The above quote does little to console me as I continue to consider euthanizing my cat on a daily basis.  She has been in decline, with occasional good days, over the past two months.  Last Spring my cat, Minnie went into foster care with an excellent organization called Blessed Bonds.  While living with her 1st foster mom, she began to drop weight and throw up frequently.  A vet diagnosed her with hyperthyroidism – very common for cats.  Minnie was put onto a topical gel medicine that would be applied to her ears both morning and night.  That seemed to help for a while.  When I got her back in August, she seemed better and WAY thinner.  I continued the medicine and hoped that she would be okay.  About five weeks ago I took her to the vet because she was throwing up constantly.  Her weight was down to six pounds from her normal eleven.  She was listless and very dehydrated.  The vet ran a whole bunch of tests and five hundred dollars later I was told she had “off the chart” thyroid levels, so clearly the medicine was not working.  He added that she might have thyroid cancer.  Her thyroid gland was very large and that would explain the resistance to treatment.  Since Minnie might be anywhere from 15-20 years old, I am not going to shell out two grand that I don’t have for the only two procedures that could save her: radiation therapy or surgery.  So, I’m now just buying time trying to judge when the quality of her life has wasted to a point where/when I must put her to sleep.  I keep hoping that she will be very clear in letting me know for sure that that time has in fact come.  She will act like she is at death’s doorstep in one moment and then be a cute, cuddly kitten in the next.  She still eats, but she also still has a lot of messy accidents too.  I’ve gone through so much paper towel in the past month I wish I had gone to Sam’s Club to buy in bulk.  I can tell that her “sick cat smell” is starting to take over the house.  Yet, I still can’t pull the trigger – so to speak.

My youngest sister has also moved in with me (following a break up).  She has been very vocal in asking me to consider putting Minnie to sleep.  I’ve had to put up pet gates in order to keep Minnie from going upstairs since I had that deep cleaned so as to “de-cat” that living space.  Minnie is allowed to roam the 1st floor while someone is home to watch her.  Otherwise she is confined to the kitchen where her messes are better handled.  My sister hopes that I’ll let her reclaim her cat, Max from her ex following Minnie’s death.  I don’t have a problem with Max coming to live here.  I just can’t wrap my mind around putting Minnie down when she still seems okay – at times.  Most people I’ve talked to who have had similar situations said that cats are great at acting okay even when they are not.  I guess I’m still holding out for that Christmas Miracle.

So, once again, as it seems usually happens now that I’m an adult, Christmas takes on a melancholy tone.  There is nothing monumental that needs to happen for this to begin.  I find that my energy and motivation drains.  Call is SAD or some other medically based dysfunction, but there is no denying that winter kicks my ass.  Why do I still live here?  I’m single, I’m resourceful, and I now have decent health on my side…so why am I still here??  Now that I will not have a cat to consider packing, why shouldn’t I just pack up and go be a teacher anywhere else?  Clearly, moving southwest is a trend as Illinois has just lost a Congressional seat due to the exodus from this arctic tundra.

I’ve tried this before.  Alaska.  Florida.  California.  Could I do it now?  Could I even leave the US?  Man, I think that I could.  I should before I blink and am fifty and still living with regret.  I would miss the kids from school.  I would miss my family and friends.  But I could gain new experiences and friends.  I’m a writer…I could write about it.  God, could I actually pull myself together enough to do it?

When I’ve gotten to the threshold in the past my home-sickness would always win out.  I think about my Dad being sad and alone.  I feel like the world’s worst aunt because I’d be missing out on watching Emmie and my soon-to-be new niece or nephew grow up.  I would miss the pretty places that are an extension of me: the arboretum, that old German church, the bike trails.  I will miss my Jeep.  I know that last one seems really superficial, but Gomer has been a part of my life for a long time and I can’t imagine anyone else owning her.  Mostly, fear holds me here.  Fear of total failure.  This same fear has challenged and beat me down in the past too.  Damn it if I continue to succumb to my own negative projections!

I’m going to be 37 this coming April.  I’ll be 37 and still single and still chasing dreams that only escape me when my fear wins out.  C’mon!  Grow up!  I know that I continue to struggle with actually accepting my age.  I feel like I should be someone else at this point.  I’m not.  I’m me and part of me is comprised of my mistakes and my no-turning-back choices.  God, regret seems so connected to Christmas too!  Christmas reminds me of the fun from childhood.  I guess, in reflecting on childhood memories, it is inevitable that I would then spiral into considering my life as it developed to now.

Nonetheless, I must get going with my day.  I must continue to wonder when I will put little Minnie into her cage for her last car ride.  I don’t think it will be today, I’m still not ready and she is still too cuddly that I can’t stand it.  My friends don’t get it.  They think I’m way too attached – and I probably am.  The last time I was without my pet, when I had my house on the market, I sunk into a pretty bad depression.  I know that having a pet to come home to is an important part of my continued combat against depression.

On a note related to my last post, I think that my transference is now in check.  I really don’t have romantic feelings toward anyone right now.  I’m Switzerland.  Neutral as ever.  Maybe if I can achieve my own personal weight loss goal I can feel confident enough to get out a flirt a little – provided I meet someone worthy of flirting with.  Which reminds me that there was a guy at the gym who looked creepishly just like Brian used to.  It was like seeing a ghost.

Enough for now.  Time to get into my life for today.

I like to consider myself intellectual…well, smart.  Why can’t I figure that quote out?  Wow, I’ve been a crazy mess lately.  Where to begin?  How about the fact that I was hospitalized – again?  Here are the details:

7/29-8/1: Hospital for surgery

8/6-8/10: Hospital for bleeding

8/23-8/26: Hospital for ???

1. The fear I’m experiencing at considering what this out-of-pocket portion will be is freaking me out.

2. I’m missing work – which I guess is necessary because I’m still a mess (I cry all the time).

3. In being stuck at home – alone – I’m lost in my WILD thoughts, or should I say fantasies.  Very dangerous.

Okay, so I’m on leave from work because I’m just a bit (sarcasm) of a mess.  It isn’t so much that I still have horrible cramping at times followed by disgusting bathroom experiences that would be embarassing if I had to do that at work; it is that I am mentally/emotionally human pulp.  How did that happen?  Well, I’ve kinda been wrapped up with feeling like I’m dying at times.  My heart gets racing, I’m throwing up, I can’t catch a good breath…and I don’t think that it is a panic attack.  I think my body is resisting its newly formed biological make up.  I don’t blame it, one whole month of eating mush and that is a depressing experience too.

