Simple Thoughts About Hard Things

SUMMARY: Simply written.

This is the year when everything changed.

Maybe not everything.

But it feels as if it were everything important.

My old dog who knew how to do the dog jumping and climbing game very well is gone. Because she was old and sick.

My younger dog who also knew how to do it very well suddenly became very, very sick with bad things growing inside her that killed her very, very quickly.

And both of these girls could walk and run without a six-foot holding thing between me and them and still be good girls.  And would come when called (mostly anyway). And knew how things worked in the world and loved to be out in the world and checking everything out. Now I have dogs who know or do none of these. And I miss my girls so much.

My father, whom I have known for more than half a hundred years--that is, my entire life--had bad things growing inside him, also, which also killed him quickly and also made him angry because, being human and not dog, he knew what was happening and didn't like it much.  And he knew so very very much that I can't even begin to say what.

The set of bones running down my back have decided to go in different directions than they should go and do other things that make the sensing-feeling things in my legs and back hurt so much that some days I can barely walk. Or sit. Or stand.  Lying down is usually pretty good and I like that part. But it's hard to do that and do any of the other things that I want to do--hard to do almost anything, in fact, when lying down.

So my dream of ending working for money and traveling the world and walking through and up and down many forests and hills and mountains and very dry places seems to be fading. And of taking photos of many creatures and places and things from many points of view such as lying down or on my knees or back seems to be fading. And of playing that dog jumping and climbing game until I turn eight times ten years old is fading. And also of staying in this house in this area for several more years until I have carefully thought things through seems like it cannot happen. Which means that I must be faster at getting rid of many of the many things in this house, and that is something that I find hard to do.

So. I am getting up every morning and doing the things that I must do and finding ways to still enjoy life and trying to slowly come to know the truth of my life and what I need to be doing within me, not just in my head.

These are all hard ideas to grab. And yet, in many ways, it is quite simple.  To help me think simply about it all, I have written this story-thing using this thing that helps people to write using only words from a simple word set*. It is hard to be simple.  Maybe that is why I feel so tired so often.  Trying hard to be keep things simple. Being simple is hard. And so many simple things are hard.

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*I thank xkcd for creating this Simple Writer thing.   Here is a good one of his funny drawings that I think uses the simple words.

("The thrower started hitting the bats too much,  so the king of the game told him to leave and brought out another thrower from thrower jail.")