Door

My heart is not a sieve
letting small pieces of something in.
My heart is a door
if it lets you in
it lets all of you in
whether you are a man
or a woman
or a rat.
(or a job?)

Therefore,
I must experience all of you;
the pleasure
and the hurt
even if I don't want to.

My heart could let nothing in
but then nothing would get out.

That's My Job

Monkey Rat, my last little girl, is old and sick. Her last infection has left her lungs but entered her nervous system and is affecting her ability to balance and hold her head up, so she's having difficulty moving around, climbing, and eating.

While I was giving her her medicine tonight, I started to feel very sad for my poor girl who was so full of life and is now still lively, but hobbling about and looking a bit bedraggled. I know I will have to say good-bye soon, but I don't want to. In the middle of all this sadness, Monkey Rat had this to tell me:

I'm not made to live a long time, Lady. My normal job is to be born, eat a tasty food, have a lots of babies, eat a more food, and die. But my real job has been to let you take care of me and that's what I'm doing. You've done a good job taking care of me, Lady, and that's good! But I have to go and you have to let me. That is your job, too.

Lucky

I'm lucky to have a husband who loves me so much. He is supportive of me and my decisions. He takes care of me and is learning how to listen, just listen and not fix it. I can talk to him. I love him very much and hope we will always be together.

He said that if I will continue to be so unhappy at school that I make myself sick, then I can quit and we will make it work. I'm not sure if that is what I will do, but I like having the option.

feeling

i am experiencing a lot of feelings right now and i don't like it. i thought that i was ok at expressing my feelings, but i guess i still hold them in. after last week's threat i kinda tried to keep my frustrations all bottled up so that i could go to work, but that didn't turn out so well as i only managed to make myself sick. both my dr and the psychologist pretty much said i need to let it out and talk to the principal. by letting her know how i feel i will be taking action and won't feel so victimized. oh, and i'll tap in to my strengths and not focus on my weakness. and if my body says it needs to cry then i need to cry, even if that means taking time away from work to let it all hang out.

i think that is what i will do. i hope one week away will be enough. i really want to resume my life.

monkey rat is getting old. i don't think i can handle another bad thing right now. she needs to live until june.

no wonder i keep it locked up inside. i don't like feeling this way. i like being happy. i don't like feeling sad. but we all have to feel bad right when it happens otherwise it messes us up. i still don't like it. i like being in control and right now my feelings are refusing to stay put and hidden. they want to come out. i am glad i have a caring husband who is willing to listen and hug me. and is supportive when i start talking about taking time off of work.

End of Days

You know how old people are? How, if they can, they live on ice cream and cookies? And cake? It's as if they know today can be their last, so they live like it. I mean, if I thought I would die today or tomorrow I would totally eat all the dark chocolate and brownies I could lay my hands on. Mmmmmm.... chocolate walnut brownies....washed down with Starbucks' peppermint mocha.... and a side of fried chicken..... and chili-cheese fries....

Anyway, I think MonkeyRat is in that phase. After all, she is 26 months old now which is about 70 in people years. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that she wasn't eating all her salad. Then I saw that she was only eating the corn. We had a scare this last weekend so Tim took her to the vet on Monday and it looks like she's lost about 20g. It made me think that maybe she isn't eating enough. Apparently I'm not giving her enough of the rat equivalent to ice cream and cake.

What is that, you may ask? As far as I can tell, it would be Yogies, corn (on or off the cob), Ensure (chocolate), bread, and avocado.

Since making this discovery her daily salad has been nothing more than corn kernels and avocado. And about 1ml of chocolate Ensure given 2x a day along with her meds. Now, of course, her salad dish is empty. I did manage to sneak in (really? is it possible sneak in food to a rat?) some peas and lettuce these past couple of days and she's eaten some of them, but what disappears is the corn and avocado. The bread gets stashed for later to get nice and hard and good for snackin'.