But look on the bright side.  The pants that were tight on me last April now fall right off.  I’ve lost weight.  Maybe thirty pounds in thirty days.  I wonder how much was fluid?  Anyway, I’m reeling and I now know what a full-blown transference is like.  Transference?  As in, I think that I feel like I’m in love with my 18 year older than me doc.

I understand that this is all some psychological coping mechinism in play, but what if I really am falling for this older man?  Here is the way it worked out.  I first met him in January and thought that he was really cool.  He dresses decently and has a little bit of that surgical cockiness that exudes confidence.  In other words, I get that “he is the shit,” because he knows it and shows it.  I wasn’t fantasizing about him at that point because it was just one little appointment.  Whatever.  I did catch up again in July as I was trying to pull everything together for the operation.  The more that I saw him the more handsome and sexy he got.

He has a great head of salt and pepper hair.  His smile is charming and reassuring.  He is well read, well spoken, and cultural.  He is GREAT shape, looking better than a lot of guys my age.  He is slender framed and looks like someone who runs and does yoga.  I’m guessing that he drives a decent car – probably German and black.  He has a boat – not sure how big, but it seems like a significant part of who he is.  He is on fb, but I haven’t friended him because that would be ultra creeper.  He shares some of my spiritual complexities.  He is a dad, but also divorced.  I heard that the divorce was tough.  Maybe he is seeing someone, I would guess so because he is a catch, but he also works like ALL the time, so I’m not sure how much of a personal life he has.  Lastly, the thing that grabbed my heart right out of my chest…he is on his way to Africa to climb Kilamanjaro.  THIS, this is something that I’ve wanted to do for almost 15 years!  I love Africa!  I’ve written about it, studied the early humans there, even tried to learn a couple of African languages.  There is a part of me that wants to live in Africa – would it be safe.  And he is going there…doing something right at the tippy top of my bucket list.  Wow!  So, transference or not, I think I’m in love.

I think how strange it would be to bridge that doctor-patient gap.  Could I ask to been followed up by some other doctor in the group so that there would be no conflict?  Could I sign some sort of pre-nup type thing so he would know that I’m absolutely not a gold-digger?  Could he get past the age difference?  I know I could…but would he even be the least bit flattered by the passions of a thrity-something for him?  I could see the ways that we could spend time together….well, besides the obvious way.  We could travel!  I’m an awesome traveler!  We could crash on a couch together with each of us reading our own book.  I could dress up and look stunning in order to attend fancy events with him.  We could go to farmers’ markets and pick up fresh foods to cook together.  We could go to concerts in the city.  We could learn tantra practices…and practice them.  We could volunteer together.  There are more ways that I think we would be great.  I’ve played out the scenarios in my head a million different ways.  Then the reality that he would probably never be interested strikes and left feeling lonely and sad.

That is the thing about fantasies, they suck when you allow reality back in.  The reality is that I still feel like crap, I’m still pretty emotional, and I think that I hate my career right now.  I’m working for a department chair who is simply mean.  I’m not a mean person – I’m a little nutty – but I’m not mean.  I don’t do well with mean, passive-aggressive types.  I’m longing for adventure and passion so bad that it hurts.  I haven’t felt a flicker of it until now.  And this “feeling” is all connected to a fantasy…what a shame.

But, still, a girl can dream….dream of that white knight in green scrubs coming to her rescue, checking her vitals, and making love to her in between his rounds.  Why did I have to have this added mental mess too?  At least it cracks me up…it is funny.  I think if God did have a hobby it would be in turning my goofy life into some sort of heavenly sit-com.

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I think that the idea of creating one’s self is pretty relevant to me right now.  I’m starting over, in a way.  I had bariatric surgery, totally elective, and now I have to reform my relationship with food, and, in doing so, I will hopefully reshape my body.  I’m eating pureed proteins and drinking only water.  As a newborn, our diet is similar.  There isn’t variety because our system needs just the basics.  I actually like this “just the basics” mentality.

Sure, I find myself having cravings.  Who wouldn’t after half a lifetime of indulgence?  I’m motivated right now.  I have no choice really in the matter.  I’m biologically wired to reject crap.  If I eat too much sugar I don’t have the digestive tract to process it so I’ll get sick.  If I eat too much and/or too fast I don’t have the size of stomach to handle that so I’ll reject that and get sick.  Knowing that, I’m motivated.  Our psychological make up is so obvious here.  I like food, I like eating, I hate throwing up.  Out of those three the most powerful of the expressions is I hate throwing up.  It is that notion that overrides everything else.  So now, finally, I’m motivated…by fear.  Too bad I wasn’t motivated by the fear of acquiring certain deseases, spending a life alone, that I didn’t whip that “I love food, I like eating” monster into submission years ago.  Those costs just seemed so far off and way too faint.  Yet, the shock of knowing that I’ll get sick is now driving the bus, makes the behavior switch.  It is amazing!

As part of the surgery, I have had a lot of quiet and meditative time to spend alone in thought.  I am aware that I am shaping myself, my world, my path.  I am going to try and be much more reverent at that notion.  I want to say that this year will be unlike any year that I’ve lived before.  I want to be proactive this year.  I want to better identify my hopes and dreams and really go after them.  Mostly, I want to know that I didn’t just spend over $100,000 of insurance money (probably more) in doing something as drastic as what I did in order to still do the same ‘ole, same ‘ole.  I’m starting over.  That means I must do things differently.  Even just a shift in my eating habits and relationship to food is enough to kick of a ripple effect into other aspects of my life.  It must.

