Well, my kitty-cat has been found. Bijou, the light of my life, is home. Disgruntled, because she can't go out yet. I keep telling her "Soon, my sweet", and she glares at me. But the memory of her recent foray into the wilds of NDG haunts both of us, so she's not nearly so put-out as she makes out!
And I am beginning to believe in the miraculous once more. I mean, face it - how many times have YOU heard of cats actually making it home alive in an urban environment? "The Cat Came Back" is a horrible song about a shocking case of animal abuse, and it depicts a situation so far from the truth it's ridiculous.
But I digress...
While my heart was broken and I was busy sobbing about the loss of my kitty, and along with it, the loss of my marriage, home, parents, etc etc etc, I chanced to wail into Hubby's ear, "Why oh why didn't I just keep her inside? Why didn't I just stick with the leash?"
Surprisingly, Hubby came back with a very gentle and understanding answer.
"You hate limits," he said quietly. "On anything. You've always had a problem with limits."
And what food for thought that was.
I always thought Love knew no limits. I discovered over the past five years that it does. Because we're human. I still love Hubby very much, and he still loves me. But we each have our own personal limits we are not prepared to compromise, limits neither of us can "get over". These aren't arbitrary or stubborn decisions we've made in order to get our own way. These are fundamental aspects of our personalities that are simply irreconcilable, much to our dismay. We have each asked the other to keep to certain limits, and neither of us can meet the other's expectations.
We didn't know this when we started out. Either love was in truth blind, or there are some things you simply have to live through in order to understand your own preferences. In order to know what your own limits are. Nobody can see this kind of stuff coming - we are all, at one time or another, blindsided by life's experiences.
I recently participated in a research project. It was easy, I answered an online questionnaire and had a telephone interview. The student doing the research kindly sent me a copy of the thesis, and I was shocked to find out I was the only one of all the people interviewed who insisted on choosing my own pseudonym.
At the time the interviewer asked me whether I wanted to choose my own pseudonym or whether I'd let her choose one for me, I thought in the back of my mind "Who on earth would let anyone choose a name for them?!" and I said, "I have my own pseudonym."
But when I read that I was the ONLY ONE, it gave me pause for quite a few thoughts.
Just how hard-to-get-along-with am I, for goddsake?!
Maybe everybody else has been right, my whole life long! Maybe it has been ME....
Maybe my marriage failed because I was uncompromising. Didn't feel like it, but then, who among us is capable of that kind of objectivity in such an intimate setting?
Maybe I just am stubborn, argumentative, unyielding, difficult.
"You've always had a problem with limits," Hubby had said to me, and I realized, yes I have. I don't respect any limits that I don't personally agree with. Fortunately for me, speed limits, laws, most customs fall in that range.
But I have been a bit of a non-conformist, for all that. I guess it's the creative side poking through the holes in my reasoning. I did make up my mind quite some time ago to "Laugh, Live, Love" or something like that. I tend to find myself outside the mainstream of public opinion or behavioural norms most of the time. I've gotten used to being something of an outsider. To getting in trouble at work. I need to understand WHY. And if you can't make me understand, I've got no use for your rule.
No, I don't like limits.
And Bijou, my sweet kitty, is a good example of that. She was SO HAPPY, playing in the grass outside. Doing that thing that young cats do, that I call "teleporting", a cross between a jump and a hop. attacking one bug after another, oblivious to the rest of the world around her. She wiggled out of her harness and proved to me she would come home. Only then, one night, she didn't.
She was gone for six full days. I felt like I'd been cut in half. I couldn't do anything. I'd wander around, just missing her. And bemoaning the fact that I let her out. Why did I let her out?
Because I knew she loved being outside.
Why didn't I keep her on a leash?
Because I thought she could find her way, because I don't like leashes either. Because cats like to be free - as free to come and go as we are, in fact. It's not for nothing they end up being poked and studied in labs. Their brains work an awful lot like ours. We don't like being held captive, and neither do they. We don't like being commanded to do things, neither do they. And we love to be outside on a nice sunny day, just like them.
