Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Squirrelwoman

One squirrel bite occurs for every 100 dog bites, and 10 human bites. Which means you are more likely to suffer from a bite by another human than by a squirrel.

The strength of a human bite is around 500 psi (pounds per square inch), while a squirrel’s bite is around 7000 psi. A simple math equation tells us that a squirrel bites 14 times harder than a human.

The good news is that the chance of contracting rabies from a squirrel is extremely low, as small rodents infected by rabies usually die before they have the chance to pass it on. A squirrel bite is one of the few bites that does not trigger a rabies vaccine protocol at hospitals. The biggest risk seems to be infection.

This information was gathered from the internet in the last day and a half. This research stemmed from the event that helped me title the 31st chapter (year) of my life.

Anyway. Here it is.

Chapter 31: The Time Chantel Got Bit By A Wild Squirrel

I tried to save her from two dogs who were attacking her, and acted without thinking and scooped her up. I turned my body, and therefore the squirrel away, from the dogs, but I looked back for a second to tell the dogs to back off, and in that second I felt the pain. I looked at my hand and the squirrels jaws were wrapped around my index finger and she wasn’t letting go. I felt out of touch with reality, like I had stepped into a dream. I don’t remember what I thought or felt, other than pain.

I know I had to pry the squirrels jaws open to free my finger, but I can’t remember actually doing it, and I must have just dropped her on the ground where the dogs resumed their attack. The next thing I can clearly remember is standing in the office at work, stammering to my boss, and then noticing my hands were violently shaking and my blood was dripping on the floor.

The squirrel died. She was probably dying already when I tried to save her. Despite how bad her bite hurt, and the fact I’ll likely lose my fingernail as a result, I feel sad she had to die like that. My sister‘s response, when I told her how I had been bitten by a squirrel trying to save her from the two dogs who were attacking her, really explained the squirrels reaction to my attempt best: “Welll…apparently he thought you were with them 😂”

R.I.P. Little (or big, my boss said she was huge, I wouldn’t know) Squirrel Girl. I hope there are lots of acorns for you in heaven.

The Dreaded Anniversary

The unavoidable day was on the horizon, and now it has arrived.

My thoughts continuously recoil away from its significance, like a hand from a flame.

In order to get through the everyday, my brain slips into survival mode, where I must dwell only on the inconsequential, and in response my every day existence has felt extraneous, and aimless.

Life has somehow tripped and fumbled along, leaving me wounded, and incapacitated. I almost truly, and completely broke. I almost…

My soul was shattered, and now a paralyzing fear grips me, a fear that this anniversary of the beginning of a year from hell, will once again shatter the few tiny pieces I have somehow managed to piece together, and they will rejoin the many that are still left broken.

Could it honestly, really, be a year since?

Already? Only?

I somehow, and at times it seemed barely, managed to live through the life altering experiences of the Earth’s last revolution around the sun. I celebrated with relief the end of it, and approached the beginning of this new cycle with a wild, frantic hope, of which I didn’t think myself capable. This hope begs that, in my remaining moments, years, days, hours, I will never have to live through anything resembling the life I experienced last year. The struggle. The tears. The moments where I thought about how much of a relief it would be to just hold my breath and wait for nothing.

If it were possible to do so, I would have suffocated on my tears, or asphyxiated on my soundless sobs, and even if I had survived then, I would still be at risk even now.

I can attempt to avoid dwelling on the reality the past has brought me, just as I can try to bury the pain, or dull it, or distract myself from it. A more honest and realistic approach though is to attempt to make it appear I am capable of those things from an outside perspective, but I’m too old now to pretend to myself that everything is manageable, or fine, or even ok.

It’s not.

It isn’t.

And I am not.

Nor will I be, for the foreseeable future, if ever. Just as I haven’t been for the past year. It began that day, and it continued.

I remain amazed how capable a person is of mimicking living, and feeling, when the life and emotions within are all but extinguished. This mimicking of life, this feigning of joy, confidence, and even mental stability serves only as a desperate act of self preservation. For feeling such things truly and fully would mean real healing had begun, healing that wasn’t just temporary, and that each and every waking moment wasn’t tinged with loss, the tremendous weight of mourning, and the guilt of attempting to forget.

