ear stones into glittering little gems, and I said, “Ooooohhhhh. Yes, that makes sense.” He gave me medicine used to treat vertigo and sent me on my way.

The medication did nothing except make me break out in hives all over my face and neck. I was dizzy, itchy, and swollen. But life had to go on. I still had a job and a college night class to attend. Things got harder, and weirder. It felt as if I was living in a fun house, except there was nothing fun about it.

At school, I would gaze up the daunting four flights of stairs to my class and wonder how I would make it to the top without feeling like I was walking upside down, my stones floating around inside the darkness of my skull like little particles in space. Students brushed past me, shooting me sideways glances as I hung on for dear life to the railing like it was a rope dangling down the side of a concrete mountain. At any moment I could careen to my death if I didn’t give the climb my utmost concentration.

This problem was too much for me to deal with alone. I felt compelled to tell everyone passing me on the way up. “Don’t mind me; I have stones in my ears.” I was looking for compassion and understanding, neither of which I received. I told my professor that I needed the seat in the front, closest to the door, for the rest of the semester. That should anyone else sit there, he should tell them that it is reserved for another student. When he asked why, I told him that a situation may arise in class where the room will suddenly turn, I will fall out of my desk and have to army crawl my way out into the hallway where I may or may not regain my composure. That to save myself the energy and embarrassment, it would be better if this didn’t happen at the back of the class, where I would have to crawl past the feet of my peers. So that is what he did. He said, “Class, listen up! This seat is reserved for Sheleen for the rest of the semester.” No further questions.

Eventually, the dizzy spells subsided. I don’t know how or why. My follow up ear, nose, and throat doctor probably knows but I never went to that appointment because I felt it was too hard at the time. Which brings us back to that scale I made up earlier. Fortunately, for all of us, we have the ability to grow and learn, and we don’t have to stay where we fall on this scale. We can hop around. We get to choose where we want to be. Being a person is hard. But we can do hard things.

Moo Who

I don’t know that much about anything in particular.  But that’s not to say that I don’t think about everything all of the time.  Like, whenever I go to Tanner’s farm and I get some of their homemade ice cream, I go outside and I stare at the cows as I lick my ice cream cone.  They stand there and swat flies away with their tails like their not even thinking about it; like it’s just something their bodies got so used to doing.  Like a mother who stands in line at the grocery store and sways back and forth because she got so used to rocking her babies over the years and now she can’t help it.  But I look at the cows and I think about how my sweet, sticky treat was made from the milk inside their bodies and it makes me suddenly uncomfortable and grossed out and unable to make eye contact with them.  It’s the same kind of feeling like when you accidentally walk in on someone who is naked.  I feel like I need to apologize to the cows and walk away with my head down in shame. And I’m not sure why everyone comes out to look at the cows like I do, but everyone does.  They don’t do anything.  They might lie down and someone will nod and say, “Mhmm. Look, that cow just layed down.  It’s gonna rain.”  And I think that makes people feel smart, like they have a really good read on cows, and the weather.  Some people bring their kids, and they hoist them up to get a better look over the fence and they say, “Look, honey! Look at the cows!” But the cow is just standing there, blinking or eating grass, or thinking about lying down.  Some people make jokes too.  Like a father to his son, “Knock, knock. Who’s there? Moo. Moo who?  Moove over so I can see the cows!” And the cows lie down because that guy is an insufferable nerd and they feel sorry for his kid and they have heard just about all of the knock knock jokes that they can handle.  And it’s not like cows are the most majestic creatures either.  I don’t think that anyone is standing there absolutely captivated by their beauty like you might with a horse.  I could be okay with staring at a horse.  The cows just always look pissed off or depressed to me.  Maybe they don’t like us eating ice cream in front of them. Maybe they feel too much pressure to be entertaining to children. Maybe they don’t like being stared at. Maybe they don’t want to mislead us about the weather.  Maybe they just want to lie down because they’re tired or they’re just trying to change things up from standing.  Needless to say, I don’t go there anymore.  I don’t think I was getting the same kind of cathartic experience like everyone else.  So now I eat my ice cream at home like a decent human being.  And I do it for the cows.