You can add "wild coon" to the list of problems I never thought I'd have to face in life.
But that rustling noise coming from above my head tells me I was wrong.
I hear the banging as I try to go to bed at night. It wakes me up at unnatural hours before dawn, as my uninvited visitor burrows in my insulation in an attempt to build a dream home. As I watch primetime television, I hear it trying frantically to burst through my ceiling so it can watch football beside me.
I've been leaving out some extra chips and salsa, just in case.
The worst part is that I'm helpless to get rid of my new house guest. What used to be the attic in my house was renovated into the master bedroom, so there's only a few inches of space between my roof and the ceiling. The coon has managed to find it, and there's no going up there to drag it out. I could patch up the hole in my porch's roof through which the coon probably entered, but that would just as likely trap the coon in as trap it out.
In my desperation, I briefly thought about rat poison. Moral issues aside, I don't know how I'd even get it up there, and it would result in either a festering rotted raccoon carcass above my living space, or a Really Angry Raccoon Out For Revenge, and neither of those situations sound like much fun. Plus, it would make for a really awkward vibe if the raccoon ever finds its way inside to watch football with me.
I tried to bang on the ceiling in the hopes of making it scamper way. Instead, all I managed to accomplish with that effort was to weaken the strength of the thin layer of material separating me from the wildlife above me.
At my lowest moment, I thought about just deeding the house over to the coon and moving back to St. Louis, where we moved from five years ago and still have a house. But if I tried this strategy of appeasement, the coon would probably follow us in the hopes of annoying us into another lucrative real estate deal.
So, faced with one raccoon and no options, I called a wildlife removal company today. I'm sure it will be expensive beyond reason when all is said and done, but there wasn't any other choice. And now, a few hours later, I've now became identifiable to all my neighbors as the guy with a giant coon trap sticking out of his roof. And I don't mean that metaphorically.
I find myself walking outside to check the rooftop trap every 20 minutes or so. I'm sure I'll be scared out of my wits if there's ever an actual coon inside of it, but I just can't help myself. Having a coon in one's attic will do strange things to one's mind.
There is great irony in this ridiculous situation. I grew up in a rural setting on the outskirts of town. I hated living 15 minutes from the closest grocery store and risking my life at the hands of poisonous snakes every time I tossed a football into the bushes, so my childhood goal was always to live in a bigger city, and the most urban atmosphere I could find within it.
I did that. I made a point of finding a house within walking distance to most everything I could want. I ruled out living in a subdivision, because even that felt too remote. We live four houses away from one of the busiest streets in town. We have a very small yard, and even that was only because my wife absolutely demanded a modicum of space between us and our neighbors. In every single way, I've made a point to depart from the rural lifestyle of my childhood.
Basically, every major housing choice I've made in my adult life was geared toward avoiding having to worry about stuff like "what would happen if there was a coon in my attic?"
But I have one anyway.
At least I think it's a coon. It actually could be something much worse, I suppose. All I really know for sure is that it's big, it's loud, it comes out at night and it seems to like football, so it could be a coon, a panther or maybe even John Madden.
My neighbor saw a raccoon on my roof a few weeks ago, though, and the wildlife guy who examined our roof spotted what appeared (to him) to be raccoon poop, so I'm going to assume that's what we're dealing with.
That beats having to learn how to distinguish between raccoon poop and other types of feces.
Besides, if it's something bigger, I really don't want to know.
Although I might buy some extra chips, just in case.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Why I'm Particularly Thankful This Year
I have only a few rules in life, but one of them is this: if a doctor (or anyone else) is going to poke around in my intestines, I'm going to know the reason why.
So, about this time a year ago when something felt "off" with the back end of my digestive system, I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to describe what was going on, who to attempt to describe it to, and I sure didn't want someone, who may or may not be the right doctor, digging around down there on a fishing expedition.
Besides, if I couldn't put the issue into words, it probably wasn't all that serious. Or so I told myself.
I was probably just constantly dehydrated. I never did drink those 8 glasses of water a day the experts say we're all supposed to drink. That was probably it.
