Of Pearls and Plants

It has not been a good year for me emotion-wise.

I live in America, and that should be all I need to say on that subject. Bleeping bleep, people are bleeping stupid.

And, as always, the anthropological part of my brain cuts in.

How to make sense of this all?

History.

History, in fact, does repeat itself. I almost feel bad for Karl Marx and company, thinking that reason and rationality would lead us to a better existence. Did he meet humans? I swear (a lot), illogic is our biggest export.

I look to history. The real stuff, not that whitewashed crap.

We are plants - we want to set down roots and stay. To extend the metaphor, some people choose the most precarious places to root, and some act more like parasitic epiphytes or strangler figs. Or poison ivy. It's great if you're into acting like a super villain, not so great when you're just trying to have a decent quality of life and stay alive, and have a bit of fun before the light goes out. There are very few things that can make us uproot and move. Disaster, famine, drought, persecution, war - you know the list likely as well as I do.

Many are already migrating now, given the political climate. Smart ones with foresight are the ones to take off early, before the majority realize what's coming.

And I’ve been thinking about people close to me, and their reasons to move.

Four instances come to mind, strung together like fire pearls that burn the skin when you wear them:

Firstly, we lost one of my best friends two years ago. She died of the same thing that will take me if I don't watch myself: congestive heart failure, from a diabetic condition out of control. I had to prepare her other sisters for what was coming. Watching a person die by inches in hospice is harsh. We told stories, we kept the mood as even as possible, I made the sisters go and eat properly and get some exercise, and C died with a smile on her face, going out to the bluegrass music she loved.

So when her one sister, my other bestie, started having a cascade of symptoms, I dropped my life and parked myself in her house for three months last year. I wasn't losing her, too! I effing refused. Eventually, we got the aneurysm fixed, and found a slew of underlying problems in the process. Oh freaking joy to go through that, but she's alive. She feels better than she has in years! I was there to answer the questions she had, sometimes interpreting what the docs were telling her. My bio / pre-med background has come in quite handy over the years, to be able to explain what the heck is going on and why.

This year, though, I had to take another former best friend to court to extract the money she owed me from her greedy grasp. I felt so used, watching the hate spew out of her. What a waste of five years, to find out the close relationship I thought we had was a pack of lies she used to entertain herself. Well, good to know. I am bruised, and heartbroken, but I am healing. I’ve made new friends now, because I'm no longer chained to a text message with the latest imagined crisis du jour. I'm enjoying trips again, freed of the guilt she'd throw on me for like, living without her. How dare I... Well, when one turns court mediation to a counseling session, there's nothing I can do to help you. Yes, I'm being paid back. And I am free. I'm disgusted with myself for even getting myself into that situation, but I will get better, given more time.

The fact that just today I'm sorting many of the gifts I'd given her over the years, that she threw back at me, into the "sell" and "give away" piles tells me that I'm moving on. Apropos of nothing, would anyone like to buy some nice jewelry? I give nice gifts, but I can't keep these. They deserve good homes without the emotional baggage.

Three heart-friends. Three different outcomes. Three different impacts on my life. The first I couldn't save, but I could help ease her transition. The second I helped save, and keep sane, under life-threatening circumstances. The third, though I tried my best to help, there's just nothing to do when the ugliness comes spewing out but walk away.

So, after washing my hands of that third, the universe decides to gently toss a victim of domestic violence right in my lap. And using all the lessons I had just learned at such personal cost, I turned around and helped her. She was well on her way to saving herself, but shaky on the aftercare. Me, being on a very restrictive diabetic diet, could help her with tweaking her meals to keep her on track. Just tonight, we were discussing the mineral deficiency she has because of stress, and I was urging her to eat even though she didn't feel like it. She laughs and says I don't have the background to be a true babushka, but being a "grossmammi" is.. well... um. Yeah, no. I love my Penna Dutch heritage, but some of our compound words need a tune-up.

She is well on her way to becoming another heart-friend, if she isn't already there. I think we are, for each other, but I don't want to presume. Her emotions have taken such hits already. She will live, and thrive, but healing and time need to work their magic.

Four moments in time, pain frozen in the center like the grain of sand in the center of a pearl. I don't wear that pain like a chain weighing me down Scrooge-style, but we are the sum of our experiences that make us who we are. I wear these lesson pearls as examples of uprooting, stresses that caused a change of location. And orientation. And mindset. And now, with the political climate, who knows? It may be the impetus for yet another move. Perhaps of friends banding together for safety, or heading out to an even safer place. I may clutch my pearls but abandon my fainting couch, but one thing is sure:

I will carry a trowel with me, and be ready to uproot my friends, my family, and myself if necessary.