Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The rabpig and the mouse

Once I was a rabbit.

Well, a rabbit pig, to be more precise.
I combined a scary mix of snuffling and truffling and chewing whatever I could find with a frightened outlook on life.

Other rabbits scared me. They’d gather in groups and whisper and point at my strange attire and dress, at my un-rabbit like ways and my attention to detail, such as where the best lettuce could be found. I’d freeze as they turned their headlights of scorn at me in school, in work and where ever groups of rabbits gathered.

But now I am a mouse.
Still an eccentric mouse, many of my habits and attitudes are distinctly at odds with what other mice possess.

But I am happy being a mouse, scampering instead of snuffling, giggling at absurdities and sometimes joining in.
I am content exploring wickedly and freely, curiously capturing each and every moment.
I relish grazing on little bits and bobs and tasting every luscious mouthful instead of munching mindlessly on every piece of rubbish that came my way.

I sometimes still feel the echoes of past thoughts and feelings.
A chance remark meant sincerely to praise sparks a reflex.
Memory pain floods in unwilled and unwanted.
Tears may flow, but I know what to do and soon those distorted memories are removed from their crooked frames and re-sited where they belong; in the past.

Those days where things were not in balance.
Where life was seen through self loathing glasses. Glasses that touches of praise and affection could not penetrate while smallest slights were magnified multitudes of times.

So today I will scamper and seek out that which excites and scintillates and soothes as needed. And if today memory pain returns, I may shed a tear or two.
I may laugh in its face and jump on those old frames.
I will not let it drive me, as it did all those years, back to being an unhappy rabpig.
The wheel has turned and now I am here, and here I mean to stay.