Elephant Bones

They say that elephants never forget. Having closer contact with elephants than the average person, I cannot attest to that myself with any certainty, having been unable to understand their thoughts completely. However, I find it intriguing that elephants in the wild are known to return to "elephant graveyards", even if they have never been there themselves in their lifetime, and to stroke the bones of the deceased with their trunks, perhaps reliving ancestral memories, or mourning the loss of a former beloved.

Now, naturally, they are trying to find scientific reasons for this phenomenon. http://www.animalliberationfront.com/News/2005_11/ElephantGraveyard.htm


I have been know to stroke the bones of memory myself, but commonly I forgot some details. Then something happens, like seeing a picture from the past, that jogs that memory, and the details come flooding back. Then I, like the elephant, remember everything.



Like for instance, a place in the picture I saw in my virtual world. It would be incongrous for the casual reader, but for me, it is a shock to the system, a visual reminder of a sweet moment in my lifetime. We were there, once, you and I, and under that waterfall you sang a song in my ear, a song that I have never been able to listen to since without my heart breaking, no breach in the wall that they put there it hasn't been able to pass through.
In that remembrance, history flows back uninvited and without warning. I remember everything about the weekend we spent there, starting with the beginning, with the book you read as you waited for me, a tire change in the rain on the side of the highway, the electic restaurant choice in Austin, even the rag I bought from the street pedaler down on Sixth Street. I remember making love under the stars on top of the vehicle when we finally arrived, and the words you murmured then that struck a chord in my soul. I remember stolen moments, such as a requested song on the guitar, the Patsy Cline tune that rolled across the lake from the tourist boat out on the water, the ham and cheese and croissants in the kitchen, the questions from the family, the boundaries crossed and uncrossed. I remember a walk outside at night, and how it struck me, that entity that lived and breathed around us, the realization that two people could create something that had a life of its own and was stronger than the individuals involved, that two could make One that was bigger and better, and almost palpable. I remember holding a hand as we drove, and looking over in disbelief that my hand was joined with one that belonged to such a marvelous creature, as you looked over and told me a story about an object made for me, a most beautiful object, and I could not believe that I could inspire one like you.
I remember getting lost on the way home, and ending up spending the night at another lake, holed up inside the car listening to cheesy love songs, and how we laughed at them and ourselves because they seem to be written for us, and how we made love during the night.

Oh yes, I remember everything. For years, I was tormented by those sweet memories. The torment caused a restlessness in my soul that I tried to soothe through various ways. I tried to fuck the memories out of my system, but the lovers were just a series of bandaids over a gushing artery. The relief was only temporary, and then I was back to the void inside.
I began to put a name on it, this terrible feeling of loss, and it almost became a living, breathing beast of a creature that lurked near my bed and inhabited my dreams at night. Life itself forced me to finally push those memories aside, for there was no other way to deal with them. It left an endelible mark on my soul, however, and will forever be a part of who I have become.


I think of the elephants I worked with, and my first exposure to the difference in free and protected contact. There was a "bad" elephant, who could only be worked with from behind bars and even then, only at a safe distance. She was prone to bursts of naughty behavior, which could be very dangerous as one would expect in an animal of her size. Even from behind the bars, one had to keep their distance. One time, the supervisor got too close, and was grabbed by this elephant's trunk and slammed against the bars, causing broken ribs.



One of the other keepers told me a little of her history. He had worked with her in the past, and then had returned to find her temperament and handling changed. He said that she used to be as friendly and trustworthy as the other elephant, whom was allowed to go on walks in the zoo, carry people on her back, and was handled freely and without fear by us. She had suffered badly at the hands of a mean keeper, though, in his absence. She never forgot, and it changed her inside. She developed nasty behaviors towards people, and could never be trusted again.
She never forgot how she was treated, and never really got over it, although she had learned to deal with it in some way. She did not show malicious behavior while I worked with her, but the threat was always under the surface, lurking, like the beast in my heart.

