Grieve Like a Goat ~ Cry when you want to

I had full intentions of taking my daughter down to buy school supplies last night since school started today.


I’m not sure what went wrong or how I ended up 45 minutes away from Wal~Mart, at 8 o’clock at night, loading two goats, that I paid for in quarters, into the backseat of my car. Sometimes these things just happen. It’s usually the consequence of a great idea that has gone very wrong.

I may have jokingly mentioned once or twice that I needed a goat to mow the yard. I’m not sure I meant it. Regardless, my animal loving daughter heard these words and took them to heart and spent the last month searching ads for Goats for sale. Yesterday she found some.

We were only going to take just one. But anyone who has attempted to peel away a baby goat from his Mother or Brother will understand why we ended up with two.

Never in my life have I heard such a scream of agony as the sound that came out of that baby goat while we were trying to put it in the car by itself. It literally made me sick to my stomach. That sound of grief reached into my head and flipped off all the lids on my boxes filled with pain and flooded my brain with the emotions that lay there. I nearly threw up from the Wave. My daughter felt it to. Tears streamed down her face. It was overwhelming. We got the second goat for Free.

I’m not sure what we are going to do with them. These Screaming Baby Goats. They are to small to really be utilized as Weed Eaters and right now they are being held in a protective Barn area at our neighbors house while we contemplate the large task of fixing fence and preparing an area to keep the goats until we can safely tie them up and watch them eat little circles of Weeds all over the fields.

On the way home, listening to them cry and scream, I say scream because ‘bleat’ is just to soft of a word for the sound coming out of them. Those Goats felt Pain. The Pain of Leaving their Mother and her Milk and the only place they had ever known. Their World was Changing and they knew it and Grieved. So they screamed and cried. Right there in the moment that they felt it. If only we were so free to do the same. I can only imagine how few Boxes of Pain we would end up with if we dealt with them one at a time as they came to us. Then let them go. Kicked them out of our head.

I’ve always preferred to hold back the tears, put the lid tightly on the box, pile it in the back of my head with the rest of the “This Hurt Me” boxes, only to revisit them once in awhile after I’ve had a glass or two of Wine or a Beer to many. I can obviously see many problems with this approach.

I’m imagining myself making that Goat Grief noise the next time I encounter a rude negative person who is lashing out at the first body that steps in their path. Can you just see the look on their face when instead of being defensive or rude back you simply break into a Howl of Goat like Grief.

You will walk away with out another Box to deal with. And they will be left reevaluating a future attack on your self confidence. Or its possible they may just avoid you completely.

I can see the look on my ex’s face the next time he attempts to undermine my Holiday Time with my girls or pulls me into a ridiculous Custody Battle. I’ll just look at him or the Judge and Howl and Scream from the pits of my stomach. Of course my next image is a Syringe full of Valium and a Pretty White Coat. I’m just not sure our Society is ready for us to deal with Our Pain with actual Goat Like Grief.

However, there is a lesson to be learned by this. We need to be more like the Goat. Express our Grief and our Pain in the Now. Don’t put it in a box to be dealt with later after it has festered and grown. That and buy your damn school supplies before the day before school starts. Seriously People.

Floatin Alone won't kill You

Every one leaves. Eventually we all leave someone somewhere at some point. It’s the leaving that keeps me from loving completely sometimes. I see the Leaving coming and I find myself shutting down to stop the hurt before it starts hurting.


Probably my first experience with someone Leaving was my Dad. It wasn’t his fault. The war called him. Then he was paralyzed and lived, in what I can now only imagine, was his own personal hell. He slipped away from us then, before we even had a chance to get to know him or find out in person that he loved us. When he died I knew he Left, I just didn’t realize that it would be something that would be in my Life forever. His Leaving. It started a catalyst that seemed to be the precedence for my Life. Some say you get what you Fear if you focus on it long enough.

I don’t miss the irony that I have always feared Living Alone. And yet here I am. Doing just that. It hasn’t killed me, obviously. But I don’t enjoy it. I hate it in fact. Especially as my girls get older and busier and the house is empty more times than not.

I chuckle inwardly every time a married woman says to me, “you should spend some time alone”.

That’s really all I’ve ever done.

Hard to believe since I spent over half my life married to two different men. But there it is. Most of the time they weren’t there. Working Nights. Playing Days. Living in the Garage or Alaska.

In all fairness, Sometimes even when they were there. I wasn’t. I look back and realize that there were so many times I wasn’t present in the moment. I was off in my mind somewhere. With my Dad. Or my Dead Babies. Or my Childhood Memories. Opening and closing all of the boxes in my head randomly. Diving in and jumping out, not knowing what to do with all the information that rested uneasily there.

I was alone in my thoughts while being in a room full of people or sitting at the lake watching my girls play in the sand. That surreal moment just before the sun would go down and the sky would be orange. Their bodies black wiggly giggly silhouettes against the water. The boats and the jet skies creating a background noise and entertaining waves. And I’d just be sitting there thinking about how tired I was of doing ‘this’ alone. Life.

Those who have been doing it for years may not understand fully the blessing of having a ‘husband’ whom every night will wrap their arms around you at the end of the day and make it all worth while. Because they have it. It is only that which we don’t have that we want the most and that which we do have that we forget to not take for granted.

I’m blessed to have what I have and I am grateful to have found that. I guess I’m at a place in my Life where I recognize that it’s the Leaving and the being Alone that I have spent a Life time Fearing would happen. Now. Its time to be ok with both and just live in the Moment of what has been given to Me.

It’s ok to not want to float the river alone. Its just not ok to quit floating just because sometimes you are.