If the wounds inflicted by the horrors of last year had been physical, I doubt survival would have been expected.

Alas, they were not physical, and unfortunately everyone must live with the wounds inflicted by loss, and we must carry them with us.

So, I survived the year, and I remain physically whole, yet here I am, debilitated.

I know time passes and generally wounds are expected to become scars. As of now, the past may be behind us, a memory, but it remains a wound, and has yet to become a scar.

Honestly, at this point, healing is such an abstract concept a majority of the time. Every time I think I can manage to put myself back together, to resuscitate the “me” who existed before that first loss, the deliberate one, reality takes hold. I, sometimes, manage small crumbling fragments, a real smile, a remembered joke, and a laugh, but they generally last only moments. There are a very few small, insignificant, jagged parts of myself, that have managed to remain somewhat intact, the parts that I believe help me just barely function, but they exist on an unstable fault line.

The day is here.

That horrific day.

It has quickly and slowly arrived.

Can we make it through it? Can I?

A Day, A Life, A Lemon

Sometimes life feels like cigarette butts and empty beer cans

In an empty parking lot

On a shit day

In a shit shit world

Stuck in a Brain with a shitty perspective

Every glass is empty

Every song is a sad one

Every word is spoken in anger or disappointment

Sometimes life gives you lemon seeds and a drought

And sometimes it gifts you lemons and a lemon allergy

It wants to hurt you

To put you down

And your head is so far underwater

All you can do

Is take a deep gulp

And drown

Gravity

I feel like I’m falling

the edge way above me

the bottom out of sight

Life and friends and family flying too fast past me

Too quick to snag in my finger tips or thoughts

Time is pulling me

Dulling me

Blurring reality

Feelings intermingle

Confused and rampant

Falling doesn’t feel like flying

Falling feels like there is no option

As the walls of the cavern come up around me

Limbs graze the sides

Bruising and breaking

Bleeding healing scarring

There are moments I’m underwater

The pressure squeezes and paralyzes

Then there is air but no breath

Lungs constrict and spasm

Then I gasp

I feel like I’m falling

No bottom in sight

The falling may kill me

Before the landing can crush me

I feel like I’m falling

I wish for wings

As the blackness of the dark

Reaches up around me

I close my eyes to keep it out

Falling…

I accept it.

There is nothing else.

Hello, Goodbye, Hello

Four years separate

Pony tails and smiles

Momma’s makeup

Dolls and clothes

Playing Pretend

Quarrels and sharp words

Hugs and secrets

Whispers and giggles

Jealousy and love

Distance

Growth and change

A ring. A yes

A goodbye

And time

A hello again

A welcome

A spare bedroom

A roommate

Long conversations

Laughter and smiles

Games and renewal

Tears and harsh words

Shoves and screams

Alcohol

Slammed doors

Apologies

Sudden Goodbyes

Two years.

Without the other.

Loss. Heartbreak.

Secrets.

Confinement.

Rehabilitation.

Hello again.

Surprise.

Unexpected tears,

arms enfolding the other.

Dampened shoulders.

Embarrassed laughs.

Hands and fingers intertwined.

Songs and laughter

News and sadness

Admission.

Truth.

Denial.

Acceptance.

Covered faces

Weakened knees

Collapse

Explanation

Desperation

Heart ache

Loss

Excessive repeated apologies

Anger.

Forgiveness.

Mourning, as one, and separately.

Wrapped together amidst earth shattering sobs and guilt.

Seats in the yard

Grass stained clothes

Knees close, hands clenched

Foreheads touching

Tears and smiles and memories

Conversation

Times cruelty

Bittersweet sadness

Hugs, seven or more

And then goodbye, for now

Or better yet, so long.

A piece of each lies with the other

Forever and always, and now.

You Didn’t Say Goodbye

Your shadow sits there

tapping your cigarette

swiping on your tablet.