Ok, here is a little confession.  I don’t think people read this blog anyway so I’ll throw this tid-bit in here.  I might really be smitten with an older man (like 18 years older than me).  I wouldn’t have ever thought that to be possible.  He acts way younger, is healthy, fit, intelligent beyond belief, and just cool as hell.  Of course it is all in my head and he is purely professional in dealing with me.  I don’t think the thought of me would ever, ever cross his mind.  But, since I’m dabbling with the idea of creating here, I just may have to turn on a little flirt.  My very good friend, the kind that has seen me through the “crushes” and bombed out remains of poorly executed relationships would tell me, “uh oh” at this point.  I’m feeling rather safe in the notion that there is ABSOLUTELY no possibility that anything would even come from a little eyelash batting.  So, who knows, we shall see.  Lord knows it has been several years since there has been any man cross my path that peaks my interest.  I’m so picky and have some pretty high expectations.  Anyway, it is fun to at least enetertain the imagination of what a relationship with him could be like.  I actually think it would be quite awesome.  And, good for him, having a younger – much younger woman – especially one who has re-constructed her body and looks/acts even younger than her mid-thirties age.  Isn’t that some universal mid-life guy thing?  Ok, this has wandered and is in no way representative of the intellectual writing that I normally put on this blog.  Thus, I must end it and hope that I can keep my mission in mind.  The mission about re-creating myself…not the mission of crushing an older man.  C’mon, gotta get my head out of the clouds and back in the game!

I’ve spent almost three days doing nothing.  Pretty much veggin’ out and simply watching tv.  I’m not sick, I’m slightly injured.  I sprained my ankle and I’m simply using it as an excuse to be lazy…to escape the whip of the clock and the calendar.  I don’t have to be anywhere.  I don’t have to do anything.  I can afford to do nothing.

Allowing myself to indulge in this nothingness is actually rather frightening.  My mind can’t settle and I find my own imagination screaming at me to DO SOMETHING.  I want to write.  Not just here on this blog.  I want to write poems, essays, hand-written letters to my long lost friends, stories, lesson plans…anything.  But I write nothing.

I want to cook, grill, bake.  Yet doing nothing doesn’t really require caloric intake, so, ultimately, I eat nothing.  I drink water.  I pee.  Even that seems to be an aspect of nothing too. 

I’m not in a depression because I genuinely considered the possibility.  I’m not sad or happy or anxious or anything….I feel nothing.  Well, maybe I feel a little inquisitive at thinking that I feel nothing. 

For nothingness can’t really exist.  To claim nothingness is to claim something.  It is to make it an it and when there is nothing to point at and call “it.”  Now I’m thinking of a passage from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  See, there would be my opening quote.  Maybe I’ll find that and put it here – nah, I’m not going to because today is still devoted to doing nothing.

Maybe I’ll regret this waste of time when I’m on my deathbed someday.  Maybe I won’t have the kind of death that will allow for even a split second of reflection.  We can’t control that and it frightens most of us so we tend to not focus on it since there is nothing that we can know for certain.  I think that the Buddhists have it right to meditate upon death.  Christianity does this too, only not in a formal thought process per se.  The focusing upon one’s physical end of life begs one to do something with the time they are given.  My doing nothing is another route to this thought process.  To physically do nothing, to have to be nowhere or accountable to anyone, to have the freedom to sit and realize that minutes, hours, and now days have melted away is realize mortality. 

By doing this there is that spirit in me screaming at my body “Do Something!” My mind reaches farther in scenarios.  Can I now see how many choices there are in each mundane day?  Can I now realize that quantum theorists are really onto something?  If I set my mind, I can probably realize anything.  I could probably find a way to live in Italy by this time next year…but could I really follow through on it?  Do I really even want to live in Italy?  The thought just popped up into the room of my mind that I’ve only now allowed to exist since it isn’t thinking of anything since I’m kind of focussed on nothing.  There would be much sacrifice with that Italy scenario.  There would be other scenarios that couldn’t play out.  Holding still in so-called nothingness allows for me to “see” these potentials.

But one can’t remain stationary forever.  To do so is to die.  This is the power of meditation.  This is why so many westerners probably can’t stick with the pratice of it on the whole.  To meditate is to tap into what we perceive as nothingness.  Our culture has trained us to never waste a moment.  We think that to sit still is to be passed by.  There is danger in being passed by in a “keeping up with the Jones’” culture.  What if the Jones are all wrong?  What if culture is diseased?  What if buying into the mainstream is to compromise vivid dreams and unimaginable experiences only sparked when there is the room to reimagine such existence?

Oh boy does this sound like the writing of a lunatic.  It sounds frenzied and far too grand…too abstract.  Yet, it comes from a mind somewhat trapped in a completely lazy body.  A mind that claims ownership to the experiences of this body that has forgone much in the way of a physical experience for a while now.  The mind is grappling…the mind is whirling with creativity for lack of managing the little details.

I like this experient but I know it ends tomorrow.  The calendar and the clock will step back in to dictate the day’s events, the experiences, the stuff of routine thinking.  I see that as dangerous.  Too much of anything is dangerous, right?  I think tomorrow I will go to the gym and work out.  I was once able to make work outs very meditative.  I put on African drumming music, tuned out my task list thinking, and allowed my imagination to run wild while doing a leg press or a bicep curl.  Can I do that agian?  Can I still tap into that higher mind, my truer self?

Nothingness – cool experiment.  Too bad I couldn’t also turn off the TV.  I did that once and I thought I would go crazy.  The silence was profound.  I want to know why I’m so autoprogrammed to need the noise.

Ah, there it is.  In the quiet I can hear my heart beat and something about that overwhelms me.  Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

I have been tearing through novels.  Three in one week so far.  I’ve read Middlesex, The Hunger Games, and Breakfast with Buddha. All three very good and in different ways.  The first one I’ve had on the self for a while.  I picked it up and went cover to cover in two days.  The middle one, required reading for incoming honors freshmen students (I teach) was an easy read and so much more simplistic than the first, the last one I bought on a whim when I ducked in a bookstore to dodge a rainshower.  I really like that one because I like getting Buddhist philosophy woven into a narrative.  Yesterday was Printer’s Row Book Fest.  I went into the city on a whim and enjoyed seeing all of the activity associated with the printed word.  I thought to myself that this will probably all change as the world moves to more digital and electronic forms of Literature.  I can’t get a clear handle on how it will change; but one thing in life that is always certain is change.

