Stress Switch

Walking down to the pasture to feed the baby goat, being careful to avoid stepping in the low places, and balancing the flashlight in one hand with a bottle of milk and a cup of orange juice in the other, I began to set my goals for the day and for the rest of week. I thought about the personnel under my charge, the many accounts that needed attention, the projections for growth, the need for academic compliance with accrediting agencies, work responsibilities, facility challenges in various departments, and mostly, all the things I needed to accomplish. These thoughts and more enveloped me and weighed heavily on me as I neared the fence and began to call for baby billy.

He ran to the fence with a sleepy but excited and energetic bound and stuck his head through the fence to get the bottle that I gave him each morning before I headed off to work. Unfortunately, this particular morning, in trying to shine the light on the little goat and get the bottle to him, I accidentally lifted the orange juice to his mouth where he quickly and eagerly grabbed it and swallowed a mouthful. At the same moment, thinking I was drinking my own orange juice, I, instead, took a healthy swig of goat formula and changed into a goat on the wrong side of the fence.

It took me a few minutes to discern the reality of my unusual situation. My brain functioned as a human but my outward appearance and my instincts were that of a goat. I momentarily laughed, cried, and instantly tried to scream for someone to help me, but all I could muster was a mournful baaaa and a grunt. I felt something crash into me and looked around to see another goat butt me hard in anger at the sounds I was making. I quickly moved into battling position, but the goat had moved away in apathy as though I made no difference at all in his life.

I looked around and saw the other goats and felt a desire to be near the others. This was new to me since my former human self sometimes preferred to be alone, particularly first thing in the morning. So I wandered over to the other goats, a group of nannies and one billy that did not acknowledge me at all, and quickly experienced hunger pangs and found myself bending down to find some grass and weeds which strangely were quite tasty but not very filling. As I munched on the delicious grass, I paused occasionally to look around and for the first time in a long time, felt completely devoid of any kind of goals or purpose. It was as though my mind had become a blank slate, but not even a slate, more of an empty space, with little ability to process much of anything other than my most basic of needs, namely food. It was strangely comforting, in the manner of not having to make any decisions can be, such as losing the sense of choice is both relaxing and disconcerting, and yet, the lack of discernment, its fundamental joy notwithstanding, was still more than a little frightening at the same time.

But what of my counterpart, my evil twin, my clone, my own personal thief? What of his whereabouts? Was he frightened also of the new life? Did his fear include driving, talking, meetings, calls, computer? In his new found freedom from the weeds of pasture, was the actually result a bigger pasture with more weeds? Was his freedom actually his straitjacket as he attempted to fit in with the human world? When he arrived in my office and encountered the first difficult question of the day, did he relish in the opportunity to solve the problem or did he beg for the past when his pressing problem was which set of weeds did he want to eat at the moment?

I was not to know, for at the critical moment of my altered state, and as I accidentally drank from the goat milk, and as the switch occurred, time had stopped, giving me a sense of being frozen in psychological space, as though a swirling ocean of violent waves had engulfed me but immediately stopped moving. Just as immediately, my journey into goatdom reverted me back to my human state, and I concluded my moment by feeding the baby goat, headed back to the house, and drove to work. Maybe it had been a dream or a nightmare or a moment in time of escape, but nevertheless the event left me shaken yet oddly refreshed.

Rather than the feeling of stress that sometimes accompanied my path to work, that day as I walked into my office, turned on the computer, and checked the phone messages, I anticipated with great joy some sort of problem to solve. I smiled wryly and unabashedly as I thankfully and silently prayed to God in gratitude for not making me a goat! It was great to be a human. Such was the start of a great and beautiful week.