A change in the weather

No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.
David Attenborough

I walk by that quote on the wall of the aquarium several times every Thursday afternoon – it hits me in the heart every time. I’ve always cared about the living things we share the planet with. I’ve lobbied for trees, signed petitions for lions and marched for science. But each Thursday afternoon my commitment to these things grows deeper – I grow more in love and more desperate about life, in all it’s forms. I am becoming more attached than ever.

The Wolf Eel died last week and now I’m crying about a fish.

I get my heart broken on a regular basis – it’s the price I pay for the awe I feel. I didn’t have to cry about the eel until I shared the news with my husband. My tears rolled and I tried to hide my face from the man who has held a Kleenex box for me more times than I’m sure he’d care to count.

I feel this planet – in all its wonder. You would think I would get used to these waves of emotion – I don’t. I’m always surprised when what I feel starts to run down my face. My husband, on the other hand, can read me like the weather. He can predict showers even when there’s not a cloud in the sky.

I feel for my weatherman – although there are sunny days, conditions are generally unpredictable. He never makes me feel bad about this – in fact he says it’s part of my charm. But I wonder; when unpredictability becomes the norm does it in fact become predictable?

I remind myself constantly that life is complicated enough without posing impossible, ridiculous questions. I can’t help myself – my train of thought takes an unusual path and once that train has left the station sometimes there’s no looking back. It’s a wonder that I function at all some days.

I’m not always this scattered – I’m emotional right now. That eel and I had developed a rapport over the past few months – we had a thing going on. He was the best example of ‘beauty in the eyes of the holder’ I had ever met. He was homely and gentle and I had grown to love him.

My weatherman says I shouldn’t be embarrassed for feeling this bad – but I am, just a little. I know every living thing comes with an expiration date – you’d think I would grow accustomed to death. But I don’t. The older I get the deeper the losses seem to cut.

My Wolf Eel died last week and now I’m crying about a friend.