Why can't God throw me a Damn Bone?

There are days when I’m just not sure I can take one more thing. Days that I would give almost anything to take a vacation from my life. Like a real vacation. For about a year. A week just wouldn’t cut it.


I’d like to curl up in bed, obviously not mine as it now smells of Skunk, with my teddy bear and a kiss on my forehead from a mother who is no longer in my life, and take a very very long nap. Life has just made me so tired today.

I can usually find some humor or something positive in everything that happens in life. Not today. Today, the Glass is half empty. The stream is cold and full of Boulders and Trees and Bears and Skunks. I am wallowing in self pity and no one can talk me out of it. I’m holding back tears. Just barely. I’m sitting in the coffee shop wishing it were 3 o’clock so I could go. Somewhere. But not home. Jamaica Maybe.

Yesterday, even though I’d been fighting some stomach virus, I went home, took a nap then woke up and spent 4 hours cleaning house. Going through cupboards and closets. Scrubbing and shampooing the floors. All in the wild hopes that someone will make an offer on this Beast of a House and Free Me from it. I was tired and proud of the work I had accomplished, thinking how much I loved the smell of a clean house as I was falling asleep. Seriously. I can’t miss the irony of those thoughts. Its like I sent out a personal freaking challenge to God. ‘Hey, do you hear me up there… I love this clean smelling house… Please do whatever you can to change that for me’. I mean really.

4am this morning. My honey opens the master bedroom door, to let the pacing young dog outside, only to be greeted by a blast of Skunk. Or several Blasts. I’m pretty sure that Skunk emptied itself right through the door and all over the Porch and Wooden Door Jam.

We tried to sleep, in the far corners of the house. But the stench had worked its way through all three levels. And the dog could be heard howling and crying from the garage for most of the morning. At first I was laughing… but then it turned into some kind of hysterical cackling… and ended with a choking noise in my throat as I tried to not cry when I realized the full irony of my 4 hour attempt at making my house smell clean for the ‘showings’.

I came to work, tired with a queasy stomach and the lingering stench of Skunk in my hair to find that the air conditioning had leaked water down the walls of my shop and the sheetrock & flooring is all warped and ruined. It is a good thing I do not sell Vodka at my coffee shop.

A person can just try and try and try to swim down the stream smoothly and serenely, but there just isn’t much you can do when the forces of nature have turned on you. That is how today feels.

I shouldn’t whine. I know there are worse situations happening to people all over the world. I try very hard to remember that. And it makes me feel guilty that I’m feeling sorry for myself for piddly little things like a Skunk Saturation or a Melted Wall.

Its just… some days… I’d like God to Throw Me a Bone. Ya know…. Make something simple for me. My friend Chloe said to me, “wouldn’t you love to have a glimpse of your life a year from now… see if your happy and life has gotten a little easier”. Most days I’d say absolutely, knowing that everything that comes my way will be good. Not today.

Today. I’m wallowing in a Ridiculously large amount of Skunk Smelling Self Pity.

I never should have been a Pet Owner

My dog looked at me this morning with condemnation in his eyes. The look said, “I hope your daughter comes home soon since you forgot to feed me again”. I should never have been a pet owner. This may be a quality the Manicured Dog Groomer saw when I was desperately applying for the dog washing job.


Buddy is an old 100lb cranky Newfoundland, with the skinny legs of a Collie, who pretends to be hard of hearing. He can hear me opening a cheese wrapper in the kitchen and will come bouncing in, but tell him to get off the couch and he looks at you like he has no idea what your talking about. And just try to get him in the back of a truck when he‘s decided to stay Home or at the Lake.

Last week he got into a tussle with a Racoon or something and ended up at the vet’s office getting his fat head shaved and $200.00 worth of stitches, I should have just put him to sleep… I reminded him of this after he ate 4 of my daughters chickens and I was having to use my entire body weight to push him out of the chicken coop.

I am just way to neurotic to have pets in my house. Pet Hair. Pet Toys. Slobbery Food Dishes. Muddy paw prints on the glass door because I forgot to let him in. Yuck. Not to mention what a pile of dog poo or throw up will do to my psyche. Thank God cream colored carpet can handle my incessant bleaching every time it happens.

A couple years ago my youngest had called me at work and said the Dogs were sick. I’m like.. Ok.. So deal with it. She’s like 12 and to my knowledge can handle a little Poo. I am at work and have plans to head to the gym. I’ve got skinny somewhere inside and I’m going to find it dammit. Three phone calls later, I’m screaming at her to cowboy up and take care of the situation as I know that if I miss one night at the gym it will result in a 30 day absentee on my part cuz that is just how I am. After repeated begging attempts and phone calls,  I finally got a sense of her urgency when she asked what she should use to clean it up… the mention of a shovel set off all of my alarms. When I got home I was greeted by my poor sobbing daughter standing in the middle of the room with a shovel in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other. And shit everywhere. Everywhere. I could not in my worse nightmares imagine such a thing. On the couches. On the walls. The floors. And they didn’t just hit one level of the house they hit them all. I didn’t know two dogs could even do all that. You could almost see the Odor in the Air. My poor baby girl was standing there right in the middle of it, not having a clue where to start. And the Mother of the Year Award goes to ….ME. That was my first carpet shampooing with straight bleach.

That very same daughter has turned into the Dog Whisperer. She has trained her unruly crazy Yellow Lab, who quite frankly is like having an elephant on crack running around your house, into a very nice and possibly loveable dog. She truly is amazing and gifted when it comes to animals.

As for Me. When my dog ‘Goes to the Light’ I am not getting another one.