Things that Don't Love You Back

For those that don't know, Andy and I have a rosy boa named Sprinkles.  His brand of snake needs to eat once a week or so and not at all when shedding or brumating.  But he hasn't eaten for a couple months now, so we're officially getting worried.  Andy has been especially good at researching what we should try and contacting different resources, but so far Sprinkles is not striking and is otherwise more afraid of his food than interested.  

This has raised some interesting questions for me.  Do I love my pet?  He biologically cannot love.  A cat, a dog, or even a larger snake can to some extent.  Sprinkles just isn't that smart.  But he's still our pet.  We enjoy him; he's an amazing creature and we say we love him for his looks.  We want him to be comfortable and live well.  As we fight with him to get him to eat--especially each time we try to pull him out and for a moment we wonder if he's dead--I'm still not sure how I might feel about him dying.  

I know that I would be upset, but I don't think I would feel worse than losing my phone. This confession sounds heartless, but it is honest.  That being said, if the evil supervillian were making me choose between our snake and my phone, I would choose the living creature each time.  Now between our snake and our car, that gives me more pause, considering the investment.

But it's still a confusing question:  how much can or should I love something that cannot love me back?  

I had my legion of stuffed animals growing up, and each time I accidentally knocked one of them off the bed, I hugged them and apologized.  As I got older, I had to explicitly remind myself that they, in fact, could not feel.  This was not made any easier by movies such as Toy Story or stories like The Velveteen Rabbit that implied all kinds of possibilities.  The Goosebumps book Night of the Living Dummy gave me nightmares for a while.  When I reached a point where I was ready to donate these stuffed animals, I reminded myself that it was better that someone else love them than for them to stay in storage.  I have kept a couple that were especially important, but I had a decent collection of animals and beanie-babies and projected emotions and affection from all of them.  I still prefer to imagine that they have found loving homes.  When we traded in our mini-van, I was upset and thinking about all the "good-times" that we'd had together.  I don't even remember the van now, whether it was the red one or the white one with the wood.  

How much time and energy have I spent loving things that cannot love me back?  

I know many people that lavish affection on things.  Calling their car their baby and treating it as such.  Worshiping a computer, phone, or video game system.  Loving a dream to an extent that it is more of a stagnant affection, spending more energy dreaming than doing.  A job can do things for you, but it doesn't necessarily love you back (if yours does, good for you).  That thing could also be a concept, such as having a lot of money, reaching a specific platitude (right body, right job, right status symbol, etc.), or basically anything that you can fill in this sentence:  "I would be happy if only I had _________."

How fiercely we have protected and cherished things that can never return the favor.  Where can that time an energy be better spent?  

Why do we not spend it on people?  I have seen things and ideas chosen over people all the time, even with the countless Christmas specials on why this is wrong.


There's absolutely a risk.  People let you down, that whole imperfect thing that we do.  And to make things even more complicated, sometimes people don't love you back.  Here is where I have some mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I need to protect myself.  I remember one of my first "friends" from when I was five or six.  The quotes are there because this person extorted me with friendship:  if I did not give her a couple of specific toys, she "wasn't going to be my friend anymore."  After she had left, one of my parents found me crying and asked what was wrong.  I was directed to ask for those toys back and told that I didn't have to give her things if I didn't want to.  I did ask.  We got some of them back.  I'm not sure if she made good on her threat or if my parents intervened, but I don't even remember her name nor have I spent much time thinking about her since.  You can love people that do not love you back.  When someone doesn't feel the same way as you do--regardless of what kind of relationship it is--it is hard and it can hurt.  When someone doesn't love you back, sometimes the best thing to do is to back off and even cut ties, if necessary.

On the other hand, those that don't love you back might be those that need it the most.  To paraphrase Jesus, it's easy to love those that love you back; it's hard to love your enemies.  But that kind of love is what changes people and us in turn.  The people who are hardest to love usually need it the most.  I know some people that are outwardly abrasive or annoying or something else undesirable, but they still deserve to be welcomed, too.  If I withhold friendship until they change to something I like, how am I better than my "friend" who wanted my toys?  Withholding friendship is a form of bullying.  Jesus welcomed everyone, especially the undesirables, and I cannot ignore that.  But this also comes with a certain amount of risk.  You can lose standing with others, you can still get hurt or taken advantage of, or, the worse case scenario, the undesirable could spend more time with you.  Really though, I would hope that we could see the value of that person in time and that the change would be apparent in both sides.

These are both highly situational.  Sometimes it's obvious and other times it's a murky kind of mess where perhaps you could be too close to know what to do.  I happen to think that people are worth the attempt.  I want to give people the benefit of the doubt.  Yes, it takes energy to care about someone and to reach out to them, but what can be gained is worth the effort.  AND I can easily make up that spent effort by loving "things" less.

Except maybe our dumb snake.  I like our dumb snake.  I still hope we can convince him to eat.  

Interlude #5, Planning

So, Andy and I are starting to get ready for a trip we've been planning for a long time.  We're working on making our Norway trip happen.  

