My Created Life

A (Slightly) Guilty Catch-Up Post.

KJ McLean — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:17:07 +0000

I’ve kind of let my online life slip away from me lately. Haven’t been blogging. Haven’t been checking (or posting on) Twitter. Haven’t even set up the latest edition of TweetDeck. And if I had, I would have noticed this sooner:

(insert Dance of Joy here)

Want further proof that I haven’t been in the Sharing Zone? We have a new addition to our family and I didn’t even tell you! Is she not the most adorable thing ever? (Next to pre-existing and now temporarily-insecure Piper, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Nero, of course.)

Her name is Autumn and she was adopted from Kailie’s Foster Kitties, from the Saint John chapter of CA-R-MA (CAt Rescue MAritimes). This group rescues stray and feral cats. Autumn was born in a feral colony about a half-hour out of the city, sometime in early June. We have had Autumn a week today and she has won over most of the household. Although she hid for the first two days, she’s settled in nicely and sleeps on the bed at night with the rest of us. I have to be very careful not to launch her into orbit when I roll over, though, since she sleeps on my feet!

Well, that’s most of my news. I’d say I’m going to make a concerted effort to blog more, but I can already hear you saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah …” So we’ll just go with the saying about actions speaking louder than words, and hopefully I’ll see you soon.

Rested.

KJ McLean — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:48:36 +0000

For three glorious days, I went on a mini-retreat. The doctor has been suggesting, again and again, that I need rest in order to recover from the car accident — that my poor brain needed some sick leave. Ideally, I was supposed to stop thinking, to do as little cognitive processing as humanly possible. Well, as it turns out, even when I do my best to turn into a house plant, my everyday environment isn’t conducive to that kind of rest. So for several weeks (months?), I’d been craving a getaway, somewhere with no humans. No decisions, no questions, no conversations. After all, houseplants don’t have those responsibilities!

Then something appeared that was just what the doctor ordered — a house-sitting stint for three days while my dad and stepmom drove his things up to Montreal. (He’s going to McGill University at the tender age of 68. This inability to sit still is clearly genetic.) When I asked if I could take over their home while they were gone, it also gave them the opportunity to adopt a new kitten instead of waiting a couple of weeks to do so. It was a win-win-win situation for me, them, and a rescued kitten now christened Cally.

The kitten and I spent most of our waking hours sitting quietly in one of the two screen houses in the backyard. (Well, I sat quietly. Cally quickly learned she could scale the screen walls!) The weather could not have been more beautiful, and the peace and quiet were heavenly. Aside from the pair of blue jays who critiqued my peanut-leaving skills (apparently they expect them on the deck railing both in the morning and the evening), it was sheer heaven. (And I thought the blue jays frowning at me were pretty funny.)

So now I’m back in the real world, feeling much more rested and thinking more clearly than I was. I no longer feel like I’m spiralling down into darkness, and I have a stronger sense of who I am now and what I need to do to become healthy and whole again. I’m not the same person I was before the accident. That KJ is gone — she was a different book that’s been put upon the shelf. I’m now writing the next volume of my life and the story is still unfolding itself to me.

Remember.

KJ McLean — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:33:57 +0000

Rest in peace, Neil. May many, many more follow in your “small step.”

About to go (mostly) off the grid …

KJ McLean — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:20:27 +0000

It will be six months tomorrow since I got hit by the car. Some days are better than others. But I’m exhausted and frustrated. Mostly I just need a rest — a break from other human beings. I love my friends, family and husband (in no particular order, there, Sweetheart!), but I need to go somewhere and just sit, with no noise, talking, questions, decisions, et cetera.

So I’m thrilled to be going on a mini-retreat! Just me and the young charge I’m catsitting. I am so looking forward to getting away from all the mental noise. It hurts to try to keep up with it. It’s only for three days, but my plan is to just lie on the grass and pet the cat. I can’t go cold-turkey from the Internet, but I’ll be limiting myself to two 15-minute check-ins per day. I’m just going to go and not think.

And I’m not just going to smell the roses. I’m going to be a rose.

Smell ya later!

It never lasts long.

KJ McLean — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:12:43 +0000