Poker, or solitaire.

Your stainless steal mug stands

where it did when you set it there last.

Cigarette butts that still hold the shape of your lips as you took that last drag sit in the ashtray.

Your shadow sits there,

occupying a chair.

I couldn’t bring myself to sit

where you were already seated.

I find myself in the seat opposite yours.

“What you doing girl”

The wind whispers for you

“You’re up awful late.

Is that whiskey? Damn girl, you’re drinking it straight?”

You’d normally hold out your glass when offered a drink.

Tonight,

I drink alone.

Your shadow sits there in an empty chair,

and I am left with the weight of it.

I feel your memory slowly escaping,

but your shadow remains.

The grass once blood soaked

is screaming from the yard

where you stood.

Where you stood,

Where you stood before you decided to leave and never return.

Your shadow sits there,

across from me,

occupying a seat,

a space,

and leaving a hole.

Your shadow sits there,

in your seat,

reminding me of your absence.

I’ll never again see your face,

the real one,

crinkled in all the familiar places.

But your heart is beating

at this moment

somewhere in the distance.

And I’ll never hear it.

I’ll never feel it.

When wrapped in a tight hug.

It lives on.

And that hug.

Your hug.

Trademarked by you.

That is gone forever.

But your shadow sits there

Occupying a chair, your chair.

I still find myself waiting for you to come back.

To walk outside.

To take a seat.

Light a cigarette.

And just be,

in silence,

or occasional conversation.

Unbothered my questions

and little ones.

Watching out for the dogs.

I sit here,

across from your chair,

and I miss you,

Because only your shadow keeps me company.

Your shadow sits there,

and reminds me that you are gone. A memory now.

A shadow.

A wound.

A chair remains,

one I can’t sit in,

And I wish you knew how much I lost,

when you left me with only your shadow.

A Smile, A Smile, A Smile for Our Funeral

Smile smile smile the world just wants a smile

Frowning is for the upper class

And they just want to kick out ass

So we smile smile smile

And fake the pain into the back

Of our busy thoughts and our tired minds

Overworked and over kind

We give and give

And don’t take back

Our hearts are big but they’re also black

But smile

Smile

Smile

If they don’t notice

We can pretend

The worlds okay

Until the end

And then we won’t need to try

For you know there is a guy

With a needle and some thread

And he’ll fix us up when we are dead

And we will smile smile smile

At every friend

Because we’re gone and it is the end.

A Face in Focus

Head high.

Smile in place.

One foot in front of the other.

The groups of dining families blur around her.

Her friends in sight.

Happiness bubbles up within her, for a moment.

Her attention then falls, haphazardly on a table she thinks holds strangers, their faces come into focus.

For just a moment, one face breaks through, in excruciating detail.

Her smile falters, and breaks

Feet stumble.

Her head jerks away.

But not before noticing

A glare from the corner of his eye

A sneer of disgust

Her heart hammers.

Her stomach somersaults

Tangling itself into painful gut-clenching knots

His presence is a phantom slap in the face

Sending a stinging shock through her.

She makes it to her table, reeling.

For the rest of the meal,

Her head is on a swivel,

preparing for an approach that never occurs.

Her smile is pasted like a kindergarteners art project

Her feet tap dance beneath the table to the rhythm of her jangled nerves

But she holds it together

Until

Alone

On the ride home

She wants to vomit

And scream

And laugh at herself

What a reaction

What a drama queen

Her head shakes in disappointment

Her smile has become a sneer

Her foot hits the gas.

Grow up little girl.

Welcome to the world.

Too Soon Goodbye

She looked at her eldest and stifled a sob.

She watched his big hand, that was once so small, her pinky was a tiny fistful, shake the familiar weathered hand of her husband.

Without a conscious thought, her arms were spread in welcome, and need. To hold and be held.

Her nose barely reached the broad shoulder that once when tiny and vulnerable brushed her tummy from the inside.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and imagined. And for just a moment, her eldest was her youngest, and she whispered goodbye.