This is Bear. I may have wrongfully called her an assassin and accused her of trying to murder me in my sleep.
I now owe her an apology as it appears she may be instrumental in prolonging my life.
My life. It was in need of saving on a few levels. I recognized some of those levels earlier, but somehow overlooked the actual physical one.
I have been a Christian for ages. I have been saved on the spiritual level for a long time. Though, I will own that I was a much better child of God in my youth than I have been lately. All those verses about the distractions of this world are so true. Jobs, family, life, they have a way of taking us from the One who gave those things to us. And I'm so guilty of that. Heed my warning fellow Christians, Get close to God willingly and on purpose or He'll reel you in and make you lean on Him. That is where I am today.
Simplicity.
Last year my yogurt kept telling me I needed to make life a bit more simple. We should all listen to our yogurt. Every morning I would lift the foil lid to my Liberte and behold some new message about simplification. Over and over it encouraged me to let go of all the unnecessary stressors in my life. At the time it was very pertinent. My sister had two years earlier been diagnosed with lymphoma and one year earlier, my dad received the news he had colorectal cancer. My gut told me that we all have cancer and that stress allows it to root in somewhere, grow, and wreak havoc on our bodies. In no way am I a doctor nor do I have any science to base these claims. My gut just decided that out of the blue.
But, I've learned to trust my gut over the years.
That gut tells me that a healthy, happy person can rid their own body of cancer before they even know it was bothering them.
So. My yogurt tells me to simplify. It struck a chord with my gut.
I was a schoolteacher in a county that is high tech, world class, and all about data. They invent stress for their staff. Create it in board meetings and decide how best to let it trickle down. They stress out the administration who then stress out the teachers who in turn stress out little kids. And it's a completely invented, unnecessary stress. The reasons are fake but unfortunately the effects are real.
I was sitting at a table one day when the conversation turned to antidepressants. The teachers were comparing the different brands and various side effects. I realized I was the only soul at the table NOT on antidepressants. I knew at that moment that teaching is killing people. At least it is in certain counties.
I needed clarity. Time to think. A year to be a human. A year to be a mom and wife.
I decided to take a year (with the blessing of my husband) and simply care for our child and do nothing much more. Simplify. See what life tells me. Learn to hear God's voice again.
Taking a year without a paycheck is a luxury most cannot afford. For us to make it work, we needed to sell our house and downsize and well as drop private school tuition for my daughter.
But, nothing is simple. Our big old 6,000 square foot monster needed a lot of upgrades and then things just started going out. So we had to replace them. Work on that sized home is expensive. It was not helpful to say the least.
But we did it. We sold most of our stuff. We moved goats, a donkey, dogs, rabbits, cats and found a new home for the chickens. We moved ourselves to a quiet little mountain town. And by August, we were ready to start a new year.
(Schoolteachers know that a year starts in August and ends in May and does not include the months of June and July. So if I ever say "this year" or "last year," I'm referring to current or past August- May cycles)
Then. The cabin.
Oh, our adorable little cabin. It looked so charming when we bought it. Little 844 square feet of simplicity. Then we noticed the rats. And then possums, and raccoons living in it with us.
And the walls that leak water when it rains. And the mold that grows on all the objects when you live in a house without AC. It was like living in a 3rd world country for a few months. Definitely an adventure. We address problems the best we can, but especially until we sell the big house, we just can't fix everything.
Traps were great to move the possum and the raccoon. But the rats were another story.
Enter the cats.
I intended to get two cats at the local shelter. My eight year old daughter walked from cage to cage in every room lamenting that she couldn't save them all. Eventually as she set her heart on two little sick kittens that really 'needed her,' my eyes fell upon a DNA mutation in a cage behind us. Now, I'm an elementary science teacher even when I'm not being paid to be one. I won't be able to change that. I've spent so many years inspiring kiddos to marvel at the world around us that I will never be able to stop marveling myself. So when I saw the midline split and the two tone face and the blotchy calico, I knew I had to take the chimera home. I couldn't leave a cat that had two sets of DNA at the shelter. She had to come with me. Three cats. Three. No problem. I'll explain the reason to my husband. He won't get it, but that's ok.
Then I inherited two more from a garage of a friend of my mom. It's a longer story...and my fault, but I had two more. And then the cat we brought with us, who disappeared after moving to the mountains showed up after 3 months gone.
Six.
Six is a lot.
Six is like crazy cat lady status. And the cabin is small. What the heck am I going to do with all these cats? My husband thought the coyotes and owls and such would be a problem, and sadly but with relief I figured he was probably right. But, no. My cats are smart.
All six of them.
Five kittens and one grouchy old cat make sleeping impossible in case you are wondering. At any given moment Grouch is hissing at something or kittens are attacking you from all sides. Pouncing the moment you shift a foot. Or. OR. Falling out of the sky onto your face with all claws projected outward only to realize for a brief moment that they were falling off the bed and needed to hook into your eyelids and cheekbones to avoid hitting the floor.
On more than one occasion I was jolted awake in agony by such assassins.
Assassins like Bear. She really caught my jaw with a nice deep puncture wound that didn't want to heal. I'm just not a hater...it's not in me. So, I loved Bear. But maybe I didn't like her much. And she LOVED me. Flies off the porch rails and lands on my chest if I walk by. Climbs my legs to get to me so she can hug me like a human. Will not leave my face alone at night. Meows quite loudly if I'm too far ahead of her on a walk. She loves me. But I thought it was just a rouse as she secretly plotted how to make the next attempt on my life more successful.
Cat scratch fever
It's a real thing. People get it all the time. Who knew?
Sometime around Christmas the lymph nodes near my deep face puncture became swollen. The internet (who is my primary care doctor) said if they didn't go down in two weeks I needed treatment.
Two weeks passed.
I went to urgent care.
Took evil antibiotics.
Had to return to the urgent care.
Life hasn't been the same since.
And that is another entry...