Rescue Journal

I was thinking in the bath tonight...

Alison  ·  Sep. 30, 2006

of all the really good things in life I have given away. Like my huge bathroom with it's double soaker bathtub and unlimited water supply, and all my art work, antiques, needlepoint, and family heirlooms that stayed in my really great color decorated ex-family home that I reno'd just before I left. I was thinking about my stories and poetry and ideas and experiences that were freely given at a time when I wanted to share them and now I don't have them anymore because they belong to someone else's history. I was thinking about the feel of my little children's hands in mine and how I will never feel that again because my children are all grown up. And I was starting to feel sorry for myself. Until Cedric and Pippa broke into the bathroom and interrupted me by stealing Suzie's food, knocking over the water bowl and peeing on my towel next to the tub.

So, I now have a crappy little bathroom with a dent in the floor and a tub I mostly can't use because water is in fact a precious resource. And my stuff was just stuff, and the colors were nice but would look stupid in here. I write new stories, and new poems, and learn new things as I experience each new moment of each new day. Now I hold my adult children's hands in mine, and they are just as warm and even more familiar and much closer to me now than that distant dreamy, past.

Maybe life is supposed to be like a garage sale where you recycle the old and unwrap the new. Where you pass somethings on but remember them in your heart. Maybe if you hold too tight to things, you lose them forever instead of sharing them around. Cedric and Pippa are recycled, they belonged somewhere else before they came here. Maybe they will be shared and loved again with someone else. Until then, they were causing trouble in my dinky bathroom, with it's crappy, half filled tub and they were pretty funny as they fell over each other to trash a 3 foot space. I guess life is a trade off sometimes too. You give away a really great tub, but you get a cardiac cripple and an ancient tiny Phyllis Dillar poodle in a blue sweater instead.

Thinking of my great giant tub, reminded me of that old game show "Let's make a Deal" As a child, I never used to understand why the contestents were disappointed when they chose door number three and discovered a goat instead of the new car. I always thought the goat was the better prize. I just remembered that tonight.

Comments

Melissa

One thing to think about is that not all stories are written down, everybodys life is a story, every week is a new chapter and as the main characters, we decide how the story is played out.

And every day is a poem Carol, and yours are beautiful.

Carol

well as someone recently pointed out to me, sometimes you do regret giving away some things...like that hot tub that i was so desperate to get rid of when we moved in here. it looked like extra work and it took up space, and i thought i would never have time to use it anyway. and i bugged every single person who came here, did they want it?
well hello???, a hot tub on a farm with limited water in the summer/fall would probably mean a good long soak in a even greater tub every single day without worry or extra water...hmmm, how bright was that?? sometimes you don't know something is good until you already gave it away!

when i get the cabana and the chaise lounge, i want a hot tub now too. plus all the dogs can hang around when i soak and they can pee on the grass as much as they want too!

Julie

All the stuff in the world can fill places in your life.. can provide physical comforts.. but it can't bring the one thing that is truly important, Love. Soemtimes the life we have isn't always fair, it can make us ponder existance, which can be useful.. but if that life has no Love, then it isn't really a life at all. Stuff, things, little bits can help us remember moments, emotions... but with out Love there really isn't much left.
We are all surrounded by Love, if we know how to accept it. You have proof of that every day Carol, the children adore you! And your friends love you.
Feel the Love surrounding everything, its all connected. Love is the deepest experience of all...

Jean

Carol, your post and Deb's comments brought tears to my eyes. You are both so right - it is "stuff", and what isn't "stuff" is still held precious in our memories.
When I was thinking of leaving my old life, and fretting about the comforts and things I would be leaving, you told me your story and reminded me that "it is just stuff". Those words came back to me many times (and still do, when I start feeling sorry for myself). And I wouldn't in a million years trade my life as it is now for all the "stuff" and comforts I used to have.
What is truly important will stay with us forever - in our hearts and our memories if not by our side.
Holes in the bathroom floor can be fixed; holes in our hearts cannot.

Deb

I don't think we so much give things away as outgrow them, find someone who needs them more than we do, lose our appetites for them, or forget why we ever say value and beauty in them. Not in people, but in "stuff", although many of us have made the painful decision to choose health and potential happiness over staying in the lives of people who meant us harm.

I saw the photo of you as a beautiful, glowing, proud young mother to your baby boy. That moment in time still exists, and is as much a part of you as your cells and veins. Your circumstances are different now, you are leading a different sort of life than I think anyone at such a tender age could have envisioned, but you are fundamentally the same human being. You have given away stuff, lost stuff, but keep the strength, humour, compassion, love, determination and pure energy it takes to give life to creatures for whom there is no other option.

You have a lot of deep thoughts in a bathtub that contains a glorified puddle. Doesn't your brain just get tired?