I talked to my sister (ellynx) last night. Apparently Maddie has been very interested in the Baiji for about a year now, and even has a book on them. She's been very worried about them going extinct. My sister is going to have to find a way to tell her six year old daughter that they are most likely gone.

Maddie has told me about her worry that many of the ocean species that she wants to study will be gone. At six you want to tell her she's wrong, but she's right and she knows it. She's a smart kid. I wonder just how many more animals won't she have a chance see? How many more will be gone in just the next few years, especially as global warming kicks into an even higher gear? The world is changing very rapidly.

I'm very thankful that I ended up in Massachusetts. If I had instead ended up in an AOT state, I'm sure that I would have been forced to keep taking psychiatric medication. I don't think I would have ever gotten to state I am at now if I were on Geodon or Thorazine or whatever other zombiefying medication they'd want to stuff down my throat. My mind needed to be opened, not closed. Even anti-depressants would have hindered the process I've gone through, as their effect is that of a dissociation from sadness. I needed to address the sadnesses, and not feeling them would have prevented me from doing that.

This process is not over. It will never be over. Every day is still challenging. Every day is still hard. But, the hope I have found shines through the difficulty. The brightness has always been there, I simply couldn't or wouldn't let it in. My shell has been cracked, and through those cracks the light now seeps through.

I'm still not ready to hold down a job. I still have to take things in my day to day life slowly. I need to make sure I do my meditational prayers in order to keep myself mindful throughout each day. I didn't keep mindful Saturday, and had a very bad time towards the evening until I went to sleep. I felt a bit Flowers for Algernon that night, but when I woke up Sunday morning I drank coffee and did my meditations. I was able to move back into the place. It is important that I do not lose the path again. The path I am to walk is path I must take, if for no other reason than there currently is no other path that I can take.

I may not ever be able to hold down a "real job" again; but if that is the way it is to be, it is the way is to be. I trust the winds. I am the way I need to be for me to do and see the things I need to do and see. Just as a whale is not able to see the expanse of the ocean from the sky, a gull is not able to see the depths of the whale's realm. Both experiences are gifts and neither the whale nor the gull is the less for what the other can see.