So why all the reading, you ask.  I finally have the time to read.  I attacked the end of the school year with a promise to myself that I would find some balance in the days that followed the final bell.  It has been wonderful.  I’m reading, writing, enjoying nature, playing/teaching tennis, and visiting my family and friends.  Today I’ll fill the role of “super aunt” and play with my niece.  My one and only cousin, who will be getting married in a month, is coming to visit.  I’m very excited to see him since it has been a long time.  This has me thinking about Karma.

I have been pondering the balance I need to clear in this life.  Here is what I’ve come up with: 1. Anger 2. Gluttony and 3. Sloth.  I still harbor anger in my heart.  I want to settle the waves of that tumultuous ocean and know the feeling of peace.  I need to sever my self-indulgent tendancies.  And lastly, I need to see my ambition through on books, projects, photo albums, and financial organization that I’ve been to “busy” to take care of.  On a higher level, I need to attend to my spirituality.  That seems easy to type.  Ironic that it is so easily ignorred by many people in the American culture, for the most part.  I want to take advantage of the quiet time this summer to meditate.  Of course, it will be the finding a calm, settled, strong spiritual grounding in the face of craziness that will be actual testimony to this sought after development.

I did a few Reiki treatments last summer and would like to try that again.  I’d like to take a drive to a meditation retreat somewhere close-by.  I’d like to finish one of my three unfinished novels.  I’m aiming for the one set in Indonesia – it is very interesting, funny, and sweet.  I’d like to prepare for the creative writing course that I’ll be starting at the end of August.  I’d like to attend some more creative writing workshops.  There goes the schedule, getting all scheduled.  And then there is the sugery.  The bariatric surgery….gastric bypass.  Yowzah!

I’m more than the schedule.  I’m energy….karmic energy if I slip my Buddhist glasses on.  If the goal is enlightenment, then what has been my path of late?  Not so good.  I’m a TV zombie, a shop-a-holic, disconnected, over-worked, maniac.  Now that the maniac is on vacation, I’m a little unsettled.  I’ve needed to pay bills for four days.  They are still sitting here by the computer staring at me and me at them…I wish there was a life with out bills.  Maybe I could move to a village in the mountains and just “live offa the land.”  Where can anyone do that anymore?  Not in the states.  What of the college education?  What of my credit card debt?  What of the refills on my prescriptions? What of the movie theaters?  What of my Mac-n-Cheese….well that one will be gone in about three weeks.

Sometimes I feel like I have multiple personality disorder.  Lord knows I have enough disorders already, right?  But there are these different people that want to be the “bus driver” of my personality.  Some days it is a spoiled little kid who didn’t get what it wanted.  Somedays it is all about money and stuff….the materialistic consumer.  Lately it has been “the worldly, well-read academic seeking spiritual fulfillment.”  I like this driver, only this one only hops in the seat every so often.  Typically, the other drivers duke it and the guru chills out in the back seat as a patient passenger.  I think it would be interesting to “get real” with my bus drivers and be able to bench some permanently.  If it were that easy, there would be a lot of out of work psychologists.

So, to tie into Eugenides’ quote.  I’ve been feeling my thirties.  I’m not old, but some days it feels like my mind is.  And that isn’t a bad thing as this culture implies.  I’ve thought a lot about my roots…the P’s, GP’s, aunt lately.  “What is the point of all of this?” I ask myself.  I’ve been spared from certain death on more than a couple of times.  Why?  Shouldn’t I be doing something more significant than being an in-debt, psychologically hung-up, single, regretful, sometimes out-of-control, self-indulgant, lazy, and spiritually ungrounded thirty-something?  Wow, that sounds harsh.  On the flip side, my students, who claimed I was the best teacher they ever had, told me things along those lines that makes me think that I was doing something meaningful with my long days and late nights of schoolwork.  On nights where I could get enough sleep to dream, I dreamed about school too.  I love teaching.  I don’t necessarily love all the paper pushing, but I love working with the kids.  It is my hope that I’ve brought them some level of goodness and growth, while also delivering the curriculum that my district is paying me to teach.  This is noble.  Thus, it is good.

I know this to be good, just like I know spending time playing with my niece and teaching her words is good.

There is goodness and God, divinity in anything that you experience.  One just has to be open to the goodness by freeing one’s self from negativity.  It is frightening to me to consider how easily we are consumed by factors that detract from the goodness.  It takes turning off the TV, pausing, breathing, and holding a thought or intention long enough to experience a brief moment of clarity.  That is really easy to type – - – ah, the pile of bills is laughing at me know.  I must tame it, I must go, and I must occupy myself with the numbers that comprise the other “bus driver” of my personality…the frustrated hack accountant.

The interviewer asks Red Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon who designs robots to work in difficult environments and also Rodney Brooks of MIT who founded iRobot: “There is a common fear that robots will replace humans – not just in space or on rescue missions but in manual labor.  Is this concern warranted?”

Whittaker: “It’s not like there’s a plot afoot.  Robotics isn’t lobbying for this.  It just happens quietly over time – things get added on to existing technologies as features and improve productivity.  Take agriculture.  There was a time when surveyors put in stakes and marked the land.  Now much of that can be automated right into a machine.  Bulldozer blades governed by automated technologies are added on to what we would think of as heavy conventional machines.  Big trucks in surface mines are  benefitting from features of automation.  We designed farming machine that harvest hay using machine vision systems, GPS guidance, and other sensing devices.”

Brooks: “People don’t realize how much of the food that we eat today has had a robotic element in its production.  Tractors, as Red said, now come from the factory with GPS guidance systems.  Not only are they guided, but they’re also using satellite data from those fields to know how much fertilizer to put where and how much seed to put in.”

