A little fish

And a little turtle...

I had a great day today - yeah!, I felt good most of the day! I drove to Cranbourne and bought a local freshwater adolescent short-necked turtle (Henry Marion named him) from the aquarium. He was full of beans and sat mostly happily, so he seemed, in is box with newspaper for the three hour drive home - I had to do a bit of shopping for Marion on the way.

I’ve had it in mind to buy a turtle or two from the aquarium and pet shop for months but it’s been too cold to take them out of the warm shop environment and put them in the wild as the wild ones have been hibernating over winter. But now the water and weather is warmer so I thought I’d see if the aquarium had any, and it had one left!

When I arrived at the lake - which is man made but beautiful being full of native water plants and rushes around the edge and other native shrubs on the banks and a large expanse of water teaming with water and bird life - I took him (he looked like he might be a ‘him’ however he still might be too young to tell) out of the box and put him on the grass a few feet from the water so he could have a moment to get his bearings. He walked a few steps, stopped, looked about for a while, then quickly raced into the water. Then he swam into a deeper depression and immediately started eating things. He looked like he was starving, which he probably was. Then he settled and moved about the water plants and it was the perfect picture, as if the lake was my huge aquarium, a far cry from the tiny tanks I kept the baby turtles in when I was a young boy, all of which I killed through lack of care and bad feeding.

Lately thinking about ‘rescuing’ turtles from the small tanks of the aquarium, I’ve been feeling very guilty about how badly I treated the little ones I had, so I feel like part of buying this one and letting him go in what hopefully will be a good home and life for him is sort of paying off my karma.

When I used to service peoples home aquariums, one woman had a turtle in a small tank she’d had for years. I felt so sorry for it, yet it didn’t even occur to me at the time to suggest I might let it go in the wild for her. I regret that as the woman intimated that she was sick of having it as it was hard to keep its water clean and she even felt guilty about keeping it in such a small tank. And speaking about all these bad feelings to Marion has led me as usual this way and that through all sorts of things about myself, all adding to what I’m currently going through, which is understanding that deep within my psyche, I am confused at to whether or not I’m actually right, as in the full quid and not retarded in some way. I have it in me that I am perhaps not as I should be, all what was conveyed to me by mum, dad and Gran; that something might be fundamentally wrong with me, that I might look all right on the outside but on the inside... you just don’t know. And so I am scared of the spastic and dysfunctional children I see, which I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, becoming gradually aware and wondering it indeed I am really one of them, and instead of thinking I should be helping to look after them, I am actually one of them. The trauma of how I was treated keeps being revealed to me, and how fucked I feel deep within myself comes up more each day.

So I am clinging onto the little turtle, he is me, I am rescuing him - me - from a life of misery confined to a three foot tank in someones house, taking him and myself and putting us out in the wild - FREE AT LAST!; and even if he only lasts the few hours that I watched him swimming about, still at least he will die free and in his natural element. And if he lasts his whole life of up to twenty-five years, then he and me will hopefully have had a good life. I am trying to set myself free as I set him free. And I feel so good about him, seeing him there swimming about the water plants eating, taking great gulps of food, just as I feel so much better about myself today too.

As it is with the healing, the worse truth I see about myself, feeling like I am retarded in some way, and bringing such secretive feelings to light, the better I’m actually feeling about myself.

(NB: I've since found out that it's illegal with a large fine to take captive breed turtles and other reptiles and liberate them in the wild.  So that ends that idea.)

And hello nols, welcome to the forum.