I didn't want to put limits on my cat. I associated it with putting limits on my love for her. And I want to love without limits.
Well, I am putting limits on her, for now. For now, no going outside on her own for a couple of weeks. Harness and leash, and boy, will they be tight!
And gradually I'll let her ago again, after she's become very familiar with our new home. Right now though, I have to protect her from her own inexperience. I must impose limits on her, to keep her safe, long enough for her to be able to find her own way.
And one day, there will be no more limits.
And it's the same way with our children. And our partners. We can't just dive in assuming we'll be able to swim, to navigate treacherous waters. I dove in, in my recently-broken marriage, and so did Hubby. And we made a pretty good go of it, for fourteen years. I don't look on that time as a failure. Lots of it was great fun. It wasn't all sad.
But with 20/20 hindsight, we might not have married had we taken the time to experience the beginning stages of a relationship, had we moved a little slower. We didn't, we were a couple of love-struck fools, and we rushed in where angels fear to tread, yada yada yada... With 20/20 hindsight, we might have found the points where our hard limits clashed, had we given ourselves a little more time before moving in together, becoming a blended family overnight. It might have made it a little easier on both of us, and on the children.
Well, you can't tell young couples anything, can you? We were in love, we weren't thinking. Had we "put on the brakes" - had we even TOUCHED the brakes - we might just have been able to overcome our difficulties differently, and maybe we wouldn't have spent 14 years together, or maybe we'd be spending 50....
But there is no turning back the clock. And that's a hard limit.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Sob
Bijou, my new kitty, disappeared sometime after nine pm on the 19th of May, two whole nights ago, an eternity for me.
She was all I had left.
She was all I had left.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
It's been a busy month...
Gawd, I never want to move again...
I know, in a few years, I'll forget the pain. But just now, my left ankle, both knees, right wrist and neck are all singing in unison:
"Are You NUTS??!!" is the tune, one I don't particularly care for...
I discovered yesterday that I've been cleaning windows incorrectly all my life. My girlfriend K came over to help me, and was shocked at the system I'd set up. She shook her head violently, said "No... No. Come with me." And proceeded to teach me how to wash windows.
See, you don't scrape the dead fauna from the slots in aluminum windows with a screwdriver, onto the floor.
Now remember, my mother never got a chance to bring me up - so don't blame her. And as a kid, if my grandparents cleaned the windows, I was at school.
What you apparently do is take the windows to the bathroom, put a towel inside the tub so you don't scrape the tub, and use HOT water and a BRUSH to evict the inhabitants and their nests from the crevices of the windows! And you then use a scouring pad to get the dinginess off the frames, and finally clean the window and screens, and you rinse like crazy. Then you dry.
And it takes about six hours to do the job, so get a good night's sleep the night before and eat your Wheaties.
Well, the next thing I learned is just how much gunk can accumulate at the bottom of your everyday hot water heater. People - LISTEN UP: You're supposed to DRAIN these things at least once a year! That way, the silt on the bottom doesn't build up. To a depth of FOUR INCHES, which is what Hubby scraped out of the bottom of mine yesterday! He used a hollow piece of pipe to scrape as much as he could, dumping it into a garbage bag, which he gave to the landlord - along with with the admonition that perhaps Mr. M. should look at HIS heater soon!
Yeesh.
Yesterday was not the most pleasant day, weather-wise, in the world. It rained, it was cold. Because all the windows were out, we had a visit from a neighbourhood cat, a big orange tabby with a surprisingly tiny head compared to his girth, and an exceedingly pleasant personality. He played with a twist-tie all afternoon. In between being chased by Bijou, my own Tortoise Shell baby cat. Bijou did eventually get on with her nap, which left Mr. Orange free to play with his twist tie in peace. (When it stopped raining though, I did give him an encouraging shove back out the window.)
But by far the best event that happened yesterday was the installation of the washing machine.
See, when I woke up yesterday, I surveyed my laundry basked with great sorrow. My jeans were in it. I couldn't wear my jeans to do all this work in. (It's PRETTY BAD if your jeans are too dirty to wash windows in.)
