I parked myself in front of the picture window this morning.
UV lighting be damned.
The grass is perfect in our front lawn at the Cozy Cottage. Perfection the way I see it, not my neighbors.
Long tufts of Persephone's lush green with little dandelions poking through her tresses.
The yard is alive with the neighborhood nut gatherer, tail twitching as he digs around for last autumn's treasures. My cats perch on the back of the couch while I lean in with them watching the action.
I call our front window "cat t.v.".
They see a bird and simultaneously crouch and waggle their tails as they fantasize about leaping through the window and having a happy pounce.
I only see a starling. They see lunch.
Tomorrow the grass will be military trimmed to appease the suburban deities of the lawn.
We used to live on farm land. The first time in a renovated horse barn, the second rental was a huge nursery with a multi-million dollar horse farm view out our windows.
Grass is allowed to grow in the country.
Your neighbors would think you were crazy if you tried to beat those luscious green blades into submission.
Let the horses do the job, and the cows from the farm next door.
I miss that.
Here we have the beach, but we live on top of each other... and the "summer people" are noisily crashing into our quiet weekends already.
Would someone please tell them it's not Memorial Day, yet?
I don't know why you buy a summer cottage on the lake and then load up with noisy ski-dos, and four wheelers, and morotcycles... feh. That is hardly getting away from the bustle of everyday life.
I ramble.
And tomorrow our grass will be cut.
I hired someone to do that this year.
Hubby is exhausted. He works, works, works and then does another lion's share of helping with Little Bear and around the Cozy Cottage.
I figured the least I could do is let someone else cut the grass this season. Hubby can rest and our tidy neighbors will be appeased.
Darn, I am going to miss that beautiful green carpetting.
And today I finally, finally hired someone to come in to clean the Cozy Cottage.
It took me four months (or is it more?) to find her. Someone who is nice, flexible and didn't shirk at my requests.
I had to swallow bucketfuls of pride to get this help. I had a lump in my throat as I interviewed her. I didn't want to cry in front of this Godsend. She probably has no idea how grateful I am that she has walked into my life.
I had no problem with hiring someone to white tornado clean our digs when I was working full time in my career.
But, being home all the time... I think I SHOULD be able to do this.
I can't.
The past three years have proven that in spades.
I need to stop "shoulding" all over myself.
And I think I will have more energy to write, to be conscious in the evenings for the guys... the little things... the quality of life things that are sorely missing in my life most days.
I have ruined countless days by trying to drag a vacuum cleaner across the rug.
A fifteen minute chore that can go on for hours because I tire so easily.
And now I am thinking how lucky I am.
I can get help.
I know I have lupus, I am pretty sure I know the status quo of the lupus I live with... and I know I will wake up in my own bed tomorrow and the next day and the next.
Still sick, but still kicking.
And now I think of Val.
I don't think she even made it to 30.
That's the most frustrating thing with online relationships, we know each other in ways that we may never have come to know each other if the circumstances had been different.
But, there's so many missing pieces.
In an online community, especially amongst those of us bound together with a disease, news may move VERY slowly.
And so it has been with Val's death.
She went from a visit to the hospital (which is way too common with lupus); no one seeming to be aware that in five short days she would exist on this earth no more.
One out of four of us do not survive the first ten years after diagnosis.
I think for Val her youth may have been the curse. We don't always look sick, lupus is predominantly invisible. Some of our symptoms are silent time bombs that can blow with nary a warning.
That is what it is like to live with lupus. You try not to go crazy with the unpredictability of it all. Maybe you will live into old age, maybe you could get run over a by a truck, or maybe lupus will come calling and steal you away tomorrow.
I harbor some guilt.
I think, well if I had kept up with her via e-mail, maybe I could have recognized that her lupus was the life threatening kind?
Then again... I probably would not have.
I don't know... it just feels so sad to have known someone casually and to find out they are gone. You feel like asking yourself, "Was there something I was supposed to do, but failed to?"
We didn't have a lot in common.
She was supportive, she was very kind, but , there is a generation gap that lay between us... so the correspondence fizzled the way a typical online relationship may as you get to know each other and sort out who you want to devote your time to.
And I thought nothing of hearing from her no more, thinking she is finding what she needs elsewhere.
We have lupus support message boards available online, but I found that I could not keep up.
It is that all or nothing personality of mine that works hard at some serious crazy making.
If I can't give it my 100%, then I feel like I may leave someone out, or let someone down because I am too sick to keep up with everyone.
Is that the truth or cowardice?
I don't have any answeres today.
I feel Val's loss, but I can not express the how of it.
I feel deep in my heart so sad for her parents.
I can pray, and I am doing that.
But, this... this ending of such a young life just feels...
I don't know...
I have no words for this.
So I watch the grass grow before it gets cut down tomorrow.
And I soak in today with as much gratitude as I can muster.
Because that is all I can think of to do.
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