What has happened in the year since I first wrote it all down? Well, for one thing after finding the SQUIRREL NATURE article -- and came to realize that it was all more or less "squirrel activity" I was able to move on. Although I won't forget completly, I just don't care anymore!
Although I am going to delete my actual sob story -- the "SQUIRREL NATURE" I will leave because it was the first thing I found that really helped me to understand why.......
"I just want to say Herself, that it is soooooo wonderful that you were able to forgive and move on with the important issues and not get mired in all the details of what happened to you! You have been in the past and always will be a super inspiration to me personally!"
In my original SOB STORY -- President Clinton (aka Bubba) helped me to tell my tale (put that cigar away Bubba!!!!!!!!)
Anyways, thanks to everybody who read my sob story this past year and wrote to me about it! Every little bit of advice was greatly appreciated! I have finally moved on!
"Well, hate to interrupt at this point, but time for my jog -- where's the closest McDonald's from here??? This way? I'm outta here!"
Squirrel Nature -- A tale of tulips and tirades
Scattered on their sides in the dirt were several dozen perfect tulip buds, showing brighter promise of yellow at the seams. They were from the late variety that emerged after the disastrous freeze made mush of the earlies.
Above the buds stood the leaves and barren stems from which they came. He'd watched several mornings as squirrels, deserting their meal beneath the bird feeder to chase each other, stopped to nip off buds, then scamper on, unconcerned, as the stillborn flowers rolled away.
Lacking wire mesh and time, he'd been unable to fashion protection for the remaining buds before they, too, fell victim to the chattering idiots from the trees.
"I fed them through the winter, and THIS IS HOW THEY REWARD ME," he complained. "I chose my feeder and my food so they'd get some too. They helped the birds eat their way through four 40 pound bags of seed! AH Shoot!!" (.... And at that moment, given a gun, he might have.)
"Hey, now," said a friend. "The squirrels aren't rewarding YOU. They ARE NOT even thinking about YOU. They're just being squirrels."
It took a day or so of meditation, but eventually he recognized that was so. He resolved next year to have a mesh cage ready for young tulips, so he might have his flowers and the squirrels their squirrel nature, without conflict.
Further reflection over several more days illuminated the wider wisdom of his friend's observation: The man who cuts you off on the highway; the woman who speaks with condescension; the angry person on the other end of the telephone at work -- they're not responding to YOU; they're NOT even thinking of YOU. THEY'RE JUST BEING SQUIRRELS, and when you think about it, battling squirrel nature is a pretty useless, self-destructive exercise, about as nutty as a squirrel's fall diet.
He began construction of a mental mesh cage.
So, there you have it. I hope the little story above helps you as much as it has helped me. Feel free to make a copy of it. I did and I have it hanging on my refrigerator.
HEY YOU! E-MAIL HERSELF!