If I'd been able to wear my jeans, I could have looked reasonably normal while doing all this work. But all I had to wear was a pair of black yoga pants I'd made myself about ten years ago, and a black stretchy top. With my ... "ample" ... figure, I looked like a particularly lumpy potato sack. To add to my misery, Mr. M had to drain the hot water tank first thing in the morning in order to get ready for Hubby to replace the burnt-out bottom element. Now, that hadn't sounded so bad the day before when he told me, fresh from my shower. But as the day wore on and I heaved and carried and scrubbed and dried, in my progressively damper and damper stretch clothes, I began to not like myself very much. In actual fact, I wanted to crawl into the laundry basket with my jeans and cry.
Because there's ALWAYS a setback - don't you know? It's in the rules!
The first setback was the bolts on the hot water tank were stripped, and a trip to the hardware store was required. The second setback was the staggering amount of gunk at the bottom of the tank. So the day had been far too long for all of us.
Since all my laundry stuff was still at the old apartment, Beautiful Daughter came over with laundry soap, spray'n'wash, and lavender & sandalwood scented fabric softener for me. I wept and kissed her feet. Then the magic happened - my first load of laundry. Daughter had also brought a dollar-store clothesline for me, and we experimented with it till we found a pretty good arrangement. In no time my apartment was hung with towels, socks, underwear, and, (thankfully) my jeans.
I closed the windows, turned the heat on, dragged the dehumidifier out of the closet, and did a second, and a third load.
Since I have no furniture to absorb sound waves, the dehumidifier makes a terrific roar. I was obliged to turn it off so I could sleep last night, but it's back in business this morning. I estimate that by 7 pm tonight the jeans should be wearable.
Right now, my apartment is just like a scene from "The Honeymooners", minus curlers for my hair and Ralph threatening to send me to the moon. This was not my vision of what my life would be like at 51, when I was 20! This was not what I thought my life would be like in February, when I first left my ancestral home to strike out on my own once again.
"On my own."! THAT'S a laugh! Hubby hasn't had to work so hard to help me in years! The washing machine that was installed yesterday, and the dryer that is coming in two weeks, are both on loan from a Girlfriend. Other Girlfriends are donating their time, energy, money, and expertise to buy me stuff I need, help me get organized and clean, feed me from time to time, stopping me from sobbing into my cups each night. Even strangers and new neighbours are being kind to me - one lady mentioning she saw my cat under a certain set of stairs, one man bringing said cat to my door, another chatting me up. I'm beginning to wonder just HOW bad I look from an outsider's point of view!
All of this kindness has caused me to wonder, are any of us ever really "on our own?" Because, if I had REALLY been so, I'm not sure how bad it would have looked. Thank you everyone for calling, lifting, scrubbing, fixing, shopping, cooking, lending... even just smiling at me. It makes a difference. A big one.
I know, in a few years, I'll forget the pain. But just now, my left ankle, both knees, right wrist and neck are all singing in unison:
"Are You NUTS??!!" is the tune, one I don't particularly care for...
I discovered yesterday that I've been cleaning windows incorrectly all my life. My girlfriend K came over to help me, and was shocked at the system I'd set up. She shook her head violently, said "No... No. Come with me." And proceeded to teach me how to wash windows.
See, you don't scrape the dead fauna from the slots in aluminum windows with a screwdriver, onto the floor.
Now remember, my mother never got a chance to bring me up - so don't blame her. And as a kid, if my grandparents cleaned the windows, I was at school.
What you apparently do is take the windows to the bathroom, put a towel inside the tub so you don't scrape the tub, and use HOT water and a BRUSH to evict the inhabitants and their nests from the crevices of the windows! And you then use a scouring pad to get the dinginess off the frames, and finally clean the window and screens, and you rinse like crazy. Then you dry.
And it takes about six hours to do the job, so get a good night's sleep the night before and eat your Wheaties.
