COVID and lost love

 The past week has been rough. I go to work, get exhausted right after lunch, then come home and collapse. In fact, the past month.... or few months have been rough.
In November, I went in for an ultrasound and found my baby had stopped growing 4 weeks prior. One pill and a few super uncomfortable days later I bled and cried for a week. 

Then in December, I woke up with a tickle in my throat and just to be safe, I called off work. But you can't just call off for one day with COVID so I went out and got a test, 3-5 days for the results right before Christmas and I imagined all the things I would get done in my quarantine time. The next day, I felt weaker, and by the third day my joints started seizing up with screaming pain. I tried to cancel Christmas with family, my brother was furious and still wanted a "normal" Christmas at his house with no masks. I declined and hunkered down with a very energetic 3 year old also in quarantine just to be safe. By day 4, the muscle aches started and all I could do was lay around. Day 5, my taste became dull and I could barely smell. I would chug coffee and eat Tylenol in the morning and hobble around to get to the basics before completely falling out in the afternoon.

Two weeks recovery was not long enough and searches online provided bleak outcomes for others recovering from the virus. Thankfully, no one else in my house tested positive, but they got quarantined as well so we all hung out watching Super Wings and doing a ton of art projects while I watched from the couch or went to bed. I made it my goal to drink all the tea in my giant tea drawer that was overflowing. I made it through about half before I had to go back to work.

My sick time was through and I got back to seeing clients, but I ached so bad I could barely move. I kept a heater by my chair and wore three layers and a scarf that doubled as a blanket. My appetite didn't come back, I couldn't taste anyway, and I kept chugging tea. I got down to the weird loose leaf green teas and the bagged ginger and kept going. I let the leaves bloom straight in the cup in hopes that some magic green tea energy would activate something in me that would stop aching so much.

My second week back at work the health dept came with the first round of the shot. I never want to get COVID again so while I may have been hesitant before, I definitely had decided to get it. But I read immunity and waiting and blah blah blah so I asked. They said it should be fine, but my reaction may be more severe since I just had COVID. 
I felt so proud of myself for being brave. I didn't pass out. I barely cried. I just talked to co-workers, saw the head boss, chatted with the nurse that COVID tested me into a bloody nose, and I took my shot. 
It took a few hours before the soreness really hit. The fatigue had clenched down on me by the evening, and the following day I woke up crying. My symptoms had come back with a vengeance. It felt like the worst of my COVID days when I was fighting the virus. I would go to work, limp through, and then go home and crash. I slept from right after work until the next day for work, waking up for an hour or so to eat dinner and then go back to sleep. And I wouldn't feel rested after, just tired and sore. 

I think between the miscarriage and the corona, my body has aged 10+ years in just the past few months. I ache. I am winded walking up stairs. I worry when I wake up that something new will hurt. But I am so grateful at how healthy I am because there were times when I was trying to breathe that I thought -if this gets worse, I can see why people don't live. I could feel it. I am a mass of sinew and bone with skin stretched over as my brain pushes my flesh to turn the head, to move the fingers, to pull air into the lungs. I could feel the immune response and the attack as it would rest in one of my joints for a day, holding that joint captive in agony until migrating to a different joint or vertebrate in my upper or lower back. I try to feel the air as it passes through my windpipe, down into my lungs and I wonder if I'm getting enough carbon dioxide out in order to keep my brain functioning. I wonder if walking would tax this body to the point of breaking and I may pass out. 

I take a lot of baths now. I try to relax or stretch, but nothing changes. So I cry a little, I let myself feel it and I let my mind wonder to -what if this never goes away. And then I set that thought down and walk away. 

Spending 2 weeks at home and not going anywhere is not something I would have ever thought to do. That time helped me realize I need to take time to not do anything. I do wish I could have had that time off and not felt like a steaming pile of garbage, but maybe not being able to do anything was an extra vacation on top of not going to work. It was a way for me to forgive myself for not vacuuming or for learning every character on my kid's favorite show. It was ok for me to have all my projects that I started just sit there and not get finished. 

I'm still recovering. I hope I'm on the mend. The pain is in my left shoulder and my right foot right now. Maybe in the morning it will have migrated and set up camp somewhere else. I am not sure how long I will feel this way. I do know that I hope that vaccine works cause I never want to feel this way again. Well, except for the second dose....... ugh.  

