An ancient 4f concept becomes a 5f reality

This story, I always promised to put together, finally emerges from the ethers, almost intact . . .

11/27/11 11:02 AM

The Sicilian Taurus lover selfishly didn’t care I was traumatized having an active cancer, because he had his needs and I wasn’t at his beck and call. He was the one who told me about Beta fish and how two males fight to the finish.

We were at a pet store a week ago. I was taken by how beautiful the male Beta was. I bought two and inexpensively housed them in separate cheap large flower vases. Then this built and proud macho man, more an addiction than I cared to admit, had another nasty, mean, name-calling sessions and for the 19^th time, I walked away, right before Thanksgiving. Right when I was finishing one cancer treatment and deciding on another.

Went through the famous holiday with family and dealt with little slings and arrows that make up one’s happy family.

Now, I finally have some time to be alone, really alone, with time to think, time to feel, and time to heal.

I have the two betas in front of me.

Is it an evil streak within who puts them together into a huge vase I received with flowers from a table at a friend’s granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah?

The two didn’t waste a minute. Immediate attack. Both with open jaw. Quickly, one seems to be a bit cock sided. The other seems bigger but I’m not sure. One is more aggressive, and the other is now not moving much but hanging out, even more cock sided, up at the top of the water line. The bigger one keeps going up to check it, but not attack it. I earlier return extraneous stuff to the store because I need no reminder of this too wounded warrior, who is now definitely, too close for comfort. I need to release him, for my own health. This drama has gone on long enough, taking center stage just six months before my diagnosis, almost two years ago.

The smaller fish can barely protect itself. It’s motionless. The big one is hovering, checking it out repeatedly. Then went at it with full force. I feel pity. Skirmishing near the top of the water line, flashing the water as they fight.

I have so much work to do to catch up with myself. I’m at such a crucial stage. My decision making, my research capacity, my endurance, and my patience to get the facts necessary for my survival.

Interesting how the bigger one keeps circling and checking out the other. Always with mouth gaping wide open. The weaker one is losing its dark blue color, becoming lighter, still running away when it can.

I will not allow this man to drain me of my color. The strong one clearly terrorizes the other one. It’s not a knock-out, yet. It’s a merciless, look at me and how I’m going to take you out and how I’m so much stronger than you, I can take my time doing so.

I still have my color.

I still have the wing flare.

You are getting more drained by the minute. You have to gain control of yourself.

The large one goes near it and puffs up his feathery fins. The other one is barely blue anymore. Almost white with hair that is stringy and lifeless. Conserving its strength to stay away when it must, but for the most part, staying in its corner to recuperate.

This is the relationship we’ve had. It’s horrible I’m making these fish go through this, but he told me that Beta males fight to the death.

I had to see it for myself. I wanted to see it with him but I’m glad he’s not here. It’s been 25 minutes already. The big one still comes open mouthed to check out the smaller one’s condition. I do believe the little one, barely hanging onto any hint of his old color got a bite out of the bigger one, who is suddenly motionless on the top of the tank.

Suddenly the David fish has more color and its wings are more animated. The big blue on top is still motionless. This is unbelievable. I thought the little one was a goner for sure. Now the big blue is moving a bit more. His higher fin is hurt, not half as large as before. I don’t see a bite but it’s damaged. Like an arm hanging by its side instead of functional. He submerges, ready to attack, but the other quickly gets away and they remain as far from each other as possible.

2:58 PM Both fish are damaged. David, at the top, is practically lifeless, gray. Goliath is motionless on the bottom. Goliath has a nervous twitch and is unable to steer as well. A brain problem or broken electrical connection. I think David is actually smarter. He’ll die first but Goliath won’t recover. I keep thinking I want to separate them and see if they’ll come back to life. When Goliath was particularly vengeful and animated I knocked the glass a few times which caused him to stop what he was doing and go off by himself twice. They rest, and then he goes back after David.

6:07 PM David went after Goliath. Both are wounded. David woke a sleeping giant who is now practically wilted in place with his mouth gaping wide open. I can’t believe David came after him, after all this, both so weak. I wonder who will be alive in the morning. On YouTube… it said the fish can take each other rather quickly. They’ve been going at it for over six hours.

5 Fs

The next day I have a conversation with a man named Moses, I’d just met online who does not become a new friend. He vents about his “stuff.” I try to follow along, not understanding the hierarchy in which he dwells. He asks about my week. I explain the difficulties without detailing health fears, only highlighting tension Monday and Tuesday, fight on Wednesday, Thursday Thanksgiving morning, the blessings and difficulties of that day, and my service on Friday morning. I explain why I haven’t patched something up and he asks if I’ve ever done a forgiveness exercise.

He tells me how important it is, how an out loud exercise forgiving yourself and others releases you from the negative thoughts and the emotions that fester and cause cancer.

I didn’t bring up cancer. I guess this Moses brought down a side lesson for me from on high, for me alone in the here and now, that goes on and on, if we’re only willing to continue listening and learning.

We talked about how things change first in the physical, then the spiritual.

After all that, I shared about the fish; what I did, what I witnessed. He totally got how I was watching symbolically what was happening in the aquarium of my heart. Finally seeing the relationship for what it really was.

Suddenly everything gels into place. Forgiveness, yes, but then almost a hallucination seeing my maternal Grandma Henry say to her husband, my Grandpa Max, “I’ll only be happy when your dead of a heart attack.” He dies before the divorce that tears the family apart is complete, two years later. She forever was bitter and mean. I lived with her a few months in 1986. As the oldest of 5 sisters, she’d been taken out of school to make money since her dad was a delinquent gambler, selfish drinker and kicked out by Tiny, her mom, my great grandmother. During those months, every day at 4 PM with a brand-new cup of coffee, Henrietta would moan on and on about how much they loved each other while unconsciously rubbing her right thumb and first two fingers together in a counterclockwise circle.

Suddenly back with Moses on the phone line, some task master in my mind files through the rest of the people in my life with whom I’m having ‘issues.’ This one - for being a jerk and that one - for dying too soon. Certain men, some girls . . . seeing myself holding onto all of this for much longer than necessary or healthy.

I remember being told when I was 26, the same year I lived with her, to do a similar Forgiveness exercise. I blew it off, or did it half-heartedly. It only took another 26 years to finally take it seriously.

Then I poured the poor fish, still alive, both ailing, into the toilet. Sucked down automatically, without a flush, disappearing quickly from my guilty, nervous, but grateful sight. With chills I hid the vase in which they'd almost killed each other. Yes, I should have put them in plastic bags and brought them back to PetCo or Peta, to see if experts could resuscitate them. I acknowledge responsibility for this immoral and unfair crime . . . letting them fight till the end like advertised ((or per se, like the politics of the current atmosphere.))

But, it is done. Tomorrow I start a new day, a new season, a new reason to stay alive and flourish.

So, the 4Fs my therapist told me I should write about before I ever got sick: Fun, Food, Family, and F*cking just added another F. Forgiveness.