Although my memories are not maleovent like the elephant's in the story, they did keep me from being content in my life. For years, I ached from them, but time dulled the ages for a while, until I find myself in the elephant's graveyard of memories, stroking the bones and remembering the life they once possessed.

These bones, they hum Stone Roses.

OH GOD


Yesterday, one of my coworkers showed me this bill he had. At first look, it looked like it was a million dollar bill. When you looked at it closely, it had a religious message inscribed all along the margins. The message spoke of repentance. It denounced sin, and called for those who love God to reject all sin in their lives. After I read it, my coworker and I had an interesting conversation. I told him that I was suprised to see no mention of redemption in there, no mention that Jesus died on the cross so that our sins would be forgiven. I also mentioned that this seemed more like "the God of the Old Testament", the wrathful God. We talked about sin and forgiveness for a couple of minutes, and I told him my friend Michelle's perpective, which is that God is understanding, like in her case of her reading Harry Potter books, which to some fundamentalists would be considered sinful. However, I also reminded him that Jesus says in the Bible that the way to Heaven is to "love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself", and if we did that truly, there would be no sin in our hearts. He was laughing about the part on the bill that mentioned that any man who has lusted in his heart has committed adultery, and he was telling me how hard that was for men, basically that they lusted for women so much, that he frequently committed that sin.
I told him how I spend more time each week sinning than I do worshipping God, which was a wakeup call for me. And I confessed I had been sinning on the way to work that morning.
Oh God, I am in trouble.
Of course, I did not mention the part about what sin I was committing in my heart, and who it was directed at. I don't want it to become office gossip. However, this conversation coincided with another completely different topic of conversation that has been going on all week between another friend of mine and I. Maybe someday I will finish the blog piece about this subject, something I am writing about the "sin" that is in my heart. But I just can't help it.
Lord, that boy is fine.
Yep, that's what I said. This man, this sexy man I work with, I cannot help but admire. I have to watch him walk. Like that song abou the honkeydonkbedonkeydonk or whatever, I hate to see him go, but I love to watch him leave. When he walks past, there is the slowing of my stride, and the turning of the head, and the watching of the ass. Oh man.
So he has become the frequent visitor to my midnight fantasies. I wonder if Michelle's forgiving God understands that, I wonder how much closer to Hell I am getting when I get out my favorite toy, close my eyes, and pretend, imagine that I am dancing the lambada with him, rubbing up against his hard body, kissing his soft mouth, inviting him to my private places. The next day, I have a smile on my face when I see him, the smile holding the secret of the night before, and sometimes it has me feeling an intimacy with him that I don't really possess, and I am afraid I might betray my secret by leaning too close, smiling too much, lingering too much by his side as he works.
So all week I have been telling my friend Pegs about it, because man, I got it bad. I walk past him and get all weak in the knees. I touch my lips and wish my fingers were his mouth. I find excuses to hang out in his area and talk to him.
Only I don't, not really. I think I am going to talk to him, and I think of things to say, but in the end, I can't. I am a married woman. I am not looking to have an affair, am I? What is it that I really want from this?
At the same time, Pegs and I have been discussing the issues in my marriage, and I have been coming to terms with some of them, or making new decisions about how to handle them. I can see that my attraction for this man is really just a factor of my disillusionment with my husband. My longing for him is really a longing for the tenderness and compassion he exhibits with the animals in his care, and a wish to have someone treat me that well.
Then I walk by him again, and the thought comes. "God, he is so hot." And the fever goes straight to my brain and I forget that I am a kept woman, that I am a woman who is not as cute as she used to be, a woman fifty pounds heavier than she was in the days when she could get any man she wanted. The fact that I have a college degree and he can barely write english doesn't stop me from feeling inadequate near him. Nor does it stop me from imagining him and I locked in a naughty lovers' embrace.
And I wonder. What does God think about all of this? I think about how frequently he must hear his name, when in fact people are not addressing him at all. I suppose it is a function of the use of the word "God" in the American slang to mean a sort of a priori "so much". As in "OMG" and "God, look at that". Do you think God gave a pause at the conversation at the beginning of "Baby Got Back" - "Oh My God, Jenny, look at her butt." We use his name in vain so often, and you have to wonder how that affects his listening to prayers. When we pray, especially alone, it usually begins with us addressing him: "God, ....." So how does he differiate between when we are talking to him, or when we are just talking? How does "God, I want him bad" get transmitted differently than "God, I am so sorry I keep sinning. Please help me remain strong against this temptation, and know that I love you above all."? Because I am thinking them both with regularity this week, and it makes me feel...torn...and confused.
As confused as I am about what to do with this lust. In the olden days, myself would walk right up to that man, would flirt, would invite him out. Oh yeah, I was that brand of hussy, the one that asked men out if she wanted them, who made it clear she wanted them, who was bold enough to go after what she wanted. And what is it that I want, exactly? Oh yeah, I want to do him, and I think he is hot.
Really, though, he is not, not in the way society determines hot. There is another man who works here that I am sure most women would term "fine". That man has more of the classic qualities that the majority of women find attractive. I have been talking all week about taking my crush's picture so I can show him to Pegs, but then I thought about what makes him attractive and it is really more of what is on the inside. If you just looked at him, the first thing you might notice is a deep scar or burn running along one side of his face and disappearing into his shirt. Sometimes I wonder how long that scar runs, but oh that just makes me think of him with his shirt off and damn, here comes the lust again. He does wear his clothes well, neatly pressed and tucked in against a strong but fit body. There are these attractive qualities about the way he looks, but it is really the way he acts that makes him so gosh darn sexy. Like the way he kind of tilts his head and smiles when I walk by, a smile that starts on the lips but spreads to the eyes. His eyes shine with a brightness, a tenderness, and I know eyes like that would have to belong to a man who would not hurt me. Those eyes make you feel safe and loved and like everything is right with the world.
Oh God. That is one sexy man. And I am in big trouble.