So I went on with the assumption that nothing too serious was happening. Or at least I did until February, when my brother was diagnosed with colon cancer.
His symptoms sounded much worse than mine, but there was enough similarity that, once I was ready to face it a few months later, I had a colonoscopy of my own. It was everything I had always heard it would be, except that no one tells you anything close to how bad it actually is. But that's a different column.
For the sake of this column, the most important thing about that procedure was that it showed I had three polyps, two of which were the most dangerous kind of precancerous growths. They were in the exact same spot in my colon where my brother's cancer had developed in his.
I was almost relieved to hear the news. It meant I'll have to have many, many future colonoscopies, (before which I'll have to relieve myself in entirely different ways), but it meant I wasn't crazy, at least in this one regard. The reason it felt like I was having a minor operation every time I went to the bathroom was because something was stopping up my plumbing. I still have the pictures to prove it!
It didn't occur to me until later that what my older brother was facing likely would have been my future down the road, had he not suffered it first. I'm not thankful that he got cancer--in fact, I would have gladly taken it for him--but I am thankful that I got what feels like a second chance to live a healthier lifestyle in the hopes of avoiding this thing. It's a chance many people don't get.
I'm not thankful for those developments in my life, but I am thankful that my outlook has changed because of them. More than anything, since that fateful day in February when life forever changed, I'm thankful for every single day I get, and every single day that I get to spend having meaningful relationships in my life, whether they are in town or a phone call away.
I'm thankful that I get to see some of those people on Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday regardless. It's a day of celebration that requires only the preparation of cooking for it, which itself is kind of relaxing because the recipes are probably familiar and the world basically stops for four days, so there's nothing else to do anyway (Unless you work at Walmart, in which case you have to be in by 5 p.m. to start getting ready for early Black Friday sales).
More importantly, it's a day where no one is allowed to be negative. It's easy to be sad at Christmas if you aren't having the Stereotypical Perfect Holiday Season our Culture Practically Demands, and it's easy to be down at New Year's if you don't have exciting plans.
But Thanksgiving is a day about looking on the bright side. There's no cultural stereotype to live up to, except for eating too much food. Even if you end up spending it alone, there's no better setting to pause and consider the blessings in your life.
It hasn't been an easy year for me, but my life has still been blessed in ways I can't describe. For all kinds of reasons, there's been more pain this year than any other I can remember, but probably more joy as well. I've even begun to wonder if the two go hand-in-hand.
As I think through every good thing in my life, I remind myself that I'm not entitled to any of it. I'm lucky to have every single meaningful relationship in my life, I'm lucky my bills get paid and there's food on the table, and I'm lucky that I love my city and I don't dread going to work every single morning the way I used to at a different time in my life.
Still, I keep waiting for the day when life gets easier--when money is rampant, sickness isn't an issue and my relationships are free from interpersonal conflict. I'm not holding my breath that such a day will ever come, and if it does, I know it probably won't stay for long.
In the meantime, though, I'm going to live in the present. And now that I think of everything I have that I might not, it looks even better than I had imagined. I'm blessed with things that bring me comfort, causes in which I believe and people who I treasure. All in all, that's not so bad.
And I'm so very thankful for all of it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
So, about this time a year ago when something felt "off" with the back end of my digestive system, I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to describe what was going on, who to attempt to describe it to, and I sure didn't want someone, who may or may not be the right doctor, digging around down there on a fishing expedition.
Besides, if I couldn't put the issue into words, it probably wasn't all that serious. Or so I told myself.
I was probably just constantly dehydrated. I never did drink those 8 glasses of water a day the experts say we're all supposed to drink. That was probably it.
So I went on with the assumption that nothing too serious was happening. Or at least I did until February, when my brother was diagnosed with colon cancer.
His symptoms sounded much worse than mine, but there was enough similarity that, once I was ready to face it a few months later, I had a colonoscopy of my own. It was everything I had always heard it would be, except that no one tells you anything close to how bad it actually is. But that's a different column.
