Weight of My World

I am mentally exhausted and yet I can not sleep.

It's amazing how quickly life can change. I once heard it said that life is what happens when something else is planned. Boy, is that ever true.

I've seen changes in many directions since the spring of 2009, but never in my life has it had such an impact on my mental state or emotions. I find myself drained - lacking all motivation or drive, wondering what's going to happen, knowing that my entire life hangs in the balance, resting comfortably in the hands of someone other than me.

I have nobody to blame but myself. I put myself in this situation. But I can't hang in the balance too much longer. I MUST do something about this, and I will.

I've always been a strong person, even when I didn't know it. It took a precious friend to point that out to me recently, and I can't thank her enough for that. I always find that I have that fire in my belly when I need it most ,and I know when the time comes it will return full force. I've done and seen enough in this life to know how to survive with nothing but the clothes on my back, and though I really wouldn't want to ever be there again, I know I would pull through it just fine as I always have before.

I often wonder if I was ever really meant to be happy. While I often screw things up for myself and I have a long history of poor choices, I've also been known to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've had it all, only to have it pulled out from under me like a Persian rug. I've given up so very, very much, only to get very little in return. I've been promised the world and denied everything but food and shelter in the same breath.

I've been too trusting, too patient, too loving and too generous. Well, I just don't seem to learn. Time and time again I find myself wondering what I've done wrong and what I've done so bad in my life to end up feeling like this, feeling like my whole world is crumbling around me, crushing me under the weight of the world. It's not the first time I've found myself wondering what's going to happen to me.

I have an enormous weight on my shoulders right now and I can NOT lift it on my own - YET. I can feel that strength bubbling up, but right now it hasn't even gotten past my calf muscles. I know, without a doubt, that by the time the fire bubbles to my finger tips, I will have all the strength I need to hurl that weight off my shoulders and straight to the moon.

It's not here yet, but it's not long in coming. When it gets here - look out world - THE REDHEAD WILL BE BACK IN ACTION.

My Greatest Addiction

There are many things that the human race has been addicted to since the beginning of time. Probably one of the first and most primal addictions was adrenaline. The cave man knew not why he enjoyed the hunt so much other than the feeling of accomplishment once the kill was on its way home to feed his fellow tribesman and woman. What he didn't realize was that a catecholamine secreted by the adrenal medulla in response to stress was stimulating an autonomic nerve action; in other words, an adrenaline rush. A day in the life of a Neanderthal wasn't overly exciting, I imagine. Suddenly, during the thrill of a chase, the danger of the kill, he felt alive. He felt new and refreshed, like there was a reason he was alive. His body tingled with the very sensation. His hearing was more keen, his sight more honed in, and his nose far more sensitive. He could feel every breath of air that swept past his bare arms.


Man has had the grand misfortune of finding many more highly addictive substances over the past couple of million years, some of which we've discovered how to fabricate for ourselves. The number of drug and alcohol addictions in this country is staggering!


One must wonder who it was who discovered that this horrible, tiny, hard, bitter bean would be wonderfully pungent and delicious once ground into dust and hot water was filtered through it. Did you know that Americans use more than 2.3 billion pounds of coffee beans each year? We are addicted to caffeine!


But my addiction is none of these. My addiction is something much more serious, and taken with a much more lighthearted attitude. My addiction is love. Some of you may sneer, jeer, jest, heckle, and just plain roll your eyes at this. Others may say that I'm either crazy or headed that way. Maybe so! All I know is that I love to be loved. I enjoy that feeling. I crave it! And I know that when I cant get the love I crave from the source I so desperately want it from, I become a very sad person. Its a horrible addiction, and one that I feel I am on the road to recovering from. I do not wish to live for that feeling. I don't want be depressed, sad, or lonely when I feel I don't get the attention I want. There will be times in my life when I wont be able to have that attention and I must learn to live with that. Just knowing that the one I've decided to give my own heart to loves me should be enough but I crave that interaction between two hearts and souls; that beautiful moment when nothing else in the world matters but the two in love.


I have known many that said they loved me, far less that meant it, and far fewer than that whom I have ever loved in return. Still, I let those who loved me believe that the feeling was mutual so as not to loose their love. Was that bad? Was it wrong? I believe it was, and yet I could not help myself for so long. Every time I had the opportunity to let one of those people I did not love fade off into the background, I seemed to pull them back in and dangle that carrot just out of reach once more.


It took so long to grow into the person I've become. I know now what I want in life, I know how to let go of those I do not and can not love, while at the same time holding tightly to those I do. I know finally what real love feels like. I know it's waiting for me - just patiently waiting. He's right there. Maybe he's waiting for an email or a text message from me... but he's out there. Very soon now, I'll be looking into his eyes as he looks deep into mine, soul mates seprated too long ago and forced into strange lives we were never meant to live appart.

Night Thoughts

The Beep beep beep as a truck backs up somewhere in the distance...
The rumble of the motor when it finally stops, purring somewhere in the darkness...
The sounds of the passing cars on the street...
A truck revs its motor at a stop light, ready to roar off into the night...

I hear it all from my bedroom on the third floor.
I see it all clearly from the window.
These things that would annoy or pester most everyone I know are the things that lull me to sleep at night when I'm laying here alone.

It's nights like this I miss having someone there with me the most. He's out there, and I can only pray he's thinking of me right now, too... waiting for me, wishing for me... wanting me...

I close my eyes and let the slight dizziness from complete exhaustion take over me for a moment. When I open my eyes again, dawn will have broken and the world will be waking up again. I will have made it through another lonely night.