I've Got You In...My Sights

This morning, they were playing "Hungry Eyes" on the radio when I walked by you. The words seemed to be exactly what I was feeling when I looked at you. I was imagining you and I intertwined in some dirty lamba. I stand by you in your crisp Chinos and pressed shirt and I feel so inadequate. Even though I have a college degree and I don't even know if you can spell my name, I feel like a fish out of water near you, like there is so much you could teach me. Your voice is like a river coursing through my heart. When I hear it, I am floating home. Your smile comes out through your eyes and it makes me warm inside.
Sometimes I feel so familiar with you because you are in my thoughts at night, and I think I might betray my fantasies by acting too casual with you. Yet I want to know you better. I want to take you to the zoo to the see the monkeys. I want to invite you over so you can meet my dogs as they press their cold noses into your palm. I want to ask if you want a drink and wonder if I am going to kiss you.

The Muddy Waters of Reflection
I was thinking this morning about my "romantic landscape", a favorite place for me to go, and I had some realizations, remembered some details I had forgotten about.
I had started out thinking about what God wants from us, and so I am not really sure how I ended up thinking about the Top Five Loves of My Life, but there I was. I think about the Top Five a lot, perhaps in the context of trying to understand how I got to where I am romantically.
Today I was thinking about the second and fourth "loves of my life". For reference, I will just call them "N" and "R". I had gotten to the point in my relationship with both of them where a decision had to be made about where it was going. You know, that precipice that we reach in serious, long term relationships where you have to decide whether this love that you have is going to lead you to marriage.
I suppose I was thinking about this because part of my mind was remembering an affectionate conversation I had with "N" last week. We have managed to stay friends over the years, because those things we had in common we still have, and then some. It is easy to stay friends with him because neither of us allows the past to be an issue in our friendship. Some people might have issues with our friendship, because there are people out there who think having this kind of relationship with an ex is dangerous, and even sometimes I have to draw boundaries with certain people. He is never a concern, not even for my husband, who encourages me to hang out with him, sometimes even pushing me out the door or to the phone to call him. He is not the least bit threatened by my relationship with "N", and all who know "N" understand why. "N" is just not the kind of guy who would ever make a pass for another man's woman.
Anyway, "N" and I were talking about the topic we dance around and never really discuss, which is our affection for each other. We had this moment where we were both being honest and open with each other, each of us saying "I will always love you" to each other. It was not like "so let's run off together", it was more like an open admission of the things we feel in our hearts, like that we will always remember that we had a great and powerful love, and even if our relationship became "something dishonest", as he said, underneath it all, there was always a great friendship, a great affinity for each other, and we will always have those feelings, and still both continue to think of each other as one of our best friends, as a long chapter in our respective lives, as a fond memory. In a way, it is poetic justice, because it has become like the song that we swore would always be ours: "Think of me, think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye/Remember me, once in a while, please promise that you'll try".
So that conversation was wrapped around another common thought of mine, that I could see myself with him in marriage, that we would actually probably have a better marriage than the one I have now.
That is kind of the frequent "romantic landscape" theme - hold each of them up, compare, imagine, how each relationship would have panned out in the end, and which of them might have held the most promise of happiness.
