Needing a map

The philosophy and otherwise irrelevant ramblings of a struggling poet.

Monday, October 13, 2003

I have a tendency to want to fix things. When something is crooked in the store, I want to straighten it. When I walk by a clothing rack that is askew, I want to rearrange the hangers so that they look nice and neat. When I see something that is broken I want to fix it.

This carries way beyond non-sentient nouns though. I do this to animals and to people as well. I'm the family vet. No, I am not an actual veterinarian. But when the animals are sick, I'm the one who takes care of them. Considering how many animals my mother has, it's quite a job sometimes. I remember one time in particular, one of her goats was very ill, and needed some shots every few hours, so I had to stay with it almost all the time. When night came, the poor animal wasn't feeling any better, so I set up a camp cot and lay down for the night. At the time, I had a toy poodle, Bridgette (my puppy) and I spent the night on the cot outside in the goat pen. Every 20 minutes or so, the goat would give a horrible cry because of the pain. Every few hours I'd have to get the syringe and give her a shot to see if the symptoms would go away. They never did, and in the morning, I had to go to the house and tell my step father that I knew she wasn't going to make it and that he needed to go ahead and put her down. I just asked that he wait till I left the house. I went to work and worked a double shift that day after about 2 hours of sleep.

When it comes to people, I try to be ever conscious of what their needs are in relation to me. In my opinion, most people are not aware enough of the needs of others. I, however, take this awareness to an extreme. I am not only aware, I'm responsible. I will give until I have nothing else to give and after that I will try my best to find something more. In some comical way it reminds me of the knight in Monty Python that was going to gnaw the knees off his attacker after he'd lost his arms and legs.

/shrug.

I take on too much sometimes. I don't have access to the little cottage that Lisa and I created. I don't have anyway to get there and I don't have any way to create it. I only hope that the next few weeks will bring more peace than the last month has.

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