Healing

It wasn't my intention to take a break from blogging, but around the time of February and March I didn't really feel like I had much more to say, which is a shame because I had been regularly writing since 2004. My life was settling down post move and I had entered an almost hermetic phase full of introspection and self reflection -- the kind that doesn't make for the best writing. In addition to thinking a lot about career goals and starting a new blog and twitter account to support some of my freelance work, I was having big thoughts about life, death, and the sort of psychic baggage I've been carrying around.

Again, not the sort of self involved, pretentious prattle anyone wants to read about.

Standing on the edge of the proverbial rabbit hole, I dove headlong into the dark with the intent to release past traumas and heal any fragments of my psyche. I read books on chakra clearing, listened to sound therapy music, and meditated. It was a pretty intense past few months with equal parts strange dreams and epiphanies. I felt the release that only comes with deep self examination. Through this I came to peace -- or rather a maturation -- with a lot of big issues in my life, specifically my dysfunctional relationship with my mother.

My healing work had to happened at the time that it did because on Sunday I found out my mother is sick and it may be cancer. Although I'm still in shock, I'm coming to realize that my process with this news would have been totally different had I learned this just a few months ago.

On June 8, 1997, my mother wrote in her diary that it was the day that she lost her daughter.

On June 6, 2010, my mother told me that she had been seeing an oncologist and hematologist for the last few months. There will be tests on her bone marrow. While doctors are not sure what is making her sick, she wanted me to know so I could prepare for whatever the future brings.

On June 8, 2010, I ordered my mother flowers and told her that I loved her.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the reoccurrence of this date in our lives shows me that there are no coincidences. We can now, after thirteen years and a life time of dissonance, start to heal our relationship.



Here's my mom, caught in a cell phone picture, with the flowers I sent to her at work. She said they made her cry. Hopefully in a good way!

"Speaking from experience ... you know it's not just ONE mouse, right?"

For those who are squeamish or cried at Bambi or keep mice at pets (quelle horreur!), you may want to skip this post. Okay? Okay.

Let us rewind to last week.

Ms. K and I discovered, much to our dismay, that we had a mouse. Unfortunately the burden fell to me to take care of our little visitor, and by "take care of" I don't mean cater to his every whim, but ensure that he would have the least painful death possible. (Before you squeal and post links to no-kill mouse traps in the comments section, I will remind you that you can get meningitis from mouse droppings and die.)

To make a long story short, I purchased some newfangled snap traps from the hardware, baited them with peanut butter, and went to bed with fingers crossed. Lo and behold it worked, having discovered a dead mouse in the trap the next morning.

Ms. K and I rejoiced! It was safe to go into the kitchen again! I felt a surge of something that I can only explain as primordial hunter pride. (Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I killed a little mouse. But it is a disease vector! I win!)

But before I could rest on my laurels, I discovered another mouse in the kitchen. And I saw it scurry behind the stove, it's little tail wriggling out of view.

Shit! It had a friend! I may or may not have shrieked.

For the next day I stalked that mouse. I followed its trail, figured which point it was using to access the counter top, and created a funnel in which to direct it towards the snap trap.

In short, it worked. (I'm purposely glazing over the part of the story where the mouse doesn't die right away and it was up to me to put it out of its misery. With a cast iron pan.)

Over a week later and no more mice.

To rid yourself of any unpleasant imagery, I leave you all with the life and death of DJ Roomba.

"Maybe we should move again?"

Shit, dudes. We got ourselves a mouse in the new house. And not some cute talking mouse that secretly makes you delicious French dinners, but a disease spreading creature that poops on kitchen countertops and God knows what else.

When we moved into the apartment and I inspected the nooks and crannies of my new home, I suspiciously found steel wool in the strangest of places -- as in the radiators, linen closet, and the door jams. I remember wondering why some weirdo previous tenant had left steel wool everywhere?

Oh right, to prevent mice from entering small cracks in the walls. Duh! Too bad I threw some it away, which may or may not have contributed to our new houseguest's arrival.

Ms. K is not taking the news very well and since I'm the bug killer in the relationship, my duties now extend to mouse removal. Unfortunately for her, I'm at work and she's having to face the mouse hunt on her own while sending me panicked updates via email.

"Honey! You have to fix it!"

"I am afraid of that bad thing! OMG. I do not like this! Also, it
puts a dent in my cleaning plans!"

"Honey, I feel like you are not being the appropriate amount of
alarmed/ upset about this!"

"I need him to go away now!"

This will be fun to deal with when I get home tonight!

"I love you so much."

The whole addendum or coda or whatever you want to call it to the Deborah incident is that she texted Ms. K on New Year's Eve to say that she loves her so much. This text came while Ms. K and I were sharing a New Year's Eve dinner at Applewood, leaving both of us rather perplexed.

"She can't possibly love me!" Ms. K said as she showed me her cellphone in the middle of our five course dinner. "Maybe she meant this for someone else?"

Maybe.

On advice from me and a friend of hers, Ms. K ignored the text. It had to have been meant for someone else.

Except that Deborah was acting weird at work when they finally did see each other. Ms. K pulled her aside and asked what was wrong. After some evasion, Deborah confessed that she was jealous.

Jealous? Seriously? Jealous of me, jealous of Ms. K's close friendship with another person (that's another long story). Why do I feel like I'm in high school again? And I don't even work with Deborah.

"I'm not sure what gave you the impression otherwise," Ms. K clarified, "but I don't cheat on Rouge."

I hope this is the final words I write on this because it's all very immature.