So then, why, you have to ask, why didn't I marry him, when it came down to it? Ah, back in the day, I had a list of a dozen reasons. After the years went by, I forgot those reasons, and only had one left, the one that keeps the boundary intact between us, the reason I can be friends with him - a sexual attraction issue. Oh sure, there was a time where I lusted for him, and there was a time where we fulfilled each other in that fashion. Even when it was supposed to be over, when we knew it was over, we still made love to each other frequently. We couldn't really ever stay out of each other's beds, even when we were committed to someone else. So it seems really strange to say that is the reason we did not stay together, and will not be together. There was a point, though, where I realized that he could never really satisfy me in that direction because of some preference issues, and maybe that was the reason I could never stay faithful to him, and so the line was drawn and so the line has stayed.
Today, though, in thinking about it, and comparing him to "R", and thinking about the time in my life where I was deciding between them and choose neither, I remembered some of the other reasons why I could not marry him. Ironically, I don't think they have anything to do with the original "Dozen Reasons". They have more to do with the actual ability to live with someone in a partnership.
He was a mess. Literally and figuratively. He came home at night and threw his dirty clothes in a heap on the floor, and in the morning he grabbed something off the heap and put it on. He and many others smoked in his room, ashing in soda cans, and sometimes they ashed in the one you were drinking and nobody realized until you got a mouthful. He was emotionally and mentally unstable. He couldn't hold down a job. He had some issues, and those who know him know why and sure it is a good reason, for a while at least, but it went on for way too long. He was unreliable. He would say he would meet you somewhere at some time and never show. He was always at least two hours late. He was a terrible person to be in a long distance relationship with, because you could never find him. No one ever knew where he was, or if they told you where they thought he was, it was always another reason to worry. He was in and out of mental hospitals, in and out of people's lives, including maybe some other women, in and out of school, in and out of his parent's house. In thinking back on it, it was a wonder we lasted as long as we did. Maybe that is a testament to how much we truly cared. He was a jellyfish, floating around life with no real ambition, direction, no plan for the future. How can you plan a future with someone who doesn't have a dream of it themselves? How can you know if your goals are compatible if they don't have any?
I always believed my relationship with "R" was reactionary. It was the complete opposite, and he was 180 degrees from "N". He was a good man. He was hard working, ambitious, reliable, dependable. We could have the same kind of intelligent conversations I had with "N", but we also had more passion, and he suited my preferences in the bedroom much better. He was like the man in all those romance novels; chivalrous, guarded but loyal once you got to his heart, noble, romantic, handsome. So why, you might ask, would someone give that up, or why would someone look at that one and say, "Oh, but I never would have been happy with that one"? Many women would have loved to be married to that man, I feel sure. Not me, though. When it came down to it, I knew I couldn't do it, could not marry him, because he did not possess the spirit of acceptance. He had high standards. I don't like to be boxed in. I have a great need for acceptance, and to live a life without judgement, without reservations. Acceptance is a double-edged sword, this I know, and maybe his high standards would have propelled me to be the best I could be. However, I would always be worried about losing his favor because of some deficiency, and I don't think I could live like that.
So, the question that always remains is, upon the retrospective romantic reminiscing, would I really have been better off with any of these men? Is the solution better than the problems?
All these years of thinking about it, and really no clear answers.