Someday ...
Someday it wont be like this.
When that someday comes, it will never be like this again.

Sleep, take me now. Guide me into sweet thoughts and dreams. Let me see, if only for a few hours with my eyes closed, exactly the way I imagine life should be.

Oliver's Twisted Tale

The day Oliver was born I was giving my coworker a ride home. Louisa got the call from her boyfriend when we were about half there. Selena, their cat, was having here second batch of kittens. My foot found a little lead somewhere in the depths. I hadn't seen a live birth since I worked at the horse farm and helped in the birthing of a beautiful black foal with white stockings. I couldn't wait to see the brand new kittens.

Selena had four kittens beside her when we walked in. By all

accounts, we thought she was done having them. Then, her stomach ceased and we knew there was another on the way. The four beside her were all black and white kittens, beautiful and innocent. When the fifth kitten was born, I saw that beautiful orange head and knew instantly that this was MY cat, come Hell or high water. There he was, just beautiful. It was love at first sight. We didn't know until later that he was the only boy in the litter.

"Louisa," I asked, "where is the father?"

"That's a long story." I waited patiently, wanting to hear the story, long or not. "Selena had kittens before. We couldn't find homes for any of them, and they were already 9 months old when we took them to the pound. Selena was pregnant again by that time, but she hadn't been outside at all. We think Troublewas the one who got her pregnant. But the father of Trouble is probably some stray outside. We aren't sure. She got out one day and when she got back she was pregnant."

"Her own kitten got her pregnant? These cats are inbred?"

"I'm afraid so," she admitted. "Does that make you change your mind?"

"No," I smiled. "You know you can't take it back when you've already named the pet."

"You already named him?"

"Yeah... Oliver, from the cat in the Disney movie 'Oliver and Company'. What do you think?"

"It's cute! I can call him the Oli-nator!"

By the time I picked up Oliver 5 weeks later, she had also been calling him Olie Olie Oxen Free. I wasn't wild about either nickname. I knew the second he was born that I wanted to call him my Ollie cat, born of a pet and an Alley cat. Ollie could be short for Oliver or Olivia. As with all pets though, he eventually decided on his own nickname.

His nickname turned out to be none other than "Cat", nicknamed for the orange cat in the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's". He also ended up with the nickname "Boo Boo" due to his confusing family history.

He wasn't much company for the first few months I had him, but I will be the first to admit I'd never seen anything more adorable. He fell asleep standing up, laying on his back with his feet up in the air, laying across my feet, leaning against my chest, and curled up in the magazine rack. He played when he wasn't sleeping, and he kept us very entertained. Still, the thought of his being inbred did cause some fear within me. I needn't have worried. It only made him more special.

Days and weeks went by. He kept us so entertained! I was in a struggling relationship at the time where I didn't feel I was getting the love or affection I needed. Oliver somehow managed to fill that void. I took tons of pictures of him in those first few weeks. I couldn't help it, I had fallen completely in love with this little bundle of joy. He was my pride and joy when I had little else to look forward to.

At six months old, we had him neutered and declawed. The poor little guy had the hardest time with two casts, several stitches and a cone on his head. The first day he came home, he fell asleep on my stomach and didn't move for the rest of the day and all of the night. Occasionally I would have to check on him to make sure he was still breathing.

When Pete and I split up, it was only a couple of weeks after he turned a year old. I bundled my poor little guy up in my fathers truck, and we drove 800 miles from Los Angeles to northern Utah, and with a little protesting in the first few hours, he finally calmed down and slept the rest of the trip. His bed sat on the center console between my father and myself. When he got restless, he would just climb into one of our laps and watch out the window.

Two months later when I decided it was time to go home to California, the bed wouldn't hold him any longer. Driving a stick shift car back down over 800 miles, my lovely little redheaded cat sat only in my lap. Half way down when I was robbed of my uhaul and everything I ever owned, my little Boo Boo was safe and sound in my arms. Even that was pure luck. The hotel wouldn't let cats inside, so I smuggled him in hiding in a duffle bag. I was never so glad at having broken rules before that moment I discovered my uhaul was gone and my Ollie was sitting safe and warm in my arms.

He's been with me through many trials and much turbulence, and yet he's held fast to me. He's managed to move 4 times in a year, survived more than 1,400 miles on the road , and learned just recently how to climb a very thin ladder with no front claws on his feet. He's developed some rather odd habits, including the habit of fuzzing out his tail like a pipe cleaner whenever someone points at him. He doesn't go crazy like some other cat's I've known if you hold him on his back, and in fact he seems to enjoy it. He takes baths, including sometimes I'm not aware of if I don't watch him closely. He would climb into the bath as soon as I got out sometimes and really frighten me half to death. He can't swim!

He's all I have for a reminder of a previous life. Sometimes he's frustrating and I don't know exactly what to do with him, but then there are times when all he has to do is nuzzle me with his little orange and white cheek, and my heart melts.

I've never been much of a cat person. I've had dogs all my youth. I wasn't sure what to do with a cat. I don't know if it's his inbreeding that's made him so unique or the fact that I raised him like I would a dog, but everyone who meets him tells me that he's incredibly unique. I'm still not wild about cats, but my little guy isn't really a cat at all. He's a half breed monkey boy and dog mix. He's part cowardly lion and part brainy scarecrow. He's my pathway home, he's my reminder of where I come from, and he's the reason I keep fighting to make a better life for us.

He needs me... and likewise, I need him.

He's my much needed source of unconditional love.