I read this at the same time that I was reading Grapes of Wrath.  There is something frightening about the possibility that our culture of modern times has now had it “easy” for so long.  I know that we still struggle with life and death issues.  However, with the automation of most everything – something has changed.  We are more detached the more plugged in we get.  I keep up with my friends by checking facebook status updates.  I text rather than converse.  I pay bills and receive my paycheck electronically – I never even handle the money.  Infact, I rarely handle money anymore.  It is all automated.  I saw the preview for the new “Tron” movie coming out in December.  I think that a lot of people brush off sci-fi stuff as fantasy.  I say otherwise.  I believe it allows a discriminating intellect the chance to explore the possibile futures that are almost at our doorstep.  What happens when we become so electronically dependent that we can no longer function in Nature.  It is the Wild versus Civilized debate that has been pondered and tested for so long.  Obviously, technology has made our civilization immensely improved.  Yet, what of “Natural Selection”?  What of, survival of the fittest…not survival of the most technologically advanced?  The industrial age removed man from the farm.  The digital age….hmmmm….are we removing higher ordered thinking from most of man?  Lord knows, I am not going to calculate my own logorythms if a computer can calculate that for me.  I’m sure that if I was resourceful enough with Google I could find a website that could tell me the steps to take in order to calculate my 401K’s ultimate goals at my retirement, but it is so much easier to pop in some numbers to a window and click a button.  So much easier.

Since when did easy become my auto-programmed response to most options?  For more than a couple of generations (my own, Gen X included) easy HAS been an option.  During most of humankind’s history, easy wasn’t even a dream for most people, except the extremely wealthy or ruling class.  Humans have lived hard lives for ages.  Now the average American middle class can have things relatively easy.  Complacency is the first sign of the end.  I don’t think that young Americans (40 and under) have know a life that wasn’t, for the most part, easy.  Yes, we all have our personal struggles, but these struggles (even life and death ones) are nothing like the struggles of even just 75 years ago.  The Great Depression, World Wars, Immigration at the turn of the Century, Civil Rights, Medicine, Education….these things were huge factors for most average Americans.  People conquered huge obstacles, suffered greatly, and achieved because of blood, sweat, and tears.  I feel somewhat guilty when I consider the ease I’ve experienced for most of my life.

And even despite this ease, I’m still never an easy-going person.  Even though technology shaves off countless hours of time I might have otherwise spent doing manual labor of some kind, I’m still so busy that I can’t carve out time to see my 97 year old Grandma.  I’m so plugged in that my body has adapted itself to a crazy, automated pace of life that leaves me always thinking, “go, go, go!”  I have to struggle to even attempt a simple buddhist meditation.  Even my writing is frantic and automatic at times.  I think it is time for a return to Transcendentalism.  I think it is time to talk a walk in the woods.  I think it is time to stop being so married to time.

Thank goodness it is summer.  At least for a little while, I’ll have some time.  Now, to plant some vegetables in the tiny bit of yard that can still yield plants.  Somewhere there is a Willy Loman in me hoping that things haven’t become so far gone that I can’t sow a few seeds.

I am in the process of jumping through the approval procedure hoops to have a gastric bypass surgery sometime in June.  In the past five years I’ve felt myself sliding into a slow, steady despair.  Sure there are the mental things that have been relatively worked out.  Sure there is the disease.  And certainly, loneliness has contributed in a major way to all of that and the waistline.  The shock of my weight hit home with the weigh in that I did at my first appointment with the bariatic surgeon.  After seeing the scale’s readout, nmy heart raced, my head spun, and the tears streamed down my face.  I was full of disgust, so full that I couldn’t squeeze in even one more breath.  I knew then that I would absolutely do this operation.  I know the risks, I know I might die.  I know that I might suffer terrible pain.  But I knew then that I had to do this because I’ve been allowing myself to just die very slowly going along like I’ve been – suffering a slow decay at my choice to do what is easy, comforting, self-destructive self-medicating.  I know that I need to do something permanent, life-altering, – something serious.  Since that day in late Januaray I’ve settled into the idea even more.  Of course the idea of cutting, re-arranging, blood, vomit, pain and more frightens me so very much.  Yet, there is a sense of re-birth in the idea of changing my anatomy that suggests a forced change in my reality.  I cling to the hope that I believe this difficult procedure may offer.  I cling to a vision where I can reach my toes again and enjoy flexibility, lungs full of air, fitting into seats at auditoriums and airplanes.

In order to prepare for the help and supervision that I’ll need when I have the operation, I have moved back home with my parents.  They are 62 and 63 years old.  Mom is always home, Dad is always gone.  They will need to help me as I recover and can not eat normal food for three months.  This is an interesting situation as returning to the home I grew up in has triggered a lot of interesting emotions.  This is why the above passage about Hungry Ghosts is so appropriate.  Sadly, I am a Hungry Ghost.  Examining the Buddhist notion of craving, I know where my problems stem from.  It is as if I have returned the ring to the fiery realm of Mordor.  I’m at the source of my discontent.  I respect my parents for the help and ever-present support that they offer my life.  I am very grateful.  Yet, there is a sadness here in this home.  There is the emptiness the oozes from the once clean and tidy places and spaces of childhood memories; now there is clutter, dust, and the hauntings of time gone by – longings, regrets.  My parents’ once-beautful home that hosted countless birthday parties, displayed precious family treasures is burried beneath their excess and their attempts to fill the emptiness with materials.  My father is a hoarder by definition – clinical.  My mother shops, bringing home rediculous amounts of stuff: there are thirteen large plastic bottles of distilled water in the laundry room, there is a basement full of canned food expiring each day, there is the new this and that doubling, tripling up as the current this or that is just fine.  The fridge is exploding it is so full.  The cars are in the driveway because the garage is so full.  Two of the three kid bedrooms are unusable.  One room is full of baby toys and items that my niece has outgrown – these items are brand new with the tags still on.  The stuff is everywhere.  I see it as a cancer.

In packing up my own home in order to clear out for the renters that are now there, I see that I am not immune from this same problem.  The process was crazy and intense.  I went through my belongings…I have a lot of stuff.  I cleared it out, threw it away, boxed and labeled it.  It was as if I was losing weight.  As I de-cluttered, I lightened up.  Feng-Shui – hell ya!  The power of the process was so refreshing.  I feel better already.  I’ve lost some weight already and I’m not even trying.  I’m not trying to satisfy my Hungry Ghost by buying stuff.  I’m driving past the fast food joints.  I’m keeping busy, very busy.  I’m soaking up sunshine each afternoon.