I Miss You

It's been awhile since I've had obsessive thoughts about something or someone. I used to fall hard for people who didn't return the feeling and my brain would repeat over and over events that happened as if there was something I could unlock and figure out how to make them love me. I would repeat a song over and over again in a sad attempt to unlock the secrets behind the hook, the beat, the tone, one part of the quiver in the voice that could free me from my obsession on repeat. I found the only way to get a song out of my head is to play it. But then sometimes that song needs played over and over again to fully process and push through that feeling. 

Right now I am pushing through a super sappy song that reminds me of heartbreak from forever ago and for you readers who would like to fall along and perhaps get it stuck in your head too, it's I Miss You by Incubus. It's pretty much 1999 sappy rock ballad to the max, with that masculinity that is fringed with a twinge of heartache without having to go into the typical rap rock to get the point across. There's a part that pulls between the chorus and the verse that drones on with voices and then falls away that just solidifies that longing feeling of walking away from something or someone that you love but still holds on. 

And I'm fairly convinced that I've completely lost my mind. I feel like someone took pruning loppers to where my spine is in order to separate my head from the rest of my body. Or maybe it's just pinched and my body is numb but my brain is stuck on repeat in the sappiest point I've been in forever. 

I can't even describe what I am missing. It's just this overarching feeling of floating through my days completely detached or in shock and I feel like my feet aren't even on the ground or the ground doesn't even exist.

I need to put a seed in the ground and watch it grow. I need to look forward. I am pulling myself back into this slow moving, slightly distorted, guitar driven whispers of something that I thought I had. When life splinters and branches into a different direction, it's hard not to think of the possibilities if life had gone right instead of taking a sharp left. 

It's funny how I sit down with people and talk through their obsessive thoughts like I know what the fuck I'm talking about. Perhaps if I had someone to talk to, I could process these irrational thoughts. I'm not even sure what I miss other than that feeling of security, like I know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I can't explain. I'm 5 months sober. Maybe I'm shifting again. Maybe life shifted and I'm having trouble keeping up. Maybe fucking mercury is in retrograde. Maybe I need to let go of thinking I have my shit together and be honest with other people that I don't. Maybe I can say my head has detached from my body but I'm still walking around like I know where I'm going. Maybe I'm jealous of people who don't care. Maybe I'm getting too much sleep and my dreams are wandering far into the depths of places I don't want to go. 

I don't fucking know. I do hope I finally hit the point where I can listen to something else. I hope I can unlock the puzzle of what is bothering me enough to make it stop. I want to make it stop. I need to move on instead of missing something that I cannot go back to. 

Devastation, but Maybe Cautious Optimism

 It has been a rough few weeks.

I thought I had my shit together. I got thrown into an internship that I had been studying for but still felt ill prepared at a site that seemed a bit low on staff. I took on as much as I could and LOVED the work. I was given a lot of freedom and I ran things the way I wanted, meeting with my supervisor once a week just to make sure I was on the right track.

Our numbers kept going down and then suddenly all staff get pulled in and told our site is closing. I was devastated, but wearing masks is helpful in situations such as these. The paper ones aren't as good at hiding tears as the cloth ones, but I tried to hold it together. We were then instructed to go out and put on a solid front for the clients who would have to merge with a different site. They were devastated. I was devastated. I was told that HR would talk to me within the next few days.

I'm not sure how to articulate the stress of having 3 years of classes hanging over my head with required hours to graduate in December being linked to where I was hired on for health insurance for me and my kid. It's a lot of debt to lose my internship now. I was also hurt and worried for the girls. One client came into my office who was in her final few weeks and broke down that she couldn't finish without me. My boss said she can't say much, but can share that I'm not leaving and I'll be around to help.

It was a quick move, two days later I was sitting on a couch in a different residential setting after teaching my final group therapy session at the old site. It was like the first day on the job but with 5 scared people looking to me for guidance when I was still adjusting to the change as well.

The new site was a different from a theoretical standpoint. It's weird to know this and look back at the times I was in counseling and guess what theoretical standpoint each of those counselors was operating from. This site is big into AA. I come from trauma based supervision. The clients that moved from my site quickly noticed the difference.
AA and 12 steps seem to be more methodical. Trauma based dives deep and asks why or "where did this idea come from?" I learned to dig and find the source. When you use drugs for so many years, you don't really think "why do I use?" It's a valid question and one of my favorite to ask. I found that once I pulled out as many reasons that kept them in active use, I could start knocking them down with facts, brain chemistry, assertiveness training, and thought-feeling correlation through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) but they had to come up with their list first. 
12 step programs walks everyone through a series of questions and pushes going to meetings and reading the "Big Book." 

