300th Post

What the hell have I managed to talk about for 300 posts?

Politics, family, religion, recipes, books I've read and books I've written, home and traveling, hospitals and doctors, wildlife and pets loved and lost.

Love. Always love.

I started this as an exercise. I wanted to see if I could write something even remotely worthwhile twice or ideally thrice weekly.

I failed.

I succeeded.

Sometimes simultaneously.

I've railed about politics because it matters a whole lot that the government works for the people- real people who get sick and old and lose jobs and spouses. Government doesn't need to help corporations or really wealthy people because...think about it. Seriously.

Family is uppermost and more important than anything. Family- MY family, the whole weird related by blood or absorbed by love lot of us. Every one precious and irreplaceable. Every one brilliant and funny in their own way. Every single one.

Religion annoys me. Religion is NOT of any god, anywhere- they are rules and stories made up by men with one purpose- to control a population. The whole concept of religion- calling the followers 'children', referring to the god as 'father'- all screams at keeping humans from thinking for themselves, from growing up, from evolving.

Recipes relay love in the form of food. There's a very sensual aspect to preparing food, then presenting it to loved ones- "Here- this is from me- to nourish and comfort you."

Ahhh, books. Magical things they are. Twenty six letters all arranged and rearranged over and over again to build one by one a story, an idea, a concept deciphered by the brain and stored in the heart. Books are magic.

Books I've read become part of me.

Books I've written become part of other people.

And round and round and round.

Home IS where my heart is. This home, this place, is 'it'. Everyone has somewhere they feel more at home than anywhere else in the world, and this place is mine. And I never take that for granted, not for a single solitary second. I will breathe my last breath thanking the Universe for allowing me to inhabit this place for a blink of Time's eye.

The opportunity to travel, even though we don't globe-trot, is vital to not only our son's education, but our own as well. As much as we love Home, it's very important to go out, see, meet others in other places, immerse ourselves in something other than the familiar, for only by doing that will be not be afraid of things that are different...will we be able to accept the strange and unknown as merely that- strange and unknown but not inherently evil.

The whole medical issue- hospitals, doctors, appointments, tests, stress, and all that goes along with it are necessary evils. After over a decade mired in it, I still get frustrated, still get blindsided by things I should've thought of until I remember that it's NOT MY JOB to think of it- it's someone else's and because of the number of doctors and departments involved shit gets overlooked every damn time we try to do the simplest thing.

My frustration and anger is not only for ourselves. I know that for every bullheaded nit-picker like myself there are a thousand people who say, "Well, he's the doctor- what he says must be true and how we need to proceed". How many people die because of this? Too damn many.

I do not check and double check and question every little thing because I assume they'll do the wrong thing.

But I do want to make damn sure they do the right thing.

Nature surrounds me at Home and I try to surround myself with as much Nature as I can wherever I go. Not because I'm an old hippiechick treehugger (although that's true enough) but because when I'm surrounded by natural things, I can much more easily remember my place in the Universe. It's very tiny, very fleeting, and very simple.

In the Grand Scheme of Things, I'll only be here for an instant, then I'll be recycled into something or someone else. That's Nature's Truth whether or not you believe in a god or reincarnation or nothing at all- your physical being will be absorbed back into the earth and those atoms and particles will weave themselves into another living thing. And that's better than OK. It's a Miracle.

The furry friends I've had and have remind me about the important stuff. They don't know and don't care about bills and schedules. They love me. A minute spent with me is all they ask, ever. Their attitude towards life is a shining example for me to reach for in my interactions with other humans not only in my own family, but everywhere.

I strive every day to be the person I see reflected in the eyes of my animals and family.

Which brings us back to love.

So many definitions, so many meanings, so many misunderstandings and bastardizations of one little word.

When nothing else matters but another's well-being, AND when that same feeling is reciprocated truly and without stipulations, there is love.

If it takes and takes and leaves you empty, it's not love.
If you can use it as a weapon, it's not love.
If it walks hand in hand with anxiety and jealousy, it's not love.

I have love. I do love. And I never, ever take that for granted, either.