Questioning Happiness
So, to celebrate my birthday the other night, I met my best friend at a favorite Tex Mex restaurant. Oddly enough, I realized on the way there I had celebrated my 16th birthday there, albeit at a different location, which is exactly half the age I was turning now.
Anyway, afterwards a couple people asked me if had fun. Fun? Not really. It was fine, it was nice, but it wasn't really fun. It got too sad. At the end of the meal, she turned the conversation towards a tricky subject, the subject of my marriage. It really bothers her that I stay married to the man I am married to. Similar words, similar conversations I have with my other best friend as well. I understand what they are doing. They love me and they want me to be happy. They don't understand why I stay with a man who is so wrong for me. I wish I didn't have to talk about it with them all the time, though. It is a real drag and frankly sometimes I think it is really none of their business and not something they should tell me what to do about. I find myself constantly justifying the reasons I stay married with them, which have more to do with perceived need and children than any kind of real happiness or desire on my part. There was a time where I thought I didn't deserve happiness, but that is over. I know I deserve it, but I can't see just splitting up a family, taking my children's security away from them like that, robbing them of some happiness just because I want to be happy. It makes me uncomfortable when other women do that. Sure, I deserve to be happy, but does that entitle me to make pursuit of my happiness center stage, does my desire trump the needs of my children?
So, the conversation ended with my making two points. One, I have read a lot of books, memoirs, that describe relationships much worse. My friend questioned whether I would leave one of those men, either, but I know I would. That is the tough thing about my marriage, because it is all a fine line, a gray area. He doesn't hurt me, he takes care of my children, he just doesn't meet any of my needs. My second point was why does he have to satisfy my needs, that I am getting those needs met, just not through him. I am very careful not to do or feel anything that crosses that marital line, but I have other people that I rely on to fulfill my mental, emotional, spiritual needs, and my physical needs I take care of myself. I don't need him to fulfill these needs and I am okay without him. I just wish he was the one who was doing it, because yes, it would make my life with him more rewarding. Sure, sometimes I wish I could feel certain things in my marriage, like romance, like being wanted, like companionship. It is very lonely without those things. I have learned to live without, though, and I am fine.
But last night I had this dream. When I awoke, I realized that the dream was showing me another life, a life where my needs were being met, and I could see specifically what they were, what those things were I was missing. In my dream, I met up with someone I know. There was a band, and a woman in the band was dedicating a song to her dog that had died that afternoon (which was the preface of my dream, because I had been involved in trying to save her dog), and this man was crying soft tears over her loss. That to me shows tenderness and compassion. I long for tenderness. I am not treated with tenderness and really that is the way I need to be treated, because even though I act tough, inside I am frightened and scared. I sat by him and a movie came on, with Barbara Streisand no doubt, and I was leaning my head on his shoulder, and he held my hand, and we were talking and laughing about the movie, about an article that he had read, about the world in general. I felt true companionship and intellectual curiosity. That is something that I am lacking and that I long for. Afterward, we walked home, and when we got home, he kissed me. It was one of those powerful, passionate, knee-trembling kisses. I remembered what it was like to kiss like that, and it seemed like it had been so long for me, and I have missed it like a person in the desert longs for water at the horizon. Then he left, but I had been drinking out of some bottle of homemade port or something, and thought it would be funny to surprise him, so I wandered to his house and just kind of let myself in. I started feeling nervous, though, because I thought he would be mad if he saw me, so I had started to leave when he came out wearing some silly outfit with chaps that just made you laugh to look at it, and started playing some silly game with me, and we were laughing and chasing each other all up the block.
I tell my husband all the time we need to learn to have fun together, but there is rarely laughter in my relationship, no spontaneous fun. People have this perception that I am serious all the time, but really I have this very goofy, silly sense of humor that just needs to be tapped into to bring it out. The more comfortable I feel, the more amusing I can be, and when I am happy, I am just darn hilarious. It is ironic to me that people tell me all the time I am too serious and I need to laugh more, because I think about how I used the be "The Entertainment" when I was in school. My friends would bring me to parties and drive around with me just to hear the stuff coming out of my mouth and laugh.
So I woke up from this dream to a baby crying, and got back to my life of taking care of others, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I thought about the way I felt in the dream, and how I want those things for my life, I want it to be real.
Interestingly enough, I had another similar conversation the day after my birthday, while out geocaching with some girlfriends. There is apparently a hot studly single geocacher, and my friends have talked about introducing us before, and I know what they were up to. We had kind of a funny conversation yesterday, where I told one girl, Elisa, that we should come up with a way to introduce this guy to Becky, a friend with us who is single (and very attractive). She kind of talked around it for a minute, and then said "Actually, Keely, Rhonda and I were hoping to introduce him to you. We wanted to set you up with him." I said "Well, I understand that, but there is a little problem with that" and showed her my wedding ring. We all laughed, and then I told Becky that Elisa and Rhonda were trying to give me the hint that I needed to get rid of my husband. Becky said "oh, that seems to be the general consensus, doesn't it?" and they all laughed. I thought it was a bit funny because Elisa and Rhonda don't know the half of it, but Becky does. I have cried on Becky's shoulders a lot about my marriage. She was there for me during a time where things were really difficult. She never told me what to do. She only helped me deal with it emotionally. Anyway, while Becky and I were at a geocache, we talked about it some more, and I told her a little bit about the conversation I had with my best friend. Becky said she kind of agreed with my point about needs and happiness, that she feels that way and that is why she doesn't have a man in her life and isn't really seeking one, because she is able to fulfill her needs otherwise as well, and happiness is a little overrated anyway. "I mean, who is really ever truly happy anyway?" she asked.
I don't know the answer to that one.

