a little glimmer of something.

Like old times, a thought popped into my head yesterday, so I scribbled it down while I was sitting in my car. While I was doing that, another thought popped in, and another, and yet another. I was happy about this, because they were thoughts that I felt were worth putting into words. And then into action. I thought, "It's about fucking time."

My life has changed tremendously over the last couple of years. I think not just my life, but my mind. People don't intimidate me like they used to. I've loved, I've lost, and I'm ready to do it again. Having reconnected with old friends, and made peace with former enemies, in addition to having been dumped by my best friend who had been that since high school, I've had to do a whole lot of soul searching about how best to be a true friend. I've also had to assess what it takes to be my friend. In the end, the answers were too simple to waste time embellishing on the details--there just aren't many. 

The initial thought that prompted my pen moving was this: If you hold your friends to their faults and mistakes, they will never become to you any better. In fact, if you hold them to those things, they may never become better themselves. Why plant a weed if you want a flower to grow?

As for what I ask of my friends, and what I think I should do for you--accept help when it's offered. Sometimes taking an extended hand does more for the extender than it can for the extendee, but at least it leaves room for them (and me) to be a better person. A better friend. And in the end, assuming they want what's best for you, it will work out well for both parties. That's not to say accept it every time, but when a person really needs help and instead chooses to isolate regardless of an extended hand of friendship and love, nobody wins. 

What prompted this mostly, is that my former best friend said to my sister after she mentioned that I was feeling depressed about our disconnect, "I don't have time for people like that in my life." Instead of accepting and internalizing that I'm a person "like that," I chose to focus on the many things she thinks I am that I am not. The list of these things is long, and it took a lot of digging to determine whether or not I can overcome some of the things she was right about, and overcome the damage she did listing them off repeatedly over the course of our friendship. In the end, I've realized that I spent a long time trying to live up to an ideal that isn't my path. To define ideal, I would have been a mind-reader that when it came to her was entirely selfless. While I hate to be selfish, to be me I still have to walk the fine line between charity and stupidity. With her, I tried to be helpful, but also would occasionally find myself torn between tending to my own life, and helping her tend to hers. And on occasion, I'll admit I leaned more toward tending to my own. Those were the times I was bound to in her mind. What I've realized is that in order to redeem myself, I would in fact have to sacrifice more of myself than I'm willing to part with. In order to redeem myself, I would have to focus on un-doing everything I've ever done that she felt was hurtful. The problem is, she'd be holding me to those things so tightly, I could never be anything else. 

I'm happy to report that I wouldn't be the friend I am now without the friends I have, who are constantly encouraging me, without words to be a better human. I feel lucky to share my good (and bad) qualities with all of them. 

That said, on this perfect first day of summer, this is on the radio. I gotta go dance now.

shoulda, coulda...did

I'll be brief today. I'm just coming off a long couple of weeks of way highs and way lows. A distant acquaintance and I joined forces to save a stray, injured cat last week. We used Facebook as a tool, and it was effective. We set up a non-profit donation page overnight, and everything went off without a hitch. His vet bill is paid in full, both by us and the donations we received. I am thankful for this. We placed him in a new, caring home, and he is thriving after getting the full treatment at the vet, including a broken jaw repair. 

I swear I wasn't going to blog about this. After all, I only did it because his broken face broke my heart. To me, it was the only option. But now I'm pissed. As I was getting ready to put it all behind me, there came the thud. On a post that said how it was so great that people could pull things together and make an animal's life better, some jackass comments just this:

"Hurt animals in any town should be turned over to Animal Control."

Well, thank you for your input, lady. A little research, and it turns out the woman is the animal control officer for a town I will not name, except to say that I've worked there and this comment is just the type of response I'd expect from a town appointee. They don't like to mind their own business, and really, really like to tell other people how to do things, right or wrong. They also oppose a rail trail in their town. For why, I'll never know. Guess they like oily tracks better than a walking/biking path. 

In any case, it would make sense that she would advocate for her own job. I'm assuming she is paid for her work, and I'll concede that I may be wrong. Even so, people got together and did a great thing for one animal, and I can't imagine a reason so logical as to generate any negative/critical response. It's not like I took in a baby raccoon or something. I wouldn't. I would probably call Animal Control. But I refuse to "turn over" a domestic, abandoned, injured cat to someone who refers to it as "turning them over," as if I'm handing them a suspect. I feel in this case, I did a better job with him than most shelters are able to do given their overcrowding and lack of funding. I had funding of my own, and then I had funding from other people, so I committed myself to him for the time it required, and followed through. 

So thank you other people, who didn't fault me for trying to help. No, for actually helping.  Now my friend Jasper is in his new home, happy and healthy. I think I did the right thing. I hope you do, too. Otherwise, I may have to rant once more.

Sigh.