You Cannot Pet All the Kitties

Stinky asleep in the guesthouse last year after I was rained out of the house in October.

 Last night we had to ride out to our friends house, Derwood and Krissi's. Derwood went back to the U.S. for his mother's funeral, and Krissi had driven into San Jose to pick up her youngest child. Somewhere on road Krissi's car died, and she was worried about her brood of animals. She called us to drive up to their home, five minutes from ours to feed them.

We did, in the total darkness of the Costa Rican night. I had to laugh because when we pulled up because their huge dog Molly ran up, and licked my face. Did I mention I've never met Molly or their eight cats? But I did a ton of petting of friendly critters. Like I said a few days ago animals realize I am a complete pushover and either beg to be petted or fed.

Last night as I was petting cats Jim looked at me and said "You cannot pet all the kitties!"

He has a point. I spent all last night and some of today thinking about it. He's been talking to me for more than a few months now. He thinks I should stop writing for Patheos, and shutter No Longer Quivering. Why? Because of the hassles I am having in a time of my life that is supposed to be hassle free, retired to the beach with zero responsibilities. 

He may be right. He's seen me get so burned out twice this year that I literally shut down my social media for weeks at a time to recharge. He's seen me shut off the contact functions at the NLQ Facebook page, and my auto rejection message on Messenger to anyone trying to contact me out of the blue. He's had to witness me in turns guffawing and griping over the last two days as my email box filled with virus-laden emails and a thousand and one insurance quotes I never asked for. He's seen me grumble when Bethel and stupid Tim Bayly decided to spam me emails insisting I do not know their theologies. 

He has witnessed first hand some of the kind of harassment I have not talked about here that frightens him to the point where towards earlier in the year we started forwarding certain things by certain people to our D.C. lawyer, one of which I am just about ready to get a restraining order in both the C.R. courts and the U.S. courts before dobbing her in on stalking charges and a civil lawsuit. He has seen that. 

Just like I cannot pet all the kitties I cannot please everyone, help everyone and take all the abuse on my own. It's incredibly tempting at this point to do just that and withdraw. I have a book deal and three partially finished books that I am being distracted from finishing by the stupid nonsense going on around me. Quitting to finish them would be heaven.

At the same time I detest bullies, and I like most of what I'm doing. I guess I'm going to have to get a lot meaner at Jerks4Jesus if I stay.

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