For the sake of this column, the most important thing about that procedure was that it showed I had three polyps, two of which were the most dangerous kind of precancerous growths. They were in the exact same spot in my colon where my brother's cancer had developed in his.
I was almost relieved to hear the news. It meant I'll have to have many, many future colonoscopies, (before which I'll have to relieve myself in entirely different ways), but it meant I wasn't crazy, at least in this one regard. The reason it felt like I was having a minor operation every time I went to the bathroom was because something was stopping up my plumbing. I still have the pictures to prove it!
It didn't occur to me until later that what my older brother was facing likely would have been my future down the road, had he not suffered it first. I'm not thankful that he got cancer--in fact, I would have gladly taken it for him--but I am thankful that I got what feels like a second chance to live a healthier lifestyle in the hopes of avoiding this thing. It's a chance many people don't get.
I'm not thankful for those developments in my life, but I am thankful that my outlook has changed because of them. More than anything, since that fateful day in February when life forever changed, I'm thankful for every single day I get, and every single day that I get to spend having meaningful relationships in my life, whether they are in town or a phone call away.
I'm thankful that I get to see some of those people on Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday regardless. It's a day of celebration that requires only the preparation of cooking for it, which itself is kind of relaxing because the recipes are probably familiar and the world basically stops for four days, so there's nothing else to do anyway (Unless you work at Walmart, in which case you have to be in by 5 p.m. to start getting ready for early Black Friday sales).
More importantly, it's a day where no one is allowed to be negative. It's easy to be sad at Christmas if you aren't having the Stereotypical Perfect Holiday Season our Culture Practically Demands, and it's easy to be down at New Year's if you don't have exciting plans.
But Thanksgiving is a day about looking on the bright side. There's no cultural stereotype to live up to, except for eating too much food. Even if you end up spending it alone, there's no better setting to pause and consider the blessings in your life.
It hasn't been an easy year for me, but my life has still been blessed in ways I can't describe. For all kinds of reasons, there's been more pain this year than any other I can remember, but probably more joy as well. I've even begun to wonder if the two go hand-in-hand.
As I think through every good thing in my life, I remind myself that I'm not entitled to any of it. I'm lucky to have every single meaningful relationship in my life, I'm lucky my bills get paid and there's food on the table, and I'm lucky that I love my city and I don't dread going to work every single morning the way I used to at a different time in my life.
Still, I keep waiting for the day when life gets easier--when money is rampant, sickness isn't an issue and my relationships are free from interpersonal conflict. I'm not holding my breath that such a day will ever come, and if it does, I know it probably won't stay for long.
In the meantime, though, I'm going to live in the present. And now that I think of everything I have that I might not, it looks even better than I had imagined. I'm blessed with things that bring me comfort, causes in which I believe and people who I treasure. All in all, that's not so bad.
And I'm so very thankful for all of it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
This Blog Sucks
Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I go back and read my old blog posts that were meant to be inspirational. When I do, I'm usually struck by one sobering and inescapable thought:
"What a load of crap."
Seriously. As an answer to life's enduring problems, this blog sucks.
Blog posts, you see, have to wrap up neatly in the end. There's closure at the end of the story, or when there isn't, there's at least a new way of looking at the problem that I couldn't fully solve in 16 inches of type space.
That's what you have to do in writing a blog column. Send everyone home smiling with a happy ending and lesson learned. Otherwise, there would be no pointing in writing for public consumption in the first place.
The only problem is that real life doesn't work that way.
The problems in your life (and mine) that existed at the start of this column will still be there waiting for you (and me) when we are finished, no matter what I say here.
So when I go back now and read how I managed to put a happy bow on a crappy situation from the past, I don't always find my own words all that comforting. I still believe what I wrote in all those old posts, but I'm just sometimes annoyed at myself over how simple I made everything seem.
God is with you.
Follow your dreams.
Live to the fullest, even when life seems hard.
The best is yet to come.
