For years I had been living the thought that the flying ants invading my home every spring are disgusting and unwanted visitors and this year something happened: it is the time of the year again, April-May, and that’s when they come out falling or flying from little holes in the ceiling, hundreds of them per day-I think-I find it hard to really tell where they are coming from and how many they are, even though I have been studying them vigorously for the past years-with magnifiers, or by searching the web-anything.

Anyway, this year they came again and my response was different. It felt like: OK, here you are again…this must be the way of it for you and me, to spend these 2 months together, for it happens every year and though every year I swear I will find a way to terminate you, I just never can get myself to call an exterminator. So it is more accurate to say I don’t want to exterminate you. And now, this year, I can finally see why: you are actually not so ruthless as I imagined. You do have your limits. You disappear when evening falls, so I can sleep peacefully; you die very fast-within a day or 2 days. When I vacuum you up in the vacuum cleaner, you don’t crawl out of it in unexpected places, as my mind vividly imagined you’d do-you stay in there. You don’t usually climb on my bed. And your season is limited. You come in huge masses and then after 2 months I do not see you any more for the entire year.

The moment I realized this, I started to actually enjoy my persistent visitors. I started noticing that they are quite clean and funny with their long little tails. And they squirm their bodies in such a happy way. So next time I was in the bathroom, it struck me that it was nice to have them keep me company there, that it was actually NICER to have them around than not have them around. One crawled in my slipper and I enjoyed its soft, gentle tickling. When the thought came to me that it is scary and it could crawl up my leg and who knows where-and and all these funny silly irrational fears-I was evenly gentle with myself and shook it off and off it went to play with its mates in one of the humid corners of the room (they love humidity, I’ve noticed). I couldn’t belief my attitude towards them had changed so drastically! I couldn’t rationally explain it either. This was a huge turnaround and I just started living it. I had written many worksheets on them, but that was quite a while ago and at that time I was still screaming and raging around the house, blaming my husband for not saving me from them etc etc…Whatever, I’m glad I can love these little creatures and I am going to enjoy every minute of them, for they will soon be gone again:)