Thursday, December 6, 2007

I would like to run away

I am confused and not sleeping well. “Worry” seems to be always with me, and I can’t seem to find my way to the more elusive “quiet”.

Yesterday I lost it at the vet’s office. Jubilee had an infection in her paw that needed to be treated. The vet was young and new, and distracted because of an emergency surgery that needed to be done on a dog that had been bitten by a larger dog. She asked me to leave Jubilee for a few hours. When I picked Jubilee up later, a series of blood tests had been done on her (all were normal) and the bill came to $340. In front of everyone in the waiting room, I ranted that I would never bring Jubilee back and that I should have been consulted about the expensive testing before it was done. John told me on the phone that I sounded frazzled and “like my sister”. Jubilee is still limping.

On top of that, people that I barely know are repeatedly sending me “prayer” cards and putting me on their “prayer lists”. This makes me very uncomfortable. For one thing, I have no idea what it means to “pray for” someone. The only thing that I can relate to in my own experience is holding someone in a place of love and concern within myself. The “pray for” wording feels somehow contorted to me, and I do not understand what it means. But I’m trying to let go of that as just a wording peculiarity. What really bothers me is having my name and predicament broadcast on “prayer” billboards and the like. I do not like the attention on me, I feel a need for more privacy, and I don't know how to be gracious about all of this.

I would like to run away somewhere, to another universe, where there is no breast cancer. I would like to disappear.