All of those sentiments are good advice. They are easy things to write when you need a snappy, happy way to end a column. But at two in the morning when you feel desperately lonely and your dreams look crushed, none of it helps a bit.
One thing in which I've found comfort over the years is the fact that our minor problems usually go away quickly and without a discernible trace, even when they seem major at the time. But I haven't had as much figuring out how to deal with life's bigger problems.
They seem to linger forever, and all too often, repeat on an endless loop. I don't know how to keep those kinds of things from battering me down over the long haul, even if I can overcome them in my better moments. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Really, I'll wait.
Nothing?
Ok.
I guess it's up to me. Fair enough. It's my blog, after all.
This is usually where I'd pivot the column and write about how even though we can't control whether bad things happen to us, there's a joyous freedom in recognizing that we have almost no control over lives, throwing our hands up to Providence and going along for the ride.
Truth is, I started to go in that direction here this time too. I'd write that when I signed up for my faith in God, I made the deal that I was willingly giving up control of my life. Maybe I wouldn't always understand what is happening or why, but in the end, I would take whatever comes, because life with a God who doesn't make sense is still better than life with no god but my own comfort.
That's all true. But if I wrote that now, part of me knows that six months from now I'd look back at it and feel that I oversimplified things. I'd feel that I brushed away genuine angst under a rug of platitudes rather than exploring it head on, putting a post-it note in my mind to return to the pain at some other more convenient time and place. And when I came back to read the blog when I was ready to have that conversation, I'd feel unsatisfied with what I'd written.
Truth is, the big problems in life just don't resolve themselves very often, or often, very easily.
That means that when you finish this blog, you'll still be lonely, wish you had better friends, a more active social life, or a family that better supports you. Or you'll still have a person in your life who drains the energy from your soul but from whom you are powerless to break free. Your job will beat you down, money will be still be tight, or you'll still regret the road not taken when the on ramp has already passed.
These things will be true whether I put together a nice little bow that wraps up all the loose ends of this column or not.
So I won't do that this time. Instead, I'll tell you that I get frustrated that I can't solve my own problems, let alone yours, in this space. I feel as though I'm wasting all of our time by writing here, when I can't tell you why bad things happen to good people, or why a God who loves you doesn't always make your dreams come true.
What tends to encourage me, though, when I look back at my life through the prism of this blog, is not that I was able to reason my way to answers to my problems. It's that notwithstanding how badly I felt during the flood that destroyed my city, the cancer that struck my family, or when people I trusted let me down, I can think of so many moments of joy in between each new catastrophe.
And that tells me more joyous moments are on the way. Even if I can't imagine them now.
Besides, pain isn't always such a bad thing. Pain is life's warning siren that something inside of us needs attention. It forces us out of our comfort zone. It leaves us no choice but to accept our limitations and give up our illusion of control. Nothing else is quite as effective at focusing our attention on the things that really matter. It helps us understand joy a little bit better.
I don't wish pain on anyone. I wish we could achieve perfect enlightenment without it. But it's just not possible.
Life's innumerable frustrations and crushing disappointments will still be out there at the end of this blog. I'm actually kind of glad that. If I, or someone smarter than me like C.S. Lewis or Rob Bell, could reason away our problems, we'd never have the chance to grow. There are lessons in our pain, if only we will look for them.
The problem is that some of these lessons seem to last too long. And sometimes the pain lasts well beyond the time it takes to learn the lesson it taught.
I don't know how to fix that. I don't think anyone does.
Here is what I do know:
If you convince yourself that your dreams don't come true, or that heartbreak and failure are the backdrops of your life, there is plenty of stuff out there to reaffirm that notion and you can easily walk through life in the shallow comfort of your own misery. Plenty of people do.
If that doesn't sound appealing--if you want your life to be about something other than your own victimhood--the best way to do that is to invest in something you love.
Find it. Spend time on it. Give it your best, and leave the results up to God.
Doing so has a way of bringing the beautiful things in life come to the forefront, even if only for a little while. The world seems a little brighter when you're doing something that matters. Or at least something that matters to you.