Anyway, I worked my way in and was so nervous the first few times I led group. My previous supervisor just let me go and said she would let me know if I was doing something wrong. These supervisors are much more involved, which of course makes me anxious. 

What I learned is that over the past few months and feverishly reading, I've absorbed a shit ton of material and can lead 3 hour discussions easily without having to rely on handouts as much. I learned that engaging people is an art, some people who initially hate you may eventually change their mind, and an easy way to make friends at a new place is to take the most hated job from all your coworkers while not complaining. The only problem is that once I took the most dreaded job, they started to expect it and HR called again and placed me at another site.

Now was my turn to be devastated. I had my few clients left from the other site, but I had been running about a group per day with the other residents. I adjusted to their program and worked my way into it. My new site director paid me a compliment which really helped reaffirm that I like working in this field and especially with women. 

My last day at that site was so perfect. I got to run music therapy with my 4 favorite songs and then go into how to meditate before bed to let go of the day. I did notes, chatted with residents, chatted with staff, tried to hide my tears, played volleyball with staff and clients, and then sat in the living room with a client I am very close to and had such a good conversation while other clients came and sat around and listened. 

My heart is breaking right now. I wish I could have stayed. I didn't know I would like working with that population so much but the pain from their stories and how they were trying to get through it by destroying themselves is so amazing to work through. 
I walked away from there with part of my heart still with them. And I thought that maybe I'm not a good fit for this job because I'm too much of an empath. But fuck, that's a hard way to leave someone after I've invested so much mental energy into figuring out where they are coming from and how to help them stop destroying themselves in spite of their own best efforts. I have this fear in the pit of my stomach, this dull ache all over like walking away was not right or that there was something more I could have done to fight to work at that site. 
But I got transferred. I picked the available position within the company and in a few days, I get to see how things go. It's going to be different, but maybe I'll learn different things. 

I think one of my clients was poking at me for leaving her. I wasn't sure what she wanted from me and she is the one I warned about only being around temporarily. I don't know how I'm going to go from seeing someone every day and having such long talks about everything that is going on in her world to...  nothing. 
I'm struggling with what I can and what I cannot control. I know she needs to stand on her own two feet, but this is like telling her that and then taking the rug out from underneath her. I understand why she was poking at me. She was wondering if I was still alive and in there and trying to help her. It's just making me miserable now, but I know the other staff at that site will be fine. She is a bit dramatic at times, but her life has been pretty turbulent so I understand. 
I just want to reach out but I'm not sure how or why. She has a long way to go in recovery and I was only one tiny piece of it. I cannot hold her hand all the time, but I feel like I'm walking away far too soon. 
I only hope that she falls back and regroups. 

I guess I look back at the people who made a huge impact on my life and I see them in different time zones of my life. I look back at the good and the bad events like time stamps and scars I hold onto. I hope she keeps the good parts and builds on them. I hope she stays well. 

I prefer when clients graduate out of the program. I've been able to better walk away knowing that I've done everything I could to work through things that were holding them back. I don't feel like I was finished and I had to walk away. 

I wish them all well. I'm not sure what my next chapter looks like. I am trying to stay optimistic. 

Step 1: I Quit

 It's been awhile. I don't know where to start. But I know I want to keep going, keep moving, keep writing. And so this small corner of the internet seems fitting place. 

First, I quit drinking. It's been several months. I don't count days. I'm not in AA. And quitting drinking  wasn't something that I planned. It just kinda happened. I guess major tectonic shifts may all start out like small rumblings of subtle movement beneath your feet foreboding of things to come. 
It started with that weird feeling that something isn't right. That -I should be doing something better, something different- feeling that usually a drink would quiet and make go dim just for a bit. 

Drinking used to quiet my mind. It stopped me from trying to do so many things all the time. And somehow, drinking found its way into every facet of my life. I thought people who didn't drink were weird and not to be trusted. Fun times all involved alcohol in one way or another. But then something shifted where all times involved alcohol in one way or another and the fun kinda wasn't there. And then most days somehow became excuses to drink or waiting to drink or lying to get out of a situation in order to get more to drink. And it wasn't fun anymore. But I couldn't stop.

