Don’t Should on Yourself

Blog soundtrack:



I think the hardest thing about moving yourself from your known element to a different element is trying to fit yourself back into your old and familiar element. This always seems to happen to me after I go to New York City. It’s a bit like post-partum travel depression.

This morning, I woke up, saw my bookshelf under the window, which I noticed needs dusting badly, and I said, “Oh, yeah. I’m here again.” It was like waking up after having a really good dream in which you won American Idol, scored the point that made your team win the State Championships, or had your Tweets surpass Ashton Kutcher’s and then realized, “Damn. That didn’t really happen.” Pick your fantasized passion; we all have those dreams.

After wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I realized that no matter how wonderful my New York trip was, I was back home facing all the same issues again. It was as if I thought all my problems would disperse while I was away. Where would they go? Well, they might catch a flight to Vegas, Plume might rip them to shreds like she has done with the boxes holding all the items from my office when I had a job, or they might spontaneously combust, leaving a huge ash cloud over my town making it impossible for flights to get in or out; we had no major airport, so no worries there!

When I went downstairs this morning, I poured my coffee. Iz was already dressed, and she said, “Hi, Momma!” I said, “Hi, Baby. I missed you when I was gone,” and she said, “I missed you, too.”

My children are something I always love coming home to, though at times they can be problematic especially when they don’t want you taking pictures of them at the prom! I like a trip every now and then, but I love being in my home again with the kids and the cats. And, yes, last night, I was even glad to have Monty barking at me!

After Iz went off to school, I tried to counter whatever feelings I was having by searching high and low for new job opportunities. I applied for a few jobs, two of which sounded really interesting; one was with the Department of Transportation and the other was to be the Editor of the Tufts Veterinary Medicine Magazine. After the general job description, Tufts said, “The ideal candidate will be an exceptionally creative writer and story-teller, preferably with experience in a veterinary or other health sciences environment.”

I read that, and I said to myself, “Can you say Jean?” Okay, I did not have experience in a veterinary or health science environment, but I had three cats and a dog and contributed at least $1000 every year to the veterinary environment. I sent them a cover letter, my resume, and the titles of all my pet-related blogs.

(My pet-related blogs: Red Shutters, Life Imitates Crime Scene Investigation, He Conquers Who Endures, The Difficulty of Life is in the Choice, A Good Death, There are No Ordinary Cats, Kitten Whispering 101, Things to Do with Your Cats When You're Unemployed, Love Me; Love Knowing How to Identify My Tabby Mackerel Tiger Cats, Things to Do With Your Dog When You're Unemployed, Lost and Found?, and Cat Found Equals Lost Cat.)

Even though the Tufts job was part time, I liked that the job description said, “Ability to move around a rural campus with working farm components as well as the stalls, clinics, labs and other facilities of the on-campus animal hospitals and research centers.” It was an interactive job; I was not only “creative” and a “story-teller” but “interactive” was my middle name when it was not “Marie.”

While searching Monster and Craigslist, Plume jumped in my lap. During the course of the morning, she was in and out of my lap about five times. Each time she jumped up, she rubbed against me, curled up, and then fell asleep; I believe that cats, despite spending most of their time sleeping, eating, and using the litter box, truly know when you’re in need of affection the most and they provide it accordingly.

It was a beautiful day here, so after I felt I had done my due diligence on the job search, I ventured out onto the rail trail. I had missed Batman (a.k.a. Bill), so I brought my iPod along. Sometimes the best medicine is riding solo with Bruce Cockburn’s “Night Train” playing as you rock on down the rail trail.

When I was almost home, I saw someone on the rail trail that I recognized. It was Lynda, the dog whisperer. She was the woman who took care of Monty for me when he was just a puppy, and she was the one who said it was important for him to be part of the pack.

I hadn’t seen her in a few years, though we had tried to reconnect in the last few months; she had a client with her, a beautiful retriever. We chatted, got caught up, and we both realized that we had much more in common than we knew; my conversation was peppered with "I should do this" or "I should have done that." At one point, she said, “Don’t should on yourself.”

She was right. I had been “shoulding” all over myself for the last 24 hours. We vowed to get together soon. Then I rode off.

Earlier in the morning, I had spent time on the phone with a friend. I “should” all over myself to her in under 10 minutes. When I got home, I read the following email her:

Hey, It is a beautiful day, you are healthy, you have beautiful children, you have friends who love you, you have a roof over your head, and good food on your table, you have your sight, your hearing, the ability to move your legs, you have beautiful vintage clothes and lovely perfumes and pretty jewelry, you have cats you adore, a dog you secretly love, a fabulous front porch that we should paint and put a porch swing and beautiful flower boxes on, you have a great computer, pink phone, electricity to watch your favorite shows and movies, a great love of music (which also means you have an iPod) you can dance or cry or sing to, you have appointments to meet your friends for lunch with next week, people you can email anytime you are blue, sweet cinnamon tea, gumdrops and jelly beans are only a short car drive away, you have a car you can drive off in (with gas!), a bike you can drive off in, you have a vacuum cleaner that you love, a house that is warm and welcoming, neighbors you can borrow sugar or tomato sauce from, a cool new sleep shirt with silly cats all over it and maybe even you have some bubble gum left, so maybe just for today you leave the sad stuff alone and give your poor sad heart a break. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away for you.

She was right; some might read this post and think, “Jeez, what is Jean's problem?” But, I know that many more will read it and say, “I totally understand. I’ve been there before.” And just then, I said to myself, “I am lucky because I have ten fingers and ten toes.”

A wand was waved. I looked at my toes, and, besides being ugly (toes my brother and I had always referred to as “crow toes”), my big toenail was broken and my polish was chipped; I had the ability, as my friend said, to “move my legs”, and so I did to get a pedicure. My toes are all better now, and so I am, well, I should be soon. ♥