I'm sorry Cecil.

So, I have this habit. I have a tendency to want to document and commemorate experiences. Most of the time I do so with a camera. And often times, I want some kind of souvenir--something that says "I did this," or "I was here."

I think a lot of us are like that. We somehow want "a piece" of our moments that is more tangible than just the memory. Perhaps, we want a "trophy."

In the wake of the killing and mutilation of Cecil the lion, it occurs to me that while I do not own a gun or hunt, I am guilty.

We don't have to be trophy hunters to be complicit in these senseless acts. All we have to be are idle bystanders. 

We, in America, live in a country where food is plentiful, and except for the culture of greed and turning a blind eye, there is no need for people to go hungry. Very few people actually need to hunt and kill any wild animal in order to eat or survive. A good (or bad) portion of our nation's hungry are women and children in our urban core, not in areas where people are likely to hunt.

Every hunting season, the photos start to pop up in my Facebook Newsfeed--those photos of proud men and boys, all posing with the beautiful trophy creature they have so needlessly and skillfully taken down. 

Give me all the defenses of hunting when you don't need food that you want. It helps control populations by decreasing herd numbers and removing the weaker individuals. It's a family tradition. It's a coming of age rite of passage. It helps youngsters learn gun safety and conservation.

I honestly couldn't care less about any of these "reasons." 

I frequently see photos in my newsfeed of big game hunters who kill for the sheer sport of it--individuals who want to be able to say they killed a leopard, a giraffe, an elephant, a rhino. It's as if killing something either gives you power over it, or helps you commune with its spirit. Frankly, all it does is leave something beautiful dead. 

Humans are capable of so much good. We are the "intelligent" animal. We can reason. We are inventive. We are curious. But sadly, it often seems like above all of these traits, we are consumers. We have a great sense of entitlement. Many of us still refuse to see our role in the destruction of natural habitats and natural resources. And while someday, this denial will be to our own detriment, and that of our children, today, we are complacent. 

We kill elephants for their ivory tusks, because we believe we are entitled to them for decorative purposes. We kill rhinos because we believe their horns have medicinal properties. We kill tigers because they are said to have medicinal properties as well. We kill wales because our ancestors always have. We kill because it satisfies some warped need we have to prove our dominance over an animal kingdom that would otherwise be essentially indifferent to our existence. 

We kill, because we can. We consume, because it's our unfortunate nature. 

The world is up in arms over a man killing a beloved lion. They are offended by the photos of him holding the carcasses of his proudly obliterated prizes. Where were we when all but a handful of white rhinos were allowed to be poached to almost certain extinction? Where were we when the polar bears started having to swim for days to find food because the sea ice on which they live is retreating--due to global warming, caused by us? Where are we when people in the countries in which these animals live have no better means of supporting their families than to feed our culture of consumption and entitlement? 

I realize friends who value the hunting experience in their families may be offended by my feelings about hunting. But none of the people I know who hunt, or support hunting do so because they need to. And while it may be offensive to be called out for that, it should be no more offensive than all of the dead deer photos I hide from my Facebook Newsfeed every season because I just don't want to see the pride in these needless kills. 

When we look to heritage, most of us must remember that there were people who came before us--people who had a respect and love for the land and everything in nature. Their lives depended upon it. They took none of it for granted and they were grateful for its bounty. 

In a culture of consumption, collection and trophy hunting, perhaps the thing we miss the most is presence of mind--our presence in moments, instead of our collection of proofs. 

Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish Indians of Puget Sound, Washington is credited with saying that we should "take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." 

A man from Minnesota has taken the head and skin of a lion, but certainly not the lion's heart or soul. It is likely that Cecil's progeny will also be killed because of this senseless act. A ripple effect. The memory we will all have of this man is one of selfishness and waste. But at the end of the day, he and this memory are only the personification of all that we take, and all that we do not do in the name of our entitlement to consume everything in our path. 

Riding our own rides--again

So, there's something about this time of year that's special--or at least it used to be. 