I had my first baby a few years ago and quitting drinking while pregnant was a no-brainer. But I felt like I was missing out. I, the child bearing mother, wrecked myself while creating another human while the father would bring home a 6 pack of "good beer" and sit it on the table, enjoying it with dinner and commenting on how much longer his alcohol lasts now that I wasn't drinking half of it. 
I had quit drinking, which made me think I sacrificed sooooo much for this child that I put beer on my baby registry because I couldn't wait until I could drink with a good conscious again.
But with breastfeeding, there is no good conscious. 
I would be at home with a baby all day, not sure what the fuck to do with said baby and stressed out just thinking and planning and waiting to feed and hope my baby wouldn't be hungry again so that I could have a drink. No sleep with an infant. I wanted my trusty -shut my brain off- drink, but even the timing on that was stressing me out.

Once the kid was weaned, I had some catching up to do. I drank. And I drank a lot. It was the father of the kid's turn to drive me around now while I drank to catch up on the past couple of years. I wanted to find the fun, stress relief I had known before having a kid. 

I worked in the alcohol industry. I made wine for years, but I'm not a big wine drinker. I could explain the subtle notes and all the other bullshit that the industry flaunts to make those "in the know" feel important and the people who admit they only like it to be fruity, sweet, and cheap to feel less than. Oh honey, with enough practice, you'll totally learn to appreciate a dry, tannic, full bodied red wine. It just takes time and a lot of drinking... er, I mean practice.

But then my work added a distillery. I love learning. I love working with my hands and putting things together, so I was very proud of myself when I took the pieces and parts of the equipment and help put together vessels, piping, and orchestrated where the crane operators would place different pieces. I like puzzles, and building two stills from pieces was a fascinating puzzle to assemble. 

And then I learned how to make hard liquor. 

It's not difficult. It's just another skill that takes time and a mentor. I do not have a nose for it. All the distillate smelled gross and I couldn't tell the heads and feet and tails or whatever shit makes you not go blind from the stuff that people actually want to drink. The cuts are made for the "hearts" of the run, but it didn't make much of a difference in my nose. It's all pretty fucking disgusting. The only good part about whisky that I liked so much usually was what was extracted from the charred oak barrel  and the fact it warmed me up and got me pretty drunk. Honestly, vodka smells like it will kill you. Gin, I love, but I could probably make juniper tea with some citrus peel and be just as happy now. But I will admit, gin recipes and production are fascinating. It ties together my love for botanicals with my former love of separating my mind from my body for some fleeting moments.

I share my experience in the booze industry for context. I say this because I'm sitting here and I can not believe that I got out of drinking. It was what I did for a living. And then I came home and drank some more.

Now I'm not going to tell you that drinking on the job while working at a winery is the norm. It's not. There's plenty of people who work in the alcohol industry who do not drink at all. Most days I was respectable. But most people in the industry drink and want you to drink with them. Most customers are having fun and they want you to have fun with them. And in production, liquor seeps through your skin and so on bottling days with short sleeves, anyone working the line was bound to get a little tipsy by the end of the day. Blend trials are another industry pitfall where it's the opposite of a drinking game - you have to drink a lot (you can spit, but who would do that?) and you do not want to get drunk.

And there's something about being surrounded by booze and people who appreciate booze that just makes going home and drinking seem almost second nature.

I tried to cut back. I tried to drink only on the weekends. I tried to drink only 3 drinks per night (fucking laughably failed at that on so many nights) or switch what I drank in order to get all the happy, relaxed feelings and none of the bad effects. But I could tell something wasn't right. 

There is a general hum when you're dependent on a substance that is like a cricket or a cicada, an uncomfortable noise you just kinda get used to hearing. Or like living next to train tracks -where it's sooooo fucking loud and annoying that you don't even notice it until the trains aren't going for a few days and something just feels off. At first the noise is unsettling, but then you accept it and it's weird when you don't hear it.

The corona virus hit and I get laid off from my job. I had already started an internship at an alcohol and drug treatment center to finish up my master's degree. I saw myself as different, as high functioning and able to keep it together more than the patients, even when I came in with a hangover or would feel like garbage from being up at 3am again.
Then my best friend quit drinking. She was my drinking buddy, the person who was always way more drunk that everyone else, which made me feel not so bad. 

