Giving a mouse a cookie
My cat Oliver needed to have all of his teeth extracted, so I brought him to a veterinary specialist for the surgery. I got the call to come pick him up, and it was about an hour drive. I was eager to get my sweet boy home and give him some TLC. As I pulled on to the interstate, sheets of rain were pouring down in stop and go traffic. Ugh. I still had a 50-minute drive ahead of me. The windows were fogging up badly, so I cranked up the defrost. Out of my peripheral vision, I see a little flash of movement in the passenger seat. It was a mouse.
Now, I’m OK with spiders, most bugs, squirrels, chipmunks, etc. Cockroaches and mice, however - they send me into a state of fear and anxiety. Those unpredictable movements - where will they go? In my hair?
I let out a blood-curdling scream, which perplexingly encouraged the mouse to move toward me! I grabbed my bag and started swishing it near him, like a grandma swatting her pocket book at a thug. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything on the packed highway, inching along at a snail’s pace. I was trapped! With a mouse! With a mouse that seemed to want to be near me! 😳
In between piercing screams I was talking to myself, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What do I do, oh my God, oh my God.” I usually try to find the theme or spiritual lesson in my life, and clearly this one was about facing my fear. So, I went into pep talk mode, “You can do this, Becky. You are strong, you can handle this. The mouse is more afraid of you than you are of him. Have compassion for the poor little guy. You are fine, you are safe.” And I kept moving my feet and singing/talking, thinking that would lessen his fondness for being near me. I talked myself through my biggest fear, “he’s not going to come around your feet, you’re fine, you’re safe, you can handle this.” And then…I thought I saw movement in the driver’s map pocket right beside me. I sort of chuckled at how now my fear was making me imagine things. I glanced down and, nope, this was really happening. The mouse was, indeed, in the map pocket and decided to jump out and head toward my feet and the gas and brake pedals!
“OK,” I coached myself, “it happened. My worst fear happened. Good, you got it over with!” Then it occurred to me that an even worse fear was that he would climb in the hood of my jacket, and into my hair or, even worse, down inside my jacket! The rest of my drive was spent screaming, foot-tapping, praying and pep-talking.
When I arrived at the vet and brought Oliver out to the car, the mouse was waiting for me - right near the gas pedal. So I gave the mouse a cookie. I constructed an intricate set-up with a little piece of granola bar on the open door ledge, and lots of granola bits on the ground just below. I propped an umbrella over the open door and car roof so he had shelter from the now lightly sprinkling rain. I even tried telepathically communicating with the little guy to jump outside and be free. And do you know what that little [insert curse word here] did? He grabbed the granola morsel on the door ledge, and then high-tailed it back up under the dash, which clearly was his home base. This game of human and mouse went on for quite a while. The prospect of driving another hour back home with the mouse moving around me was really wearing on me. As I stayed in position, ready to slam the door shut if he jumped out, I texted my friend Henry about what was going on. Henry knows of my fear of mice.
Henry texted back, “do you want me to buy some traps and come bring them to you?” Ugh, I thought, that was a lot to ask. He was about a 40-minute drive away. I felt all these heavy emotions like guilt, weakness, etc. A lot of us really struggle with receiving an offer of help, a gift. And the interesting thing about asking to get your needs met, is that you can ask, but the other person is free to do what they will. They may want to help, but they may not have the capacity to do it at that moment, or at all. How many times have you fallen in love with someone who you later discover just can’t meet your needs? They may really, really want to, but they just don’t have the wiring. Who was it who said, ‘we’re spiritual beings having a human experience’? And we humans come with our unique set of strengths, quirks, programming and lessons to learn in this life. Acknowledging that no one - not our partners, our parents, our kids - no one is responsible for meeting our needs is, in fact, quite empowering. It’s really between us and God (aka Spirit/the Universe/etc.). But we can ask for help. It’s part of learning to love ourselves, speak our truth, step forward for ourselves.
Reluctantly, I asked Henry for help, “Would you be willing to drive here, switch cars, and you drive home in the mouse car?” Henry agreed. The relief poured through my body like sweet, golden medicine. I almost wept, I was so relieved. What a gift he had just given me. I was so, incredibly grateful. We made the drive home successfully, and the next day, let’s just say the mouse exited the car.
It later dawned on me that all that time I had thought the spiritual lesson in this hilarious experience (now it was hilarious, but not at the time) was to face my fear. But in actuality, the lesson was about asking for help and loving myself enough to receive the gift. The Universe can be tricky like that - we think it’s one thing, but it’s really about something entirely different. Or maybe it was both together? I guess one day we’ll know all the answers to stuff like this. 💛
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