For three weeks every July, a bunch of men ride a hundred plus miles on their bicycles everyday during the Tour de France. I use to be an avid viewer. That all changed when cycling's grubby underbelly rolled over and invited the world to scratch. Most of us who really loved the beauty and grace of the sport took one look and shook our heads with disgust. We had been able to deny the dirty doping side of cycling until it was so clearly thrown in our face. 

There's a phrase in cycling that I have returned to again and again over the years--it's probably universally spoken in athletic circles, but cycling is where I heard it first: ride your own ride. 

For a summer, I ran a handful of 5Ks. I don't know why. I'm not athletic, and I am certainly not physically active enough to even consider being competitive. When I ran these runs, I really didn't care how fast I ran. I just didn't want to be last and I wanted to at least run across the finish line, even if I had had to walk somewhere along the course. 

Sixteen months after having my daughter, I find that I have regained just about every ounce of weight I lost while I was pregnant. Yes, I am that freak of nature who weighed less at the end of my pregnancy than before. It's amazing what not being able to eat much more than grilled cheese and French fries will do for your waistline--especially when you can't eat them in any quantity without feeling horrible. It was a rough nine months. 

Most women I know think that weight loss was a gift. Sadly, I have baked, cooked, eaten and parked myself all the way back to where I started. So, it's only natural that I feel a little bit of panic and pressure to do something about it. And so, I dug out my running shorts and sneakers. 

Initially, I spent two weeks barely able to move after developing a horrible case of runner's knees. I was in so much pain, I was afraid I would drop my daughter every time I tried to carry her up the steps from the garage into the house, or the giant step at the front door. It was awful. 

Fast forward to getting our treadmill up and running again, and getting passed the runner's knees, and I am once again tackling "Couch to 5K." When all this running started, I figured I should build slowly, and so it only made sense to follow some structure. 

It was simple enough for the first several weeks. Run some. Walk some. I knew it would eventually get harder. But in the beginning, I felt pretty okay about my progress. And then, week five.... 

The instructions started correlating a distance with the running time. Up until this point, I had felt pretty good about "running my own run," because it wasn't a requirement that I be able to run a certain distance within a certain time constraint to be "successful."

Yesterday evening, I found myself foregoing use of the app on my phone, because I didn't want to feel like I had failed if I couldn't run two miles in twenty minutes. I just tried to run per the instructions, and not surprisingly, I wasn't able to finish two miles within the 20 minute time constraint. It took me another four minutes or so. 

It doesn't matter, and it's completely stupid, but didn't want to "fail" in the eyes of a faceless app.

I think we all do things like this. We might tell ourselves to just do our best at things and not worry about what someone else thinks, or about comparing ourselves to people we view to be more successful. 

It's not as easy to "ride your own ride," or "run your own run" as it sounds. 

In the Tour, cyclists are under pressure, not only to win, but to represent their sponsors and gain precious air time. It drives cyclists to become liars and cheats in order to fulfill what was probably an honest and pure dream at one time. I wanted to believe that the smile on my very favorite French cyclist was driven by the pure joy of the sport, and not the adrenaline pump from a banned substance. Sadly, I was probably dazzled and bought into the unreality of the sport. (Not Tommy!)

In life, we also face pressures--in work, in parenting, in relationships and social circles. We often find ourselves "lacking," even if it is the result of self-inflicted judgement and doubt. That's when it becomes easy to forget our strengths and to squeeze ourselves into a mold or constraint that just won't ever fit, and frankly doesn't really matter. 

I may never be able to do a 5K in less than 45 minutes, or without stopping to walk a few minutes and catch my breath. And I shouldn't let that define my "worth as a human being." Who cares? I haven't been able to get my daughter to eat a decent meal or take a nap today, and at this point, she's still cosleeping with us every night, because I when it came down to it, that was the only way I could get more than four or five hours of sleep a night. I'm letting her watch "Bubble Guppies" so I can write today. None of these things make me a bad parent, they just represent the kinds of challenges and solutions we all face. 