But I think what really shifted was when I realized I fucking hated myself. I hated falling asleep on the couch at 7pm or was so lazy or cranky that I couldn't bother to help my kid brush his teeth. I was tired all the time, my stomach hurt, and I always felt fuzzy in the head. I either couldn't fall asleep or couldn't keep my eyes open. And then every night at 3 I was wide awake but ravenous for sleep. I would drift back into sleep around 6am with my alarm going off at 6:15. I would swear up and down that I was not going to drink again because I wanted sleep, but being tired just makes me want to drink and once I made it all the way through work, I deserved a drink. 

So on my birthday, I quit. I remember drinking friday night, going to work with a hangover on saturday while trying to walk patients through a stages of change discussion and thinking, ugh, I need a drink. I came home and drank in a frantic search for the "fun" it used to be. My newly sober friend came over and I snuck beers when she wasn't looking and tried to talk. I fell asleep early, house was a mess, I felt like garbage, the garbage needed taken out, and I was up at 3am again. 

But then I woke up on Sunday and didn't want to drink anymore. So I stopped. I just couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't fun. I wasn't sleeping. My guts felt inside out. My head felt fuzzy. And I wasn't sure if it was mom brain or just my brain going mushy but my words were getting garbled up in my mind and my memory was really dull. I knew I wasn't being the best version of myself. I wanted to stop, not just cut down like I tried before. That failed. And those failures stung. I didn't want to beat myself up. 

I was done. I quit. But I had no idea how hard the next step would be....

Growing a lot.

My jasmine releases its fragrance at night. Last night as I was getting off from a long day of harvest and crush I rounded the corner towards the back door and the fragrance was overwhelming. I walked by the $20 grill I got someone for father's day, by the fig cuttings and tiny herb garden around my mailbox and got greeted at the back door with dog tail wags so extreme the tails appeared to have a mind of their own, ruddering the dogs to back and forth in front of me. I peer into the living room and a tiny man toddles around the door frame and once he realizes it's me, the smile melts across his face, grinning so wide that his jaw drops open to reveal an epic partially toothy grin.

I'm broke but I'm happy. I started grad school awhile ago, so if caring for a newborn and working a full time job wasn't enough, I'm taking classes at night, writing papers and reading these insane textbooks in my "free" time. I download podcasts to listen to when I'm out in the field and I feel a new depth of understanding on the human condition. I'm in addictions counseling now and the dichotomy between that and crafting new recipes for gin at work is a new level of ironic.

My house is still standing. The water heater broke in the dead of winter as I was already limping by, but a grandmother stepped in who didn't want her grandson to take cold baths. This summer, the other grandmother jumped in and bought us a big room air conditioner because she didn't want her grandson to be too hot... which was funny cause she was fine with her pregnant daughter being miserable the previous year.
But if I've learned one thing about having a kid its that the entire whole of my being is now focused on this adorable little human. All I want to do is teach him things and protect him and cuddle him. I thought the newborn stage was amazing, but as he grows and his personality comes out, these days are getting more and more amazing.
He's just over one now and has my car keys in one hand, trying to start his toy motorcycle with them. He has learned that his grandmother's golf cart doesn't work without the keys so he will find any key and try to put it near the ignition so he can step on the gas and make us all jump.
And now he is throwing the ball to the dog, which is a double game of fetch as he throws it, she retrieves it but doesn't want to go near the hair pulling tiny human so he has to chase her down to get the ball back. I fear my wallet he was walking around with earlier might be filed in a toy chest somewhere or under a couch cushion or whatever his new favorite hiding spot is today.

It's Saturday and raining, but we might walk down to the farmer's market. I really like my town for the most part. They try to do community things and bring people together. Every week in the summer, they shut down main street for some sort of party or concert or hawaiian bbq. And now that my youngin is an eating machine who loves car shows, we meander through town quite a bit. Hopefully peaches are still in season. My garden may be small this year, but I sure feel like I'm growing a lot.

My corner in an old steel mill town

I get up early and pay bills while doing the multitasking version of yoga.  I guess it's more like focused stretching than anything as I try to get the kinks out to be able to stand up straight without saying ouchie out loud.

I finally found my voice at work, guiding them through whatever expertise I have gained in growing and making fancy grape juice turned to alcohol. Growing grapes is not that hard. I can't believe how many different ways you can not understand basic plant biology. But here I am, explaining leaf mass to fruit ratios and why the plant can't ripen clusters if it keeps getting defoliated. It's odd, but a stable income and I keep hoping to eventually get paid more and do less grunt work. But don't we all.

