Back by popular demand

By special request, here is Alex post-surgery. If you look closely you can see there is a second drain to the left of his stitches; you can't tell that his eyes are dilated from the pain meds because I had to use the flash. And I can't photograph him with the dog yet as we have to keep them separate until his drains are removed.

This, of course, presents its own challenges, as the dog has a way of clawing at any door that keeps him separate from me or his cat buddies, so currently Alex is living in our powder room. He gets lonely from time to time, and so we see a paw peeping out from under the door and hear his plaintive cries, which means the dog begins to claw at the door (fortunately this one has no paint on it) and utter sympathy cries of his own.

But the worst is when I am administering the hot compress to help Alex's wounds drain: Nemo (whose full name is Captain Mnemonic) stands outside the door and claws and howls to get in -- mostly because he is painfully jealous of any attention the cats get from me.

As a four on the Enneagram scale -- at least, that's what I'm told I am -- I struggle with envy and jealousy sometimes, too, so Nemo's issues in that area are particularly irritating to me. It's all part of those shadow issues that Ken Wilber clarified so beautifully in the chapter I referred to in an earlier post.

I finally got around to giving that chapter to my daughter to read. Asked about it later, she said that she stopped reading when he said all pressure and stress comes from within. So I attempted to explain (as he would, if she had kept reading) that when people pressure us to do things we are not at all interested in doing, it doesn't create stress for us.

The stress comes when there IS a part of us that wants to do whatever it is. For example, my husband would very much like me to go motorcycling with him (as our daughter just did). I have no problem refusing him because I know from experience that it puts my back out to ride behind him; there is no stress in this decision, and I don't feel pressured about it so it's a bit of a joke between us.

On the other hand I do have trouble shutting our overweight cat, Sophie, out of my office when I am blogging. She likes to sit on my wrists when I'm typing, which makes it very difficult to think or write. But she's getting so many meds right now that she is mostly avoiding us and living under our bed, so the fact that she's willing to trust me and interact with me at all means I would like to accommodate her.

The obvious choice would be to set aside time for her, but as soon as I move away from my desk she claws to escape, for fear I might thrust another pill down her throat; she has control issues. But then, so do I. And my control issues are looming large for me at the moment, as I will be going in for gall bladder surgery on Monday morning. The surgery itself is minor, but it does mean I will be away from home at an awkward time, when both my girls are preparing to leave for college and three animals need constant care and medication. Who will make sure that everything is taken care of while I am gone?

So I'm sure Wilber is right: the stress of all this is surely coming from within me: so many of their issues are my issues as well. It's all a learning experience, isn't it!