The medical tests are quite interesting.  I have HBP.  I have Sleep Apnea.  I still have a slow thyroid.  I’ll know about my digestive track tomorrow since I’m having an upper endoscopy.  All of this bringing the picture into clearer focus. At some point I stopped caring about me.  I cared about how I felt emotionally.  I cared that a piece of cake could make me feel better – at the moment that I wasn’t.  I cared that stopping at Portillo’s could make me feel better – driving home to an empty house.  I cared that buying whatever the hell I want at the grocery store could supplement for a lack of freedom I felt as a “victim” to my own mess.  I didn’t care that I was fading away from family and friends.  I didn’t care that the strong body I once was so proud of was becoming burried alive beneath layers of fat.  I didn’t care that my heart was racing throughout day and night.  I didn’t care that my lungs were gasping.  I didn’t think of those things as me.  I was my emotions.  Dealing with emotional issues could mean the subjection of my body.  There was no link between mind and body.

I feel the connection better now.  It is so easy to get wrapped up into my feelings.  I am cerebral.  I am words, thoughts, feelings, moods, affection, sorrow, regret, hope, fear, and dreams.  I am all of that existing inside a physical body.  A body that still has room for many more miles, if I fix it now.  My former junior high school principal, also my parents’ neighbor, who has to be older than dirt now just walked by.  He is all puffy white Santa hair, track suit, cane, and big Harry Carey glasses.  This man of pure, kind heartedness has touched the lives of thousands of students in this town.  This Sicilian man who encouraged my dreams and allowed my noble 7th and 8th grade ambitions the room to grow.  This man who was so sick and kicked a stroke, conquered coronary bypass, survived the death of his wife and daughter…this man is a role model still. I am a teacher, but I am still and always a student.  I can learn from him.  I can learn from the stories of countless others.  I can learn from Buddhism.  My hunger is not real.  My hunger is not justified any more.  I can solve problems and move on.

Although it seems that most of this Midwestern American society does become the Real of Hungry Ghosts, I can recognize these trappings and try to rise above the temptations and patterns.  Material wealth can never matter more than physical and emotional health.  I will continue to move forward with the medical procedures in order to get this operation done.  I will go into this knowing full well it might not work.  I will know that I might freak out to get out from under my cocoon of fat.  I know that it will be strange to be free of the obvious scape-goat of my life.  I know all of this…and I know nothing at all.

Once, when I was dealing with a serious injury, I think I experienced the divine.  The year was 1990.  I was in high school and five months into treatment for two broken vertebrea in my neck: C4 and C5.  The obvious thing that should stand out here is that I broke my neck and I walked away.  Amazing, isn’t it?  There is more.  The accident happened in December of 1989.  I ended up in a complicated neck brace called a Somi-cast.  It looked like a fiberglass snare drum harness that went over my shoulders and then had straps that buckled to a chest piece which went to my navel.  There were posts that ran up to a support piece at the base of my head and another support which fit under my chin.  I went to school wearing that.  I had to sleep flat on my back wearing that.  Not much fun, but it could have been worse….Ace Halo??

The injury was first treated at a little hospital near my home town.  My pediatrician took care of it and said, “you’ll be fine, here is a cervical collar (the ones that whiplash patients wear), follow up with an orthopedic doctor.”  I went to a local ortho guy who did some PT which didn’t help the numbness and pain I continued to experience.  He sent me to a Neurosurgeon who swore I would die if I walked out his office.  An MRI revealed that I had some fragments located within the spinal column that were dangerously close to the cord.  He said a nudge from a student in the hall might not do anything to the average kid, but it could kill me.  He put me in the Somi thing and wanted to schedule a cervical fusion STAT.  I sat there as a 15 year old and listened to the gorey details of such a procedure.  I took it all in stride until he said that they would have to shave my head for the ACE Halo brace.  That did it.  I immediately hated this man from the big, fancy hospital and stubbornly told my Dad that I wanted another opinion…this would be the third one, most people stop at two, right?

My Dad asked the knife-happy neuro doc who else could offer another opinion.  The doc acted insulted and stated in a cocky way something like, “well I’m perfectly qualified and have performed many of these operations, but the only other surgeon in the area who has done more would be Dr. Meyer.  You will probably not be able to get in to see him as he rarely takes new patients….” blah, blah, blah.  My Dad found out that Dr. Meyer was the head doctor in charge of Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Spinal Trauma Unit.  Patients fly into this hospital from all over the world to benefit from their expertise, and in particular (at that time) Dr. Meyer’s expertise.  My Dad contacted the office and was told that they would not be able to get me in for an appointment at any time soon.  That neurosurgeon in the burbs made it seem like I needed to do something pronto.  In the meantime, my parents prayed.  My Dad, the hardcore Catholic, went to morning mass daily.  My Mom had her lady friends from church do prayer groups.  I was mostly tied up in the teenage drama of school and trying to keep the boy that I liked liking me – despite an obvious strain on that relationship (which in hindsight failed for every other reason than a major injury).  So, I was removed from religion, which is a shame since I was so obviously in a much better place than many other people would have been had this accident happened to them.  The ER doc who had treated me the day I fell said, “You know it is a good thing that you are such a big boned girl because a fall like that would probably have killed, if not paralyzed, anyone else.”  I just remember being self-conscious that a doctor was talking about my weight – and it wasn’t like I was obese, just stocky and athletic.  But anyways….

So, as the decision about whether or not to schedule this operation loomed, my Dad continued on with his job.  One of the places he was preparing a bid for (he is a sales engineer) was Northwestern.  He was on the site doing whatever he does on the site and happened to just catch an elevator, you know, when you stick your arm in so that the door opens?  He gets in and there is a doc in there.  You know where this is going, right?  He looked at the name badge and it said Dr. Paul Meyer.  My Dad simply said, “Are you the doctor who works on spinal trauma?”  He said yes.  My Dad said, “can I ask you a quick question? …. My sixteen year old daughter (yeah, my b-day came and went and I couldn’t get my driver’s license for obvious reasons) fell down a staircase and suffered compression fractures on C4 and C5.  She has been to several doctors and they all say that she needs a fusion.  She wanted one more opinion and we were told you are the best doctor for that.  I called and tried to get her an appointment, but we couldn’t get in.  What do you know about these fusion procedures?  Should we do it?”  This amazing guy smiled and told my Dad that he would get me right in.  But wait, there’s more.