I bought a house. It's a crazy feeling and I love the quiet of having my own space, even if I do share it with my mate. It's a late 1800s house set back in trees on a half acre in the corner of an old Ohio steel mill town. I can see a few houses but only have one neighbor right next door that I can hear his conversations if I listen hard. I have a front porch swing and gardens that are filling up with all kinds of perennials and fruits because now, whatever I plant will stay with me.
I still keep succulents on my porch in pots and most of my furniture is hand me downs from people trying to help make this new house a home. The walls have swatches of different paint colors trialed on the walls. The carpet is brand new and the driveway needs fixed. I bought a push mower, although the yard is just one big hill and pretty well impossible to mow. I'm working my way across it with red raspberries and squash and shasta daisies, wondering if it will help or hurt the resale value to have such extensive landscaping.
My back porch has a little concrete patio with weeds poking up that I have designs to make an arbor turned makeshift greenhouse for the winter. The kitchen is a cheery yellow that I have come to accept and I wonder why the toilet is leaning a little towards the outer wall, which causes it to run all the time.

My coworkers seek me out for advice and guidance at both my jobs, even though I'm not a manager at either. I never really noticed how easy some things are that I take for granted, but how difficult they are when someone else isn't planning and thinking ahead. Everyone's job goes more smoothly when management plans ahead. So now my manager looks to me to plot the week, although I'm starting to get annoyed at the lack of salary increase in exchange for my assistance.

Sigh. I guess the time has come to get up and go to work.

Stalemate and cohabitate

I am in the process of trying to buy a house. I can think of nothing that is quite as frustrating and humbling than putting your life on paper.

I thought I had saved a lot. I guess that's a relative term when you start factoring all the other hidden costs in the process of home ownership. There's inspections and closing costs and no matter what you have in the bank, it's not enough.

So I found my budget (tiny) and what I wanted in a house and away I went. I found one! But now I'm in a tug of war with the bank over a foreclosed house that I love for the low end of my budget but I think I might lose this one. I guess another hurdle in the process is that the home needs to be in 100% working order for the loan I qualify for.
I'm starting to think that home does not exists.

Still at little apartment but staying at my sisters all the time with this nagging feeling that my life is stalled.

I've also been thinking perhaps this -do what you love- mantra for choosing careers isn't such a great idea. If you like cooking, does that mean you should pursue a career working in the back of a kitchen, 60 hours a week, every night and weekend with no paid time off and an angry owner barking at you all the time? If you like making jewelry, who can tell if you will actually make your money back as you follow your dreams? Does anyone actually make money doing what they "love?"

I wonder what makes people chose what they do or if they just fall into it. I understand the inheriting a business, but everything else doesn't make any sense to me.

Maybe I'm just frustrated at being broke and sad I can't find something that I'm good at that will pay me well. And I can't find a house I can afford that I like.

And my poor kitty's back legs went paralyzed. I blame the scratching of the fleas. But really she was getting old. I didn't know how attached I was to her until I had to make the decision to take her to the vet. After a bit of googling, I knew the prognosis was not good, but I also wanted a professional opinion on what I thought was inevitable. A couple offers to take her out back just solidified my decision. I don't think getting shot is a nice way to go after she had given me a long life of service in the form of actually coming when called, making me smile, and warming my lap. She was entertaining and quirky, the way I like cats that are just there without being in your face but perfect for sick days when she was happy to share the couch with you.
Animals getting old is a somber reminder of mortality. Our companions lives are so short compared to ours but usually the perfect amount of time to add a punctuation in the timeline of our longer lives. Like -remember when we lived in that city at that place in our 20s with that crazy cat who had bow legs that made her look like a bulldog? Or the family dog that helped you through middle school but didn't make it to see you graduate high school. But every time it comes to an end, it's heartbreaking.
I guess for however gut wrenching putting a purring kitty on the vet table is, it makes me reassess why I keep things that in the end will die. Chickens are getting a lot easier. Their faces are turning into blurs and while some of them have very standout personalities, the life span of only a couple of years just leaves a slight bitter taste in my mouth when they come up dead. It's the few animals that curl on the couch with me that I expect nothing else but companionship out of that really wiggle into my heart and wring it dry.

This time of year they don't sell trees in Ohio, except the live Christmas variety. But my little kitty deserved more than just a hole