At the end of the day, we all have to make a choice about who we are and how we get through "the race." I'll probably still continue to push myself to run those two miles in 20 minutes. I don't expect to succeed, but I'm stubborn, and won't let go until I reach a point where I have either injured myself or just given up. I'm not saying that's what I should do, but I know myself, and I know my flaws. 

I don't have a solution for overcoming the urge to catch up, to keep up with, or outrun the figurative pack. And while I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't strive to be the best we can be, wouldn't it be good to sometimes be able to look at ourselves fairly and accept where we are instead of trying so hard to ride a ride or run a run that isn't true to who we are? 

Mommy spam--the justification

So, not long ago, I read about a woman who had been shamed on social media for sharing too many photos and stories about her kids. It's probably not a surprise that I started thinking about how much I share about my own daughter on social media.

I do understand that not everyone sees each little smile, smirk, or quirky new activity my daughter displays with the same pride or joy with which I see them. Just in the same way I usually couldn't care less about your fiftieth "vague post" of the day, or the perfect apple turnover someone made. But here's the thing, last night, it occurred to me as I watched my daughter saying her version of "duckie" in the tub last night, that I don't document and share for others, I do it for myself.

Not every day of being a mom is easy. I knew it wouldn't be when I signed up for the job. But frankly, some days are downright hard. 

Some days I feel like all I do is string together an endless series of 'nos,' 'don'ts,' and 'pleases.' (I literally just set off a barrage of 'nos' that rivals any semi-automatic weapon on the market, in hopes of keeping her from trying to eat bird poop again today.) Some days, I feel like I move from one mom failure to the next, from the moment we get up until the moment she finally gives up and goes to sleep. Some days are so ordinary, that it feels like I have been on auto pilot for hours and I don't know how we got through the day. 

While you're being a mom, you don't often have time or the wherewithal to think about how far you have come from the moment you left the hospital with this tiny creature you knew nothing about, but for which you were entirely responsible. The only things that I have ever been able to equate it to are being caught in a water park wave pool, or working a shift in a veterinary emergency hospital. There is no thinking, there is only doing and managing. I know, I make it sound awful. A lot of moms wouldn't admit it, but sometimes, it is. 

One of the great paradoxes of social media is that it is inherently anti-social, and even if you think you're sharing a wide cross section of yourself with people, it's up to them which snippets they look at or care about. That usually leads to people receiving an entirely skewed idea of who you are and what your life is like. Depending on which things your friends and acquaintances choose to take in, you are either incredibly successful and living "the life," or you are despondent and on the verge of suicide, or a mass murder. You don't get to decide what people think about you and your life. 

I think that's at least one of the reasons why people get so annoyed by mommy spamming. Their perception of the situation is very different from the person sharing. They don't know that the photo of your child stuffing a green bean up her nose is the funniest thing you will probably see all week, or that that moment is the only time today that she wasn't grabbing handfuls of your 15-year-old dog's skin and twisting it with glee as you frantically tried to keep peace. They don't know that you are scared of all of the things you don't know how to do for, or teach your child--or how much you hope you aren't screwing it up like your mom did.

Those brief snippets of documented affirmation probably don't mean much to the "been there, done thats" on your friend list, or to childless folks with whom you worked ten years ago. But they are the snippets that help you get through the not-so-awesome days. 

And, now, thanks to Facebook's daily reminders of the moments you've shared in the past, they are the gifts that keep on giving. When you are just trying to keep the house intact and everyone alive until the end of the day, imagine how helpful it can be to see the photo of your daughter holding her head up for the first time during tummy time--it reminds you that you occasionally get it right. On those really awesome days where everything is going smoothly and you see the photo of your daughter playing the drum during music class--you might even be able to look at yourself and say "you got this."

So, at the risk of annoyance and alienation, I will continue to snap photos of the seemingly mundane, and the blissfully fantastic moments, and I will post them everywhere I might need to see them later. I know what my real life is like--it's pretty good, some days overwhelming, others dull as a butter knife, and absolutely fantastic. All of those things rolled into one. And if you're on my friend list, you get to see it all!