So, I was excited to see this super nice doctor that my Dad had a good feeling about.  The night before my appointment I had a very, very vivid dream which I remember to this day.  I was walking down a gray colored hallway and opened a door to an orange colored waiting room.  I had on my brace and I knew that I was waiting to see Dr. Meyer.  The whole place was orange.  There were molded hard plastic orange chairs, orange wallpaper, orange wall art.  I sat there and just looked at all the orange.  I was alone and there was no one around.  It was quiet.  Then a guy came through the same door I had come in through.  This guy was just some regular looking dude. He was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt that was covered in stains and looked loved, he had on beat up jeans, brown leather flip flops, and his hair would be best described as Jesus hair.  It is was a shaggy long, brown hippy look with a goatie.  He sat down across from me and just looked at me a little.  He said, “you know you don’t need to wear that.” He meant the Somi cast.  “Really, ______, you won’t need that.”  And he got up and came over to kneel in front of me to unclip, unbuckle, and unsnap the contraption.  He set it gently on the ground by my feet.  He took my hands in his.  I moved my head up, down, side to side, aroung in a circle and it felt great since I had been wearing that brace for so long.  “See? Everything is going to be just fine.  Trust me, just fine.” And then he stood up and walked out the door.  I woke up covered with goose bumps.  I didn’t tell anyone about that dream, but I remembered it.

We drove into the city and went into the hospital’s main lobby.  It was this grand wide open area in what must have been a church at one point.  We got directions at the main desk and made our way to the building where Dr. Meyer’s office was.  The hospital is composed of many different building linked by catwalks.  We went across a catwalk and into a different building…a less fancy more straight-up office like one….with all gray: tile on the floors, wall color, doors.  I was getting a strong sense of deja-vu.  We found the office at the end of a hallway.  Opening the door we found a pretty empty waiting room, with chairs that had orange on them – really…orange.  My medical records from the previous doctors had been sent over, but they called me back for some x-rays.  I had A LOT of cervical x-rays for three years of my teenage years – maybe that is why my thyroid is toast?  The x-rays were processed and then delivered to a bin outside to room I was sitting in with my parents.  We heard them get picked up out of the bin and then the door opened and I met Dr. Meyer.  He set the envelope with the x-rays in it on the desk and walked right over to me and started to unclip, unbuckle, and unsnap my brace.  “I don’t think we are going to worry about this anymore.”  Three mouths dropped to the floor.  My parents stared wide-eyed in amazement at each other.  I was like, “ohhhh yeahhhh!”  But I was still afraid to move my head.  Dr. Meyer put the x-rays up on a display and explained that while a fusion would be an option to consider, that he hasn’t measured any additional angulation of the spinal column in all of the x-rays.  He took out a protractor and drew on the x-rays from when I first went to the ER, the one’s from the ortho guy, the ones from the neuro guy and his.  “See?  In six month it is still always 13 degrees.”  Although her neck should be considered unstable, it is actually stabilized.  The agulation isn’t too bad.”  He said this all very casually.  The meeting wrapped up with him essentially telling us, “Go live your life.”  Those words made my Dad break down and cry.  I don’t think I’ve seen my Dad cry more than five times in my whole life – that was one of them.  We learned that the muscles of my neck were working to stabilize the injury, which would then stiffen up with arthritis over time.  The aches and pains were a good thing and I would be okay…in time.  So I, even though I broke my neck, I walked away, and never went under the knife.  Amazing!

Seven years later I taught my first group tennis lesson at Fullerton’s Lakeshore Athletic Club.  As my class was picking up balls, I asked the members the, “so what do you do?” question.  This cool lady answered, “I’m a medical assistant at Northwestern Memorial.”  I asked her whose office she worked at, to which she replied, “you probably wouldn’t know him.” I said, “try me, I was treated there.”  She said, “Dr. Paul Meyer.” I said, “Wow, he was my doctor!” She said, “That is impossible.  Most of his patients don’t walk, let alone run around playing tennis.”  I said, “well, I do!”

I have often caught myself feeling guilty that I’ve wasted so much of my life in so many ways as I’ve been blessed with an extra twenty years now.  Hopefully, I’ll have many more years too.  Hopefully, I won’t waste them.  I know I lived that experience with one miracle after another bestowed upon me.  I have felt that nudge of spiritual awareness to know that my life has meaning and purpose.  I have touched that clarity at times and it is beautiful.

I recently had a “healer” share her impressions of me.  She knew nothing about me and mentioned that why she was doing her treatment she was overcome with the color of orange.  It made me think of that dream with the all orange waiting room.  I didn’t tell her about that.  She says that angels are all around us and there to offer help, guidance, and protection.  I feel this is true at my core as I have sensed that I have had help, been guided, and experienced protection with only divine intervention to credit.  There are skeptics for everything out there…some of them are my best friends.  But, at my deepest level of knowing, I think that I can appreciate that I have a wonderful guardian angel working hard to keep me going so that I can do what I need to do in this life.  And knowing that does sometimes intimidate me, while it also comforts me.

When I was at my lowest point, I think that I allowed my fears to swallow me and I pushed away spirituality on a conscious level.  But, even then, my guardian angel was there.  I had been guided toward some amazing people that could help me endure the struggles of those dark days.  Miracles happen all the time and we are just too busy to notice.  Angels are here among us, but we are too loud and fast to hear or feel them.  I think, now that I’m older, I can at least attempt to let my guardian angel know that I thank him/her and appreciate the blessings.  I don’t want to be afraid anymore.  I want to embrace this refreshed spirituality.  Maybe the fact that I want this is also a miracle since there has been so much struggle to bring me back to this kind of attitude.

There were times when I was free of all my addictions.  Spending time with my 18 month old niece and my thirty-something sister helped to remind me of this.