A Well-Examined Life
I was thinking today, as I am prone to do, about certain people in my life, and how their lack of self-awareness has caused tension in our relationships. I will always stand by my conviction that introspection is key to understanding one's life, that a well-examined life is the only one worth living, that spending some time in honest self-exploration is time valuably spent.
Sometimes I have difficulties getting along with other women. I was thinking about two of those women today, one whom is a crucial element of my family and one who is an old friend. I was thinking about certain situations and trying to understand why they acted the way they did in that situation.
I suppose I was thinking about this because my birthday is coming up, and I had mentioned that maybe we would invite this old friend of mine to come celebrate it. I was thinking back on some birthdays I have celebrated with her. She has been a part of my life for over ten years, and at one point was my constant companion. However, the last time that she came out to celebrate my birthday with me, there was this incident. The only way I can see how things unraveled in the way they did is if she was talking about me behind my back when I went to the restroom. I thought about that, and questioned if I would ever do that to one of my friends. There are many things this girl does that I would never do to a friend. I have a little bit more loyalty, or maybe I just try not to ever hurt anyone, which is ironic in a way because later this girl told me that "everything you say and do is designed to hurt people's feelings", which is completely off base.
Anyway, while reflecting on what I know about this friend in an attempt to understand her motivations, I developed this hypothesis. My hypothesis is that when this girl is confronted with something that makes her uncomfortable, instead of internalizing it and trying to understand why it makes her uncomfortable, she immediately rejects it and says there must be something wrong with this thing, this thing that makes her feel bad. She attributes the way she feels to something about that thing (person, object, situation), and not to some inherent condition about herself.
This friend has been extremely competitive with me in the past. She was especially competitive with me for male attention back in the days when we were all single. She would get irritated if I would "win", and that would compell her to behave in ways that were completely obnoxious to me. I think that a little introspection, a little exploration of her feelings, would have led her to the conclusion that the little victory had nothing to do with her or with I, and was really not worth the tension in the house over it. It is like she would be bothered by me, without ever really trying to understand why it was and gain some acceptance of it.
Since I spend so much time with dogs, I try to relate everything back to them. My theory on her behavior reminds me of the warning against using a shock collar to train a dog to stop behaving aggressively. In dog behavior, especially these days, they talk a lot about "arousal levels", and warn that you should not use an aversive training technique (like a shock collar) on a highly aroused dog, or one that has potential for aggression, because it could backfire and make it worse.
As an example, say your dog is barking and lunging at the fenceline, behind which is another dog. Let's say you had a shock collar on him and you zapped him. The dog could erroneously come to the conclusion that the dog behind the fence caused the shock. It kind of makes sense, really...if every time you come close to this thing, you get zapped, then you might start thinking that that thing is what causes you to be zapped, if you are the dog. It would be hard, in fact, to make the leap that your behavior, in fact, caused the zap, and not the thing itself. It might be hard to understand that if you feel bad, that badness is coming from someplace inside of you, is internally motivated, and is not in fact caused by the external stimulus, even if that badness only comes in association with that stimulus.
So I guess I can understand that it could be hard for her to understand that if she feels bad around me, maybe that bad feeling is internally driven. Having known this person for a long time, I know she is more action-driven than thought-driven. She is not one to sit around and explore her feelings. I know that she has "issues" with my complicated romantic situations, that they never seem to fit her idea of what is right in the world, and usually that is the driving force behind her obnoxious behavior towards me. As a mutual friend said once, "she will never understand you, because she thinks only in black and white, and you are so many shades of gray."
I think, though, if she took some time to explore her inner world, it might make our relationship a lot easier. For instance, if she realized that what was bothering her was really these decisions I make with men, but that really it was my life, and it wasn't her decision, so she didn't need to necessarily have an opinion on it and respond to that opinion in a mean-spirited way, then it might really help us to get along.
Maybe that is what it is with the other woman I mentioned, too. If they would both just come to terms with the fact that my decision doesn't have to be their decision, too, and let me live my life without that kind of judgement, then we would all get along much better.
Can't we all just get along?