Author Rob Bell wrote that we were created for the "relentless pursuit of the person God created us to be."
That sounds great, but I don't really like relentless pursuits. I like leisurely pursuits where I can get started at 11, after I've had a chance to sleep in and have a nice breakfast with some coffee.
So sometimes it takes a little (or a lot) of pain to get me going again, to focus my energy on what matters and whether I'm doing the right things with my life. I realize that, even if I don't particularly like it.
I probably come back to read this space when I'm feeling down, because it's the best tool I have to process life when it doesn't make sense, and it's my best effort at helping you do the same. It doesn't always work, but it's something I feel strongly about trying, even when I fail.
And even when my blog is full of crap.
"What a load of crap."
Seriously. As an answer to life's enduring problems, this blog sucks.
Blog posts, you see, have to wrap up neatly in the end. There's closure at the end of the story, or when there isn't, there's at least a new way of looking at the problem that I couldn't fully solve in 16 inches of type space.
That's what you have to do in writing a blog column. Send everyone home smiling with a happy ending and lesson learned. Otherwise, there would be no pointing in writing for public consumption in the first place.
The only problem is that real life doesn't work that way.
The problems in your life (and mine) that existed at the start of this column will still be there waiting for you (and me) when we are finished, no matter what I say here.
So when I go back now and read how I managed to put a happy bow on a crappy situation from the past, I don't always find my own words all that comforting. I still believe what I wrote in all those old posts, but I'm just sometimes annoyed at myself over how simple I made everything seem.
God is with you.
Follow your dreams.
Live to the fullest, even when life seems hard.
The best is yet to come.
All of those sentiments are good advice. They are easy things to write when you need a snappy, happy way to end a column. But at two in the morning when you feel desperately lonely and your dreams look crushed, none of it helps a bit.
One thing in which I've found comfort over the years is the fact that our minor problems usually go away quickly and without a discernible trace, even when they seem major at the time. But I haven't had as much figuring out how to deal with life's bigger problems.
They seem to linger forever, and all too often, repeat on an endless loop. I don't know how to keep those kinds of things from battering me down over the long haul, even if I can overcome them in my better moments. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Really, I'll wait.
Nothing?
Ok.
I guess it's up to me. Fair enough. It's my blog, after all.
This is usually where I'd pivot the column and write about how even though we can't control whether bad things happen to us, there's a joyous freedom in recognizing that we have almost no control over lives, throwing our hands up to Providence and going along for the ride.
Truth is, I started to go in that direction here this time too. I'd write that when I signed up for my faith in God, I made the deal that I was willingly giving up control of my life. Maybe I wouldn't always understand what is happening or why, but in the end, I would take whatever comes, because life with a God who doesn't make sense is still better than life with no god but my own comfort.
That's all true. But if I wrote that now, part of me knows that six months from now I'd look back at it and feel that I oversimplified things. I'd feel that I brushed away genuine angst under a rug of platitudes rather than exploring it head on, putting a post-it note in my mind to return to the pain at some other more convenient time and place. And when I came back to read the blog when I was ready to have that conversation, I'd feel unsatisfied with what I'd written.
Truth is, the big problems in life just don't resolve themselves very often, or often, very easily.
That means that when you finish this blog, you'll still be lonely, wish you had better friends, a more active social life, or a family that better supports you. Or you'll still have a person in your life who drains the energy from your soul but from whom you are powerless to break free. Your job will beat you down, money will be still be tight, or you'll still regret the road not taken when the on ramp has already passed.
These things will be true whether I put together a nice little bow that wraps up all the loose ends of this column or not.
So I won't do that this time. Instead, I'll tell you that I get frustrated that I can't solve my own problems, let alone yours, in this space. I feel as though I'm wasting all of our time by writing here, when I can't tell you why bad things happen to good people, or why a God who loves you doesn't always make your dreams come true.
