I think a possum owns this truck, Deb. Yeah. Definately a possum.
Actually, last year, a ranger introduced me and the kids to quite a nice young, clean possum. We’d gone to hear a nature talk at a nearby national park. The possum seemed spunky and genuine, and after the interactive portion of the talk, the ranger folded him up like laundry and put him in a shoebox and toted him away. He didn’t seem to mind.
In our neighborhood, we have a fat trundling ball of possum we see quite often when we drive home late on Wednesdays. He has mastered the art of walking on the grassy side of the curb instead of meandering all suicidal and entitled down the middle of the road. This is how he became an old possum, instead of ending early, like so many of his mange-y, rat-nosed brethren. The kids like to roll down the car windows and yell hello to him. He gives us endearingly worried looks over his shoulder and trundles faster.
Also, I like this commercial possum, even though the animators caused him to blink his eyes sideways in a wrongful and demonic manner.
Those three specific possums are trying to win me out of my natural state of Poscrimination, but it is a long road. If you’ve ever seen an ANGRY Possum hissing and puffing and trying to drive you from your personal garage…gah. It was years ago, and still, and still, I cannot unremember.
Tomorrow I have a REALLY fun interview and a giveaway and such. It was supposed to go up today, but I can’t manage the coding. I fell into chunks yesterday.
2010 was SUCH a wash for me, as years go. I barely remember the first half; I was either sick nigh unto death, having a couple of surgeries, or recovering from them. The second half of 2010, I had the crushing weight of the missing time on me. I LOST five months which put me so behind on work, Good LORD.
I missed a book deadline for the first time EVER and of course this coincided with my long-time editor’s retirement to the world of agenting and trying to make a good impression on a NEW editor (HI! IT’S SO NICE TO MEET YOU! PS, MY BOOK WILL BE MONTHS AND MONTHS LATE!), missed a huge CHUNK of my kids’ lives, let go of my church responsibilities and was barely able to put anything into maintaining my friendships…
Less than a week ago…I caught up. I really, actually, TRULY caught up. I came bursting out of all that crushing weight into the sunshine, and at first I was all like, OH YAY, LOOK I AM BACK IN MY REAL LIFE. But since I spent the rest of 2010 in a constant whir of SCRABBLING, blind with busy-ness, desperate to MAKE A SPACE where I could breathe again…. In all that year, I was not doing ANY sort of maintenance on the mental illness pool.
That pool got black and mossy. Foam sludged up the corners. Mean animals moved in around it. A host of cloudy, translucent eggs, sac-like and flobbulous, encrusted the bottom.
Nothing good was in those eggs. Aquatic cannibal possums, maybe. With bombs.
Yesterday all those eggs hatched. BOOM. All at once, I had all these FEELINGS and you know I don’t like that. I strongly believe Feelings should be like little Victorian Children: mannerly, decorous things that know how to behave at a state dinner.
These were not those kind of feelings.
Here’s just one: I am FURIOUS, did you know that? Yeah, me neither. I am absolutely FURIOUS with God. It’s SO funny, now that I KNOW I am furious with God, I can look at the book I just finished and see that I was WRITING about it; it’s OBVIOUS how angry I am, and yet…In my head?
It was a thematic thread I CHOSE. “I once a long time ago had a fight with God,” I thought cleverly to my cleverboots self. “Wouldn’t it be interesting just NOW when I am so DISTANT from that awful time, to WRITE about that fight? Now that it is OVER, of course, and completely UNrelevant to my current state of being.”
Meanwhile? THE WHOLE TIME I was positively SHAKING with rage. And this is just ONE of about nine huge things I have been secretly feeling for a year, all of which came at me in one fell swoop of mental doom yesterday.
Beloveds, I went to bed. I just….WENT TO BED. I had a regularly long to-do list, nothing like while I played catch-up, but still. I had things that needed to be thunged. I crumpled the list up and tossed it and I took the dog and went to bed and did not get up all day.
He and I had a six hour talk about all this. He is an excellent listener, as long you either are actively engaged in petting his ears or you don’t mind a listener who snores and farts while you natter on. Honestly he should get $210 an hour, that’s how good he is. The dog and I spent all day just in bed parsing out the state of my union, and then Scott came home and he made the dog move over and got in and I talked for several MORE hours; The upshot is, I got out of bed today. I have tentative pool-mucking-plans. I have decided to live.
I feel shaky and new-lamblike, and I can’t code an interview today. Today, I can talk in a silly tone about possums, and really? That’s about all. Or crabs. I can probably talk come about crabs, if pushed.
Rest assured your best beloveds doth truly love you and are very very glad you survived the year that was 2010 and are pool mucking and such. Oh, and I like the crab. It’s the foreign accent thing you know…..