Remnants Remissed

For some odd reason, I felt compelled to tell this total stranger some key thing about my life. I found the urge very peculiar, but I liked what I had to say.

I traded horses for dogs a while back, mostly because dogs are more portable and more affordable. I wanted a horse my whole life, and so while I was growing up, I spent all my spare time with them. I took riding lessons from ages 5-17. I went to a Girl Scout camp every summer where I would get to ride, and when I was old enough I was a wrangler there, and later a horseback riding instructor in the summer. I studied them in college and worked with racehorses. I bought my own horse for myself when I was 21. I had him for five years and we had some great times. Selling him was a very difficult thing, and I still think about it with sadness. Oddly enough, I once had the occasion to speak to Sonya Fitzpatrick ("The Pet Psychic")about him about a year ago, due to my taking care of one of her pets at the emergency animal hospital. She helped me a lot.

I sometimes find it very odd, the snippets we choose to tell total strangers. The funny thing is this is not the first time I have talked about this very thing to other strangers. In my daily life, it does not come up much. Everyone knows I miss Bullseye but they figure I sort of got over it after a while.

What Sonya Fitzpatrick told me about this horse was this: That it was our fate to be seperated like that, everything happens for a reason, and even if he didn't have a better life, you were supposed to part with him. You or him, or maybe both of you, had learned what it was you were supposed to learn from each other.

What was that, that thing we learned, o horse of my heart?