What tends to encourage me, though, when I look back at my life through the prism of this blog, is not that I was able to reason my way to answers to my problems. It's that notwithstanding how badly I felt during the flood that destroyed my city, the cancer that struck my family, or when people I trusted let me down, I can think of so many moments of joy in between each new catastrophe.
And that tells me more joyous moments are on the way. Even if I can't imagine them now.
Besides, pain isn't always such a bad thing. Pain is life's warning siren that something inside of us needs attention. It forces us out of our comfort zone. It leaves us no choice but to accept our limitations and give up our illusion of control. Nothing else is quite as effective at focusing our attention on the things that really matter. It helps us understand joy a little bit better.
I don't wish pain on anyone. I wish we could achieve perfect enlightenment without it. But it's just not possible.
Life's innumerable frustrations and crushing disappointments will still be out there at the end of this blog. I'm actually kind of glad that. If I, or someone smarter than me like C.S. Lewis or Rob Bell, could reason away our problems, we'd never have the chance to grow. There are lessons in our pain, if only we will look for them.
The problem is that some of these lessons seem to last too long. And sometimes the pain lasts well beyond the time it takes to learn the lesson it taught.
I don't know how to fix that. I don't think anyone does.
Here is what I do know:
If you convince yourself that your dreams don't come true, or that heartbreak and failure are the backdrops of your life, there is plenty of stuff out there to reaffirm that notion and you can easily walk through life in the shallow comfort of your own misery. Plenty of people do.
If that doesn't sound appealing--if you want your life to be about something other than your own victimhood--the best way to do that is to invest in something you love.
Find it. Spend time on it. Give it your best, and leave the results up to God.
Doing so has a way of bringing the beautiful things in life come to the forefront, even if only for a little while. The world seems a little brighter when you're doing something that matters. Or at least something that matters to you.
Author Rob Bell wrote that we were created for the "relentless pursuit of the person God created us to be."
That sounds great, but I don't really like relentless pursuits. I like leisurely pursuits where I can get started at 11, after I've had a chance to sleep in and have a nice breakfast with some coffee.
So sometimes it takes a little (or a lot) of pain to get me going again, to focus my energy on what matters and whether I'm doing the right things with my life. I realize that, even if I don't particularly like it.
I probably come back to read this space when I'm feeling down, because it's the best tool I have to process life when it doesn't make sense, and it's my best effort at helping you do the same. It doesn't always work, but it's something I feel strongly about trying, even when I fail.
And even when my blog is full of crap.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
A Thank You and a Sick Day
Thanks in part to people who shared my love of October and were entertained by my embarrassingly awkward trip to buy feminine hygiene products, the blog had its best month ever last month with 715 views.
Thanks for reading!
How am I going to reward you, my treasured loyal readers, for this unprecedented level of dedication to this site?
I'm taking the week off.
"Why?" you ask? Well, as I used to hear quite often, it's not you, it's me.
You see, for the last three days I've been fighting a sinus infection that I can't seem to shake. My coherent thoughts are pretty much limited to "is it time for another pill yet?" and "I should make some tea."
I'm so out of it, I made a doctor's appointment for yesterday but forgot to actually go.
So I have nothing to offer this week, except my thanks for being a great audience last month. Rest assured, you wouldn't want anything else that I have right now anyway.
But I'll meet you back here early next week, when a new adventure awaits. Until then, I'm off to grab some kleenexes.
Thanks for reading!
How am I going to reward you, my treasured loyal readers, for this unprecedented level of dedication to this site?
I'm taking the week off.
"Why?" you ask? Well, as I used to hear quite often, it's not you, it's me.
You see, for the last three days I've been fighting a sinus infection that I can't seem to shake. My coherent thoughts are pretty much limited to "is it time for another pill yet?" and "I should make some tea."
I'm so out of it, I made a doctor's appointment for yesterday but forgot to actually go.
So I have nothing to offer this week, except my thanks for being a great audience last month. Rest assured, you wouldn't want anything else that I have right now anyway.
But I'll meet you back here early next week, when a new adventure awaits. Until then, I'm off to grab some kleenexes.
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