Attachment friending

So, as ever, relationships and why we behave the way we do are at the forefront of my mind. It seems like I keep pondering the inner workings of friendship this month, and how people become so close, yet so easily lose each other. 

Earlier this week, I saw a dear friend's Facebook post about a friend who was taken away too soon. My heart went, and still goes out to her. I haven't lost a close friend in this way. Mostly I've lost friends due to foolishness--sometimes mutual, sometimes unilateral. Always painful.

It's amazing how attached we become to our friends. We often feel closer to them than some of our relatives. Writer Edna Buchanan said it best: Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.

I started to think about why that is. Why do we form such strong bonds with people outside of our family unit? I am sure there is a long list of possible reasons. We both love "Doctor Who." We grew up in the Midwest with dysfunctional parents. We work in the same field. We both like to ride bicycles. We both dislike the same things. 

These are the obvious links, but they aren't the reason.

I think at the core of these strong bonds is the sense of belonging and acceptance we feel within friendship, and the fact that someone who is not obligated in a familial way extended that sense of belonging and acceptance. What could be a higher compliment? What else could make us feel a little more comfortable accepting ourselves? 

When we are chosen to become someone's friend, it's because of the person we are whenever we are with that person. We become inherently defined by the people who call us "friend." I think that's at least part of the reason our adolescent years can be so painful. When we find ourselves outside of the well-thought-of clicques, we can often find ourselves feeling like we're on the fringes, or that we do not belong anywhere. And in those painful moments, how can we help but ask the question: what does that say about me? 

In reaching adulthood, we often believe that we have gotten passed all of that. We don't believe we will still find ourselves in, or surrounded by cliques, and we believe our friendship bonds are so strong that only a major falling out could destroy them. 

We start to allow ourselves a sense of comfort with our friends, because we believe that we know each other so well, and we care for and believe in each other maturely and strongly enough that we can get passed or through most anything. We believe we have found friends with whom we can truly be ourselves, and we don't have to apologize for it. 

I think that is why losing friendships in adulthood can be even more painful than losing friendship any other time. Our sense of self, and our feeling of worth are frequently dependent on what others think of us, no matter how much we try to make the mantras of self-love work for us. It may well be that some of us are naturally more gregarious than others, but even those of us who tend to find ourselves more comfortable on our own at times, need to feel the sense of belonging and acceptance afforded to us through friendship.

When a friendship falls apart, we often fall apart right along with it. The loss forces us to look at ourselves, and our friends, in an unflattering light. Because we allow ourselves to feel defined by those who choose us as friends, when they suddenly "un-choose" us, we feel our sense of who we are to ourselves slide out from under us too. That seed of self-doubt puts us on the defensive in all of our other relationships as well, and can even prompt us to withdraw as a means of self-protection. If we don't put ourselves "out there," we limit the opportunities to be hurt. 

I know we have all been on the receiving end of friendship loss, but I think we don't realize that we not only hurt for the person who has left our lives, but for the piece of who we believed ourselves to be because that person chose us to be their friend. We question our worth. We become paranoid about being ourselves around others. We redefine ourselves based on the loss. We grieve and try to start over without that person in our lives--often trying to shrug off the pain and pretend that we are somehow better off.

Are we? I don't know. In the moment that someone decides we are only worthy of being emotionally torn down, we have to make a choice between believing ourselves deserving of that deconstruction, or believing that the parts of that person with which we so strongly connected were false or altered. I also don't have an answer for that. Perhaps every instance is different, and therefore so is the result. 

I do know the pain. I know that it is like the pain of every deep loss I have experienced in my life. It has a thousand triggers--a song, a fragrance, a favorite meal, a silly moment remembered. It is like the pain of saying goodbye to a family member, a dream or a "might have been." It flares like a bum ankle in damp weather.

The pain makes you wonder if it's worth it to ever let someone that close again. After all, if it is so easy for someone to go from believing better of you than you do yourself to doubting you even more, how can you ever trust yourself or anyone else? 

At the end of the day, I suppose all any of us can do is hope the risks we take in friendship will lead us to people who really do accept us, at both our best and worst, and that we will offer the same in return.