Yeah. Hoping I can hold out to have one of those days until my vacation… in nine days. It’s much better on the beach than in an ice storm, or at least I’m hoping it is.
Take all the time you need.
I think perhaps it is a God Thing that today, for the first time in MONTHS, I have decided to see what you are up to on FTK. I may have been doing a little pool mucking myself. I have missed you, my friend. And while I do not have Bagel’s fantastic listening skills, I surely would love to have a catch up sometime soon. Love you, Tulip – mental illness number and all. Call me!
But it’s good, right? It’s all fresh and new and soul-cleany. It’s hard and emotional and FEELING-y, but afterward it’s good. And peaceful. Take a few days to roll around in that peaceful feeling; we don’t get it nearly often enough.
Please hang in there and take care of yourself.
I have one of those husbands, too, and I am grateful every single day. And although I don’t have a dog who listens, I do have two tortoises who do a pretty good job of it.
Wow. Yeah, I think it’s pretty impressive that you managed to put together a funny post about possums and crabs. That’s cool.
Well, that’s why those Christians call it a relationship. With yelling and being mad and such. But I wouldn’t have any other kind of God, or, for that matter, any other kind of Dog.
What was it with 2010? For a lot of people I know, it was a horrid year. Let’s just put it in a box and bury it out in the backyard. 2011 is a fresh slate. And there’s nothing better than a soul-cleansing day in bed. Take your time, we’re not going anywhere!
Did you know the crab’s name is Gil?
Yikes. I can relate. When you can do nothing else, just breathe deeply. Let it out. Repeat.
Keeping you in my thoughts.
I’ve been there–with the mad at God thing. It stems from being a preacher’s kid and basically resenting it anytime a man in a robe-like covering tries to tell me what to do. But I’m not interested in being a Stepford Christian, so questioning, anger and doubt are just part of the package sometimes.
You gave me such great advice at AWC. I had no idea of your emotional and spiritual turmoil. Know that your advice and humor inspired me to keep writing–and to avoid the dreaded hook dump at chapters’ end.
You’re in my prayers.
The analogy of the mental illness pool seems very apt to me. I need to do some maintenance as well….and I understand the “mad at God” too, and it’s just…argh. Obviously, said feelings render me extensively poetic. I’m glad you have a dog and a husband to support you, and hope things look up in the near future <3
Well, if it doesn’t sound too stalkery, hugs. In my own life I generally fall apart when it’s safe to do so – that is to say, after the fact. Not when things are the worst.
Wishing you sufficient chlorine to turn things around. I’m glad the dog is earning his keep. We already knew Scott would.
I’m so thankful that I’m not having a crisis, mental or spiritual, but I feel certain that you could giggle-me out of it.
You’ve had what Queen Elizabeth referred to as a horrible year (I think hers was horrible kids & kids-in-law), I wonder if she took to her bed with corgis in tow?
Be well soon, sweetie.
God bless, Christine
Oh, I can do “lite and fluffy” talk. How ’bout otters? http://icanhascheezburger.com/?s=magic+otter
Once, our garage smelled skunky and had mystery fecal matter in it. I searched (veeery carefully, for fear it WAS a skunk) and found a curled up possum in my kid’s dolly stroller. I wheeled it out (as he peeked at me, but still desterately pretended to be asleep in hopes that I didn’t really truly see him) and shut the garage door. When I peeked out the window later, he was gone. Yay!
Srsly, I need a shirt with that crab and his caption bubble!!
Some days I post a print-out of this on my office door: http://dogs.icanhascheezburger.com/?s=crankiness.
It only seems fair to warn people.
And when the pinching (or biting) urge gets too overwhelming, I fall into my mantra of repeating the list of things I am grateful for, starting with having a home and a job, hot and cold running water, and a selection of nice red wines. That only works sometimes…
@Brigitte — that otter link wuz grate! Giggles all around. (I needed that!)
Hang in there, Miss Joshilyn. We love you anyway.
At the risk of making light of your current issue(s) with God, my dog tells me that God had the nerve to take the sacred name of “dog,” spell it backwards and call it His. But I digress.
God and I had a rough 2010, or at least the last six months, so I feel for you. So far, we’re doing OK in 2011. So far.
Hang in there! If all else fails, go back to bed.
Been there. Done that. Can’t wait to read YOUR book about it. The pool mucking. The angry. All of it.
This post makes me think back to the talk you gave at the Festival of Faith and Writing. I am wondering if maybe that talk that was so wonderfully honest and liberating to your listeners was wound-opening for you. Your mental illness factor may not be as high as you think — you had the sense and sensibility to go to bed! Yay! That is a very good thing. Feel better at your own pace.