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DaRk AnGel : Why Home : November 2006 : I feel lost....

I feel lost....

I feel lost. Like a little boy who can't find his way home.

I am back with the birds, doing some yard work, writing way to little, writing the prisoners, still going to the hospital to volunteer 1 afternoon a week, and still, am feeling like I should be doing more.

The last couple of nights I spent on the pain management boards. And I wish I could do something there. I at one time had a support group going on line. But burned out way to quickly and turned it over to others. I found that everyone wanted to come and visit when they were down or really hurting, but would never be there during the times their pain was under control. So that left me being the sole supporter, and I really felt a lot of pressure to be mr. smiley happyface all of the time. Well all of the time was not possible because I too was afflicted. Yet when I had break through pain and my meds were not enough, I would forego my own relief to make sure everyone else had what they needed. After awhile one has to take care of themselves as well. So I turned it over to a couple of people that wanted their own board and it died a quick death.

In the seventies I worked on a Crisis Intervention Center in New Orleans, and trained others to set up and manage centers. I conducted role playing sessions with people for weeks on end to get them used to what they might expect. About 10 percent of our calls were real problems. The rest were from drunks or just lonely people.

While working at the Crisis intervention center I also worked at the free clinic in many capacities. I was pretty much the fill in guy. From the lab, to the pharmacy, to whatever needed to be done. I got really tired of reviewing slides of discharges for venereal diseases. But I know we saved lives. The Mardi Gras that the police went on strike a man was brought in who had been shot 4 times. I managed to get him to the hospital still alive, where he survived. I had to commandeer a Cab, and perform mouth to mouth on him in the back seat. Thank god he never threw up. That was my greatest fear, not the germs.. Just that he would vomit - Because that would make me vomit.

But I have this feeling deep within of not doing enough. Or maybe it is simply that I have time to do more.

Near sunset I was sitting out with my camera. I was thinking of all the Mourning Doves that were there in front of me. Probably 25 or more were there in two groups eating. Back when the hawks were fledged, there were none. And suddenly I was snapped out of my day dream when I realized one, and of course the one furthest away was not a mourning dove. Instead it was a Northern Flicker. A bird I have only seen once before, and although strangely marked and colored - in a way its uniqueness is its own beauty. The first one I saw was a couple of years ago and was there for a few moments. This guy though spent over an hour with me. I dared not move the whole time. Even though he was 40 feet away, I wanted to take no chance of spooking him.

He dug and dug, hunting for whatever he could uncover for dinner. At one point the beetle he uncovered was so large I could see it from where I sat. He was a young bird, and probably just born this spring past. The whole time he busily worked - Because he had to. If not, he did not eat. Without food he would simply die. It was natural to him.

That made me again think of my life, my situation, my isolation, of then and now. The last 8 years have changed me. The environment has definitely added to the changes and the isolation. I wonder at times if I even need friends since I have none here. The few people I consider good friends are many many miles away. But I still have this insatiable need to do more for others.

I wonder how it is to have the life without the darkness within. I wonder how it feels to meet someone and marry them and stay with them forever. I wonder why some of us are so different from mainstream society.

But each of us, is a Northern Flicker, beautiful to some, repugnant to others, and invisible to most. I don't know if I want to be visible anymore. But I still want to be there for people in anguish or pain.

I think of the ocean. How much I loved it each time I was near it, or lived by it. How much at calm I found myself when surrounded by salt air and gentle waves. And I still want to die there. But I have at least 5 more years here, probably more. I cannot or would not be able to purchase another house due to my age, income, and health, and rentals are not real pleased about huge dogs.

Bentley and Sera ran circles around my old oak today. I loved watching them stretch and show the power that youth provides them. They have become best friends. And Jezebel and I sit on the fringes. Bentley is breathtaking when in full stride.

Sometimes I feel that my whole life seems to have been spent on the fringes of one thing or another…

And right before I went inside, I started thinking about if given the chance would I do it all again? For the first time ever the answer was not a resounding yes. It has always been yes without changing a thing except the times I hurt people. But today it was I don't know.

And that is the reason I am looking for more to do. The rewards of helping others are tenfold returned to the giver. I keep getting notices of being published here and there for my photography. But the feelings I used to get have worn off. Anyone with a good camera and time can eventually get some good bird pictures. The same with the prisoners I write.. I used to feel great about doing that. But now it is more like work. Maybe if there were more successes? I find the things I was passionate about have become normal everyday run of the mill items in my life. Is it that I am just ready for more adventure?

I certainly do not have to dig for hours on end to feed myself. I am as oddly marked as the flicker. And tomorrow will be the same old thing for him. And I have always hated that in life. The same old thing…

I guess what I am seeing is that I have slid into this rut. And the only way I can get a hand to pull me up, is to find more ways to give a hand, to give back to the world..