You Got to Hidey-hide You Got to Jump and Run

“I saw the dead fish today.” I feel inclined to announce this when I’ve recently pronounced the little guy, “gone for sure this time. I’ve looked everywhere. I’m kinda sad about it.” This happens about once a month and is met with a skeptical, albeit somewhat sympathetic nod. I am down to two fish and they are awful fish. They hide and fake death and never, ever show themselves, not even to eat. Not even when I put in the million dollar shrimp treats. I bought these fish, along with two other great, colorful ones, at the lowest point of my life; when I struggled to put one foot in front of the other and wasn’t sure I could even go in the store, let alone converse with the fish guy. The lowest point in your life will change, will be redefined and added to, as you age. When you’re a kid, the lowest point may be your goldfish dying, soon followed by your best friend moving away, soon followed by your first breakup…. and, eventually, your lowest point becomes more and more serious and hard to bounce back from. Lest everyone just jump off a bridge at this point, I might add that your highest point in life changes too, going from your first home run, to your first kiss, to your first love, your first house, your first baby, etc. So, see, there’s a balance, but I digress. I decided I wanted some fish. I used to have fish and had forgotten how much trouble they were and how, in the end, I had an empty aquarium and didn’t really care because I was so tired of the upkeep. Having blocked this out, I told the fish guy I wanted a whole bunch of really colorful fish and he said, given the size of my aquarium, I could have three, four if I purchased some air ball thing, which I did, due to the fact that three of anything never works out. You always have two siding against the other, creating another one of those low points in life. So, I came home with four, and at least the two friendly ones were fun to watch. I spent a lot of time just watching them explore their little Sponge Bob house and cool pirate ship and plants and stuff. Somehow, this helped everything. But, eventually, the two great fish were no more and I had to replace them, pretty sure the fish guy held me personally responsible. “What did you do?”he frowned. So, when the two old ones didn’t like the two new ones, they also disappeared and I was too embarrassed to go back to the fish guy and announce the death and need of replacements. So, I’m down to these two unattractive, unfriendly ones, still doing their best to stay out of sight. One is so good at this, that I pick up everything in the aquarium to search for his dead body and never find him. Then, out of the blue, he will pop up and swim around in plain view for a few days, only to go back into hiding for months. It kinda reminds me of the mystery running guy. Yep. If you don’t know who that is, you need to read the past blogs. Maybe it’ll be a high point of your day or, at least, maybe it’ll make you forget a low point. Distraction. It’s the name of the game in life sometimes.