mystery injuries

i am prone to mystery injuries.  i've never been one of those dainty little princesses and i'm not particularly graceful. so it's not surprising that i sometimes discover scratches, cuts, and bruises on my body of whose origin i haven't the faintest clue.  there are simply too many possible options..

still, every time i discover one of these inevitable injuries i stare and i think and i think and i think...."when did this happen?  how did this happen?"  today, as i was massaging lotion into my legs after my shower a familiar stinging sensation alerted me to the 6 small cuts on my left knee.  i stared and i thought....and eventually i decided that it was probably that semi-nasty fall i had when i was running to my car in the rain the other day.  who knows for sure, but my mind simply wouldn't let it go until i decided on the source.

i seem to have the same issues in life sometimes.  i'm just continuing along with my life when suddenly something or someone triggers a reaction and all of a sudden i recognize this pain that i never knew existed in my soul.  (yeah, i just went there.  ...my soul.  but it's true.)  and sometimes i know exactly where the pain is coming from - which crappy guy or past heart hurt is the cause.  other times, though, it's simply a mystery injury.

after a decade of dating all the wrong guys and a myriad of bad experiences with them, well, one can end up with a few of these latent pains.  they go undetected for months, sometimes years at a time and then they surface in the midst of the most random moments.

luckily, like the 6 small cuts on my knee, once these mystery injuries are discovered it's much easier to speed up the healing process.  it's only a matter of time before the cuts scab over and are eventually cured.  and if i've done a good job with proper care, then i won't even have any scars as reminders.

it's a small world after all

catchy title, but no, i'm not talking about that creepy ride at disney. -->



today while i was trying to track down an old grad school classmate of mine, i noticed a photo of said grad school classmate and one of my classmates from undergrad.  i couldn't help but freeze.  i stared at the photo, bewildered.

how do these two people know each other?

one is from the northeast and went to college in west virginia, the other is from north carolina where our grad school is as well.  i was so confused...  has that ever happened to you?  when you realize that two people you know for two completely different reasons happen to know each other?

it just goes to prove that as vast as this world seems at times, it really is quite small.

it made me think about tragedies like 9/11, hurricane katrina, the earthquake in japan or the tornadoes in joplin.  it's kind of sick, but we always want to have a personal connection to the tragedy.  like, even though i've never been to japan, there is an international student at pfeiffer (whom i've only spoken to twice) who is from japan and his family is fine because they didn't live where the earthquake hit but he knew some people who knew some people who did live there.  because i know him, i have a connection to the earthquake. 

i remember similar scenarios on 9/11.  i remember sitting in my residence hall room hearing girls on the hall talking about relatives who worked for businesses that had offices in the world trade center buildings (even though the branches they worked for were in completely different states) and girls crying inconsolably about friends who had enlisted in the military after high school (although when asked about their 'friends' we found out that they didn't even know the last names of these classmates because they'd actually never talked to them in their lifetime).

and what about the people who claim that they were a little league baseball coach to the latest american idol or the 3rd grade teacher of an olympic swimmer.  why do we care what these people have to say?  (unless, of course, the star names that coach or teacher as a true inspiration for their aspirations in life.)

we want some semblance of fame.  we want to be able to personally identify with these situations, whether stardom or tragedy.  we want to be included in the news coverage.  we want to be news-worthy.

so why is it when we see funding for public education cut to pieces we remain silent?  why is it that we forget about the hungry and homeless in our own communities until we see a commercial on tv (but even then too often we shed one silent tear and then go on with our lives as if we never heard the news)?  why is it that we assume that someone else will fix the problem, that someone else will give, someone else will care?

we have got to start caring for our neighbors - around the world, throughout our nation, and within our communities.  we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, the give shelter to the homeless, to love the forgotten....because people, it is a small world after all.

catching up with change

pete chews shoes. he chews shoes and glasses. and magazines and boxes. and pretty much anything but furniture (thank goodness for that small miracle).

i love pete.  i also love my shoes.  so pete has spent the past two weeks with a dog trainer in concord.

on friday i went to pick up pete and we had our first lesson with the trainer together.  pete tested me.  oh boy did he test me.  as lindsay said, "he knows the rules.  he knows that i enforce the rules.  he also knows that you've never known the rules before.  you have to show him that you know the rules now too."  it only took a few tries before he realized that the change he experienced for those two weeks weren't just temporary, until he realized that i knew the rules too.  i had to learn the trigger words lindsay used with him and just when and how to say those words to get the reaction pete had been taught. 

pete is a different dog, people.  truly.  i cannot say enough good things about swiftdogz and our trainer, lindsay.  pete is still full of energy and probably the happiest dog on the planet, but he now listens in ways he never did before.  we learned "base" training, which is actually quite similar to super nanny's "naughty step", only it's not just for being naughty.  pete has a base, or a space that is his and only his.  i physically place him on his base and say "pete, base" and he stays.  he doesn't leave his base until i invite him off of it.  it's genius!  it works really well when he's super energized and needs to calm down or when he gets under foot as i'm trying to cook in the kitchen.  i can't believe how much he has changed.  how much we have changed...

my friend katy just returned from a trip to germany.  we met today at a park in salisbury to get our pups together (pete and ellie are best of friends) and catch up on our lives.  katy was a different person than the girl who left for germany just a short week ago.  she's still the same old sweet friend, but she's experienced life in a new way that has effected her in ways that cannot be undone.  the changes my be subtle, but they're there.  the trip was for class, but it was also about discovering herself in the freedom of anonymity.  her observations in people are slightly different and our conversation topics are a big more colorful.  just like with pete, i'm having to learn slightly new ways of interacting with her.

katy's was the first return to america of many friends of mine who are gallivanting across the world right now.  each one of them will have been changed.  some in big ways, and some in small subtle, almost forgettable ways.  but traveling isn't the only experience that changes us.  sometimes it's as simple as a moment.  one quick moment during your typically mundane life when something clicks in your soul and you have been changed.  and when you change, you have to give the people around you time to catch up.

i think that's why things like marriage counseling and al-anon exist.  because when someone changes, the significant people in their lives have to catch up with that change too.  sure, a person can go to counseling or attend aa meetings alone, but what good will that do if their family and friends don't support it or maybe don't even recognize the change at all?  sometimes you need that time together to work through that change, learning the triggers and the reactions so that you can communicate better with this newer version of someone you care about.