Honey, I'm hoooommmme...

While I was on vacation, I jotted notes on my adventures and thoughts for each day. I just have not put them up here yet.

I'm feeling kinda crappy right now, and I just wish I could stay on vacation forever. I had a headache the entire 7.5-hour drive, got back almost nauseous. There was a thunderstorm coming so we had to unpack at lightspeed which made my headache worse. I did a lot of the lifting because my dad hurt his back yesterday.

I went in the sunroom and sat in the dark with the fan on for a while, while the pounding in my head slowed to a crawl. Then I went upstairs and discovered that while I was gone, my cactus melted.

Not REALLY melted, but apparently the roots rotted and it spread to the base of the plant, which made it look like the top part of the cactus was sitting in a puddle of melted cactus.

I quickly turned on my computer, checked Google to find out what to do with sick cactus, and discovered surgery was in order.

I have a feeling its going to die anyway. And while it shouldn't mean much to me... its only a cactus... it does. I've had it for about 2 years now and when I first got it, it was nice and straight. As time passed, I noticed a bulge, perhaps some kind of tumor. But no, I later realized, it was not a tumor, but simply changing shape. At the top of the cactus, there was now a small heart shape, as if that cactus loved me.

And now, there's a huge chance the thing is dead, unless I can make it grow from a cutting.

It just seems like... in the past few months, so many things have been taken away from me. My phone died, and I lost a lot of numbers. I had them backed up on my computer, which died before I could transfer them. I lost many photographs, songs, poetry, papers I'd written, short stories I hoped one day to flesh out into novels, and encouraging IM conversations that I read when I'm going through rough times. The few remnants of that old hard drive were on a flash drive- some of the most important things I wanted to be sure to have copies of. Somehow, during my move, the flash drive has disappeared as well.

I'm probably going to jinx myself but sometimes I feel that if I'm going to slowly lose some of my most treasured pieces of my past, I'd rather they all go up in flames at once than have everything slowly crap out on me. As Scott once said to me, "Its death by a thousand bee stings."

Not only that... I really enjoy living with my family and once again being a part of their lives, but I also really miss living with Anissa and Taylor. I don't think I appreciated it enough while I was there but it was an awesome experience. So there's another thing I've lost.

All this was triggered by a silly little cactus that I felt was my duty to take care of, but when your head is pounding for no reason you can't help but cry over a puddle of cactus.

I don't know why all this stuff is happening to me and a little part of me is whispering about Job, in the Bible, who lost his family and property and health and still "remained righteous and did not curse God." The other part of me is saying I have no connection to Job, because given enough provocation, I am pretty sure I won't remain righteous.

Now, I'm thinking of an email I received once about a guy stranded on a desert island whose only shelter caught on fire. He was upset, but the next day discovered that a ship had seen his smoke signal and he was rescued.

My hut is burning now... but maybe that means help is on the way. Maybe that means that God won't seem so far away as he has been for a few years now.

All this from a stupid little cactus given to me by a stupid stupid... I'll go now I guess.

PS. I went through two weeks of mail and found the card Cara made me for my birthday. Its so... awesome. Its somehow both stormy and serene and I almost wish I could be inside the picture.