Tonight was a perfect Midwestern summer’s night.  The sun was out at 7:30 p.m. with birds still fluttering and chirping in the trees.  My sister was nestled into the sofa, exhausted from her mothering duties.  My niece was sitting in total quiet on the floor playing with crayons and a coloring book.  I was holding the coloring book for her.  The way the air smelled, all fresh following an afternoon of showers, the glint of the light reflecting from water droplets clinging to leaves, and the sounds of nature carrying on in the suburbs despite the giggles of neighborhood children running in the nearby yards and a lawn mower buzzing off in the distance, all combined to recreate a moment from my past.

Many, many years ago we were sometimes sent to bed before the sun had set because we had swim lessons early the next morning.  My sister and I shared a room back then.  We would snuggle under our Sesame Street sheets wearing the light-weight summertime p.j.’s, and experience an absolutely identical evening to tonight’s….save the 18 month old.  On nights like that, she and I would talk about getting married, having our own families, and how we couldn’t wait to have our own homes – with our own rooms.  We would plan to have picnics with all the family bringing food like a pot-luck.  We promised that one-day we would stay up late and go on our own vacations together.  The future held all kinds of possibilities and that gave us plenty of fodder to stay awake imagining.  It was great!

Funny how much of that has come to pass.  Funny how as much as we were in such a rush to get to this, now time moves so increasingly fast, we can’t do anything to slow it down.  So in such a simple moment as tonight, my senses threw me back to previous simple moments.  Those were times to remember for the freedom, the innocence, and the optimism.  Those throwbacks to happy, simple, dreamy summer nights!

I came home at 10:30 and updated my Twitter account, checked two email accounts, returned about five text messages on my cell phone, paid three bills online, tuned into “your weather on the 8s” on TWC, and set my iPod alarm clock for tomorrow morning.  Crap, technology has changed my summertime scenery.  I think I will challenge myself to once-again “unplug.”  This is a really hard challenge, but it must be tackled.  I must attempt a “throwback” to summer night’s free of cable tv, computers, cell phones, and air conditioning.  I need to re-experience sweating in my sheets, reading a fun book by flashlight, and falling asleep to my happy, wandering, positive thoughts.  Who needs more than that?

As I usually add some random thought on the end I will go on the record to claim that actor James Purefoy (spelling?) makes me happy.  Maybe it is his accent, or the crinkles on the corners of his eyes when he smiles, or his scruffiness, but there is something about him that I like.  I am excited he will be on NBC’s new show, but I doubt that he will impress me as much as he did with his role in HBO’s “Rome.”  He was awesome…as was Kevin McKidd (who is now on ABC).  I think I just really liked Rome.  Okay, enough on that.  Time to throw myself into some sleep.

I listened to WGN’s Milt Rosenberg last night.  He and his guest were discussing the possibilities for a “Multiverse” versus a single universe.  Because the idea that our universe is potentially expanding without end, versus collapsing back in – that is, “the big crunch,” the question is “Why is there a universe at all?”  I liked this part of the discussion?  The Big Bang suggests that our universe came from nothing.  There was nothing, then, bam, there was something.  Since we have not ever seen anything outside of our universe then the assumption is that our universe is all that there is, right?  Well, Milt and his guest were suggesting that a universe could be born from other universes.  If this is so, then the idea of quantum physics gets very, very interesting.  Something from something seems a little more believable than something from nothing.  Of course all of this flies in the face of my hard core Catholic upbringing.

The above quote works to tie in these thoughts on the science side of things, but all kind of speak to life as well.  When I read it, I immediately got the metaphor.  Leave science out and imagine this as an explanation of “the soul” and one’s “life experience.”  If your soul is indeed eternal, that is like “the wave” since you can’t see it or understand the totality of it at any one point.  The person you are with your life is tangible and thus parallels the particle.  Your physical body, the manifestations of your choices and actions, the occupation of your body in time and space here and now is the reality that you can observe.  Someone wise once explained that she saw life and eternity resolved as a conveyor belt.  The belt stretches on forever and is always moving.  Where you get on and get off is the sum of your life.  It is simple, so I like it.  So I asked, “where are you when you aren’t on the belt?”  She ansered, “in heaven, or some sort of spiritual pool of collective consciousness – whatever is that intangible energy of the soul…it goes somewhere.”  Ok, I’ll go with that.

So, then my atheist friend claims that the concept of “the eternal soul” is an evolutionary adaptive construct which allowed humans to exist in complex social systems whereby our sense of “being something ‘special’ and not-animal” allowed us to individualize for survival.  I’m paraphrasing his rant so well.  “When I die, it is done…that is all.  It is done and nothing matters.”  He claims that there is nothing else past the point of physical existence.  I ask, why are sociologists able to point to evidence for a “collective consciousness” then?  Why will a little kids from England, New York City, Java, Siberia, and Tibet all draw a similar picture of the sun?  Why are religions so similar?  How do you explain people believing in angels, ESP, “the light at the end of the tunnel,” and all kinds of supernatural things.  How many times have I escaped death all thanks to what – quick reflexes???  My atheist friend would claim that, yes, it was quick reflexes, dumb luck, just chance.  Man, that is depressing.

Today I was making the easy drive to my sister’s house; three times I almost hit a critter.  First there was a large raccoon that darted out in front of me.  Then, there was a deer eating grass very close to the side of the road.  Finally, all of the traffic on a major highway was stopped while a bunch of little geese waddled across the road.  Any one of these simple machine verses critter encounters could have resulted in a mess.  Today, it didn’t – thank goodness.  What is amazing is when you really stand back and consider the miracle that being alive really is…the miracle of existence at all…it is mind blowing.  Had the universe been a teeny tiny bit more or less than it was at the moment of creation, then there might not have been this reality…this always amazes me.  How can anyone think that our reality is purely luck?  Even without subscribing to any one particular religion’s explanation, I have to admit that the study of science has only strengthened my spirituality.  Science only just begins to point to the awesome beauty of the unknown.

So where does this leave me?  Just swimming in thought – that is all.  Tangible stuff seems so dry at times.  Sometimes it is just great to grab a book like Gribbin’s and send your mind spinning.  I really just felt like throwing this together after listening to that radio show last night.  I think it is good to stretch one’s mind to consider the extremely tiny stuff of subatomic physics to the infinity of the vast cosmos.  Now I can slip back into watching some stupid stuff on late night TV.