"Starfish" Episode IV - A New Hope

    I haven't written in my blog of well over a month now.  There is very good reason for that.  There really hasn't been anything to talk about.  Nothing inspirational, no significant events I've participated in, just trying to get through the day-to-day.  To be honest though, I haven't really wanted to talk much.  A few posts ago I talked about being really crabby lately, and thought that maybe I had found my way out of that....Nope....I think this overwhelming feeling of defeat and irritation has actually been going on now since before that post and that's long time to not feel...I guess...hopeful.

   It's funny, but I just noticed that "hope" is one of my blog's keywords.  When I look through my posts to see when I used it, I had only done so once in a post about recovering from my dog Dali's passing.  Since then we also lost our cat, Girlee, the company I worked for was acquired and I lost co-workers that I talked about what went on in their lives every day, and a friend I've known since junior high school also passed.  That's a lot to process in the span of six months.  I'm not surprised that's the only time the word "hope" made it into my blog labels.  With event after disheartening event, it's no wonder that my propensity for feeling that things will turn out for the best has been extinguished.  It's almost like I don't want to be happy because something is just going to come along and take the wind right out of those sails.  Have I simply, for the time being, run out of "hope"? 

    Have you ever felt like this?  I'm a person of faith.  It's Christmas.  I should feel hopeful this time of year.  Again...Nope.  Nothing there...and that's really extremely unusual for me.  This is my favorite time of year and I'm really starting to think something is very wrong with the way I'm feeling...

   ..."Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope..."

   Remember that?  I don't know if there is a person on the planet, or at least in the United States, who hasn't seen the movie Star Wars...   So, how crazy is it to have the hope that you can defeat the Death Star just by inserting it's blueprints into a small droid that could end up anywhere?  That taking down said "Star" is as simple as "bullseyeing womp rats" back on your home planet? I'm sure there were moments of doubt in the trash compactor, but they still tried... Was this the "new hope" referenced in the title of the movie?

    I absolutely hate "dog lost" posters.  I know alot about dogs, and I know they hate change and can get really, really firghtened when out of their element.  Facebook has made all of this worse of course with people actually posting photo's of their lost dogs.  I absolutely can't stand it.  It's really hard for me to look at.

     Yesterday one of the local animal shelters posted a picture of an Australian Cattle Dog that had been picked up.  They just knew this dog had to have a family.  Why?  She was 14 years old, deaf, nearly blind, and well, she wasn't skinny in the least.  They wanted a "Christmas miracle" to find this dog's family.  They wanted a "hope," so they posted her photo.

     As much as seeing the photo made me upset, first being that this poor darling, who had first been wandering the streets, but now in her very old and deteriorated state, was in a shelter, I shared it.  A few hours later, the word came in.  Because of people sharing the photo, the owners had been found and the dog, now known to all following the story as "Daisy," would soon be home.  The "Christmas miracle" indeed happened...    

    ...just a little hope that indeed sprung eternal...and I, and many others, bought into the "new hope" for a little lost Blue Heeler girl.  It just had to work out.  She just had to go home.

     I don't know what I need right now.  I don't know if it's more healing time than I've taken or I just need a good kick in the ass to realize things just aren't so bad.  Maybe it's both.  I do know that a dog named Daisy helped me experience a little hope for the time being...

     .....and it was easier than bullseyeing womp rats....

Happy Fishing!

--Red