Well, the next thing I learned is just how much gunk can accumulate at the bottom of your everyday hot water heater. People - LISTEN UP: You're supposed to DRAIN these things at least once a year! That way, the silt on the bottom doesn't build up. To a depth of FOUR INCHES, which is what Hubby scraped out of the bottom of mine yesterday! He used a hollow piece of pipe to scrape as much as he could, dumping it into a garbage bag, which he gave to the landlord - along with with the admonition that perhaps Mr. M. should look at HIS heater soon!
Yeesh.
Yesterday was not the most pleasant day, weather-wise, in the world. It rained, it was cold. Because all the windows were out, we had a visit from a neighbourhood cat, a big orange tabby with a surprisingly tiny head compared to his girth, and an exceedingly pleasant personality. He played with a twist-tie all afternoon. In between being chased by Bijou, my own Tortoise Shell baby cat. Bijou did eventually get on with her nap, which left Mr. Orange free to play with his twist tie in peace. (When it stopped raining though, I did give him an encouraging shove back out the window.)
But by far the best event that happened yesterday was the installation of the washing machine.
See, when I woke up yesterday, I surveyed my laundry basked with great sorrow. My jeans were in it. I couldn't wear my jeans to do all this work in. (It's PRETTY BAD if your jeans are too dirty to wash windows in.)
If I'd been able to wear my jeans, I could have looked reasonably normal while doing all this work. But all I had to wear was a pair of black yoga pants I'd made myself about ten years ago, and a black stretchy top. With my ... "ample" ... figure, I looked like a particularly lumpy potato sack. To add to my misery, Mr. M had to drain the hot water tank first thing in the morning in order to get ready for Hubby to replace the burnt-out bottom element. Now, that hadn't sounded so bad the day before when he told me, fresh from my shower. But as the day wore on and I heaved and carried and scrubbed and dried, in my progressively damper and damper stretch clothes, I began to not like myself very much. In actual fact, I wanted to crawl into the laundry basket with my jeans and cry.
Because there's ALWAYS a setback - don't you know? It's in the rules!
The first setback was the bolts on the hot water tank were stripped, and a trip to the hardware store was required. The second setback was the staggering amount of gunk at the bottom of the tank. So the day had been far too long for all of us.
Since all my laundry stuff was still at the old apartment, Beautiful Daughter came over with laundry soap, spray'n'wash, and lavender & sandalwood scented fabric softener for me. I wept and kissed her feet. Then the magic happened - my first load of laundry. Daughter had also brought a dollar-store clothesline for me, and we experimented with it till we found a pretty good arrangement. In no time my apartment was hung with towels, socks, underwear, and, (thankfully) my jeans.
I closed the windows, turned the heat on, dragged the dehumidifier out of the closet, and did a second, and a third load.
Since I have no furniture to absorb sound waves, the dehumidifier makes a terrific roar. I was obliged to turn it off so I could sleep last night, but it's back in business this morning. I estimate that by 7 pm tonight the jeans should be wearable.
Right now, my apartment is just like a scene from "The Honeymooners", minus curlers for my hair and Ralph threatening to send me to the moon. This was not my vision of what my life would be like at 51, when I was 20! This was not what I thought my life would be like in February, when I first left my ancestral home to strike out on my own once again.
"On my own."! THAT'S a laugh! Hubby hasn't had to work so hard to help me in years! The washing machine that was installed yesterday, and the dryer that is coming in two weeks, are both on loan from a Girlfriend. Other Girlfriends are donating their time, energy, money, and expertise to buy me stuff I need, help me get organized and clean, feed me from time to time, stopping me from sobbing into my cups each night. Even strangers and new neighbours are being kind to me - one lady mentioning she saw my cat under a certain set of stairs, one man bringing said cat to my door, another chatting me up. I'm beginning to wonder just HOW bad I look from an outsider's point of view!
All of this kindness has caused me to wonder, are any of us ever really "on our own?" Because, if I had REALLY been so, I'm not sure how bad it would have looked. Thank you everyone for calling, lifting, scrubbing, fixing, shopping, cooking, lending... even just smiling at me. It makes a difference. A big one.
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