13) Rat Race: The Quest for Solace

I stayed up late painting them, basing them, and taking photos of them on my gaming table. When it was finally time for bed, I went to check on my actual pet rats, and to tuck them in for the night. I checked water bottles and topped off food dishes like I always do. When I went to fill the dish in the boy's cage, though, I realized that something was off. None of them came out of their nest to greet me. There was no race to the food dish. Peeking inside their little hut, I realized that all of them were piled on top of old Specules. I reached in to check on him, and his friend, Spirit, tried to bite me. Twice. The rats wouldn't let me touch him. I'd seen this before, and I knew what it meant.

I closed the cage, and turned off the lights so that he could go peacefully, snuggled with his boys. He died warm and quiet in his own nest during the night. The rats let me remove his body in the morning.

I don't know how old Specules was. He was already an old rat when we got him last year. A woman in Milwaukee got evicted, and her pets literally got left outside on a driveway in cold October rain for 24 hours. We took in her four rats, and someone else took her 2 cats. Specules was the only rat who survived. The other three were very ill, and even with antibiotic treatment, only lived a couple months after we rescued them.

Once he was healthy, Speck moved in with our rat boys. Little Noodle was always especially fond of Grandpa Specules. The two were often found snuggled together in a basket or hammock. 

Rats only live two to three years. Someone once asked me, in a pet forum, how I could cope with their short life spans. It's a complicated answer, and it requires some perspective thinking, but this is the best response that I can come up with. 

It only seems like a short time to us. To the rat, it is a lifetime. It may sound strange, but to me, that is one of the things that I love about my little vermins. Time passes more quickly for them, than it does for us, but it's the same amount of time. It is one life. That's all we get. 

I can't give my child a good life. All I can do is prepare them for it. I can make them wise, and make them strong, but then I have to wish them luck and send them off into the world alone. They will have hardships. They will struggle to pay bills and meet deadlines. They will have to deal with stress, and heartbreak. Perhaps they will someday have to go to war, as I have. Perhaps they will see death until they no longer dream at night. No matter their path, my child will suffer. In one way or another, we all do.

But my little vermins... They only live a few years. I can shelter them. I can pamper them. I can protect them from the world. When my pets die, I am sad, but I take great solace in the fact that they were loved, and that they knew only love. Old Specules knew fear, and cold, and loss before he came to us. He was perhaps, then, our wisest rat. I will miss his counsel, and the other rats will miss the tales of his adventures.

The point that I am getting at here, is that your time is valuable. The thing that makes it valuable, is the fact that it is finite. Make time for yourself. Do things that cause your brain to make the happy chemicals. Don't allow yourself to feel guilty because you spent time doing something you enjoy instead of doing work. You only have so much time, so you really need to make sure that you enjoy at least SOME of it. There is a huge misconception in our society that people have a poor work to life balance weighing heavily in the direction of them being lazy and selfish. In most cases, though, it is the opposite. People are afraid that their value and validity depend on their productivity, so they unintentionally reprogram themselves to feel bad or guilty if they aren't working on something.

Trust me. I've been there. It is a response to our comprehension of our mortality, and it is natural.

This is where hobbies come in. Hobbies allow you to feel accomplished and productive, even though you are doing something fun. I have been working on this Kings of War army since November. I've spent a lot of time on it, and I'm proud to show it off. That's healthy.

I'm enjoying myself. I'm happy. I'm thriving. My time is well spent, and I have something to show for it. To me, that's important. The fact that my accomplishments are real and tangible help me to avoid those thinking traps of self judgement dependent on productivity. When the dice hit the table, and I start playing, I won't feel like I am wasting my time playing a silly game, because I will feel like I have earned it. That's why wargaming is the perfect hobby for me. The time that I have invested into it gives me a return. I don't get that same validation from playing video games or surfing the internet.

We're all running our own rat races. We aren't against each other. We're just against the clock. The winner of a rat race is still a rat, and there is no cheese at the end. If we're lucky though, we will be happy, warm, and content, because ours was a race well run.

Find what makes you happy, and then find time for it. It's important. It is the difference between living and surviving.