Last week, we put in our applications for renewing our passports, which was certainly more expensive than I remember.  But this was the first thing we have actually checked off our list.  
As it, this trip is actually happening.  

Sure, we've been starting to prepare our finances, meaning that we've been working hard on our debt and (finally) beginning to save.  We've been collecting ideas of things that we want to do.  We've been trying to make decisions on when would be the best time to go.  We've been trying to make sure that we'll have enough time off where needed.

But it's actually happening.  

As such, I'm getting pretty damn excited.  

That's all I really had to say today.  Just wanted to share that excitement.

I'm in Shape: "Roughly Body-Shaped" is a Shape

I've been trying to integrate exercise back into my schedule again, and I've had a very tough time of it.  In addition to the expected challenge of keeping to a routine in a busy life, I still have to monitor my body's response.  Sometimes, I have a bone-deep fatigue that wipes me out, and it can hit me quite suddenly.  This is NOT the same kind of fatigue or pain that you're supposed to just push through; it's not that "just one more repetition; you can do it" kind of pain.  This is my body saying "You need to sit down before I make you."  I can't explain the difference well; there's just a specific feeling.  In those moments, I could push just a little harder, but the results would be a certain kind of disastrous.  I know, because I've tried it.  I've also tried to get better faster than my body was ready to accept.  That always sets me back at least a couple days.

What does that mean to the outside observer?  It means I'll say I'm tired and excuse myself, because I've learned that this is okay.  But even though it is okay, I sometimes imagine someone thinking "I'm tired, too, but I'm still here," or "Yeah, but you've got to work through the pain."  This is a different kind of tired.  I won't just have an extra cup in the coffee in the morning and be fine.  My body is very sensitive to lack of sleep and to overworking; I would be a few shades of miserable for a day or two.

On those days when I'm starting to feel better or if it's just a good day, I try to instill some healthy policies on what I eat and how much activity I do, but it's very difficult to find a pattern.  What's worse is that I've tried to start things multiple times, but have had to stop and start again, seeming to lose whatever progress I had gained.  It's like being in the car with someone that has never driven manual before.  Then the emotional game gets involved:  I get caught in this way of thinking that "If I really loved myself, I would [work out more, eat better, not order that, etc]."  

I don't specifically mention to Andy what efforts I try to make any more because I'm disappointed in myself when I can't follow through with them, because what I might be feeling today is not compatible, meaning that I might not have the energy to work out, might be in too much pain to work out, might have to eat X instead of Y because that's what I can stomach today, etc.  So when I'm away from home or Andy's in the other room, I have started tricep dips.  I'm trying to do at least some basic yoga again.  I don't specifically tell him because I don't want that innocent question of "why did you stop?" to happen.  I don't want him to find results that he's only seeing to make me feel better, because he's a sweetheart and would try to encourage me.  It makes me feel more guilty.

"If I really loved myself, I would take care of myself."  

I do love myself.  I think I have a lot to offer, and I want to continue to grow into the best me I can be.  I'm working on cultivating other skills and trying new things.  But I do not love my body.  I don't mean that in the traditional sense.  I like to dance and move my body.  I think it's a great tool.  I have clothes that make me feel good about myself.  But this massive blob of cells has betrayed me too many times for me to like it.  

I have a different perspective on weight--I have lost between 30-40 lbs in a month and I can tell you that weight is just a number.  I lost that weight at the height of a Crohn's flare, and I was in essence accidentally starving myself.  Food didn't sound good, I was constantly nauseous, what I did eat flushed out, and overall it hurt more to eat than it did to not.  I would not recommend that weight loss program to my worst enemy (whomever that might be).  Weight can be an indicator of health, but it is not the end-all and be-all.  I want to be more healthy and to better my fat-to-muscle ratio.  I may or may not lose as many numbers on the scale, but that's okay.  I want to have more energy and fit in my clothes a little differently.  These are reasonable goals.

I've had to realize that taking care of myself means something different for me than it does anyone else.  Not that I'm different from all others, but what is best for me is unique to me and always in some level of flux, just as what's best for someone else is unique to them.  For example, some people do well on Paleo and Crossfit.  I tell you truly that these would be very difficult on my body--it's hard for me to digest raw food and I don't have the umph to push through that kind of training.  Are there things I could be doing better?  Sure, and those are what I need to be focusing on.  What changes can I incorporate?  What changes might I be able to enact down the road?  

Some days, all I have an appetite for is something profoundly unhealthy, but it might be the only thing I that sounds good and the only thing I might end up eating.  The alternative of having to force oneself to eat is pretty terrible.  On days when my appetite is fine and I just want to have some chocolate, is that wrong?  I'm never quite sure.

Overall, I'm doing much better in some good ways.  I have been freed from survival mode and into betterment mode.  Symptoms do not slow me down nearly as much as they used to nor as long as they used to.  I can do more overall and typically feel better doing it.  But that's not to say that things don't get rough every now and again.  Things are always in flux and I'm never quite sure when things are going to take an ill-turn (pun intended).  I have a lot of cognitive dissonance on what I need to do; I have the usual problems of staying with whatever program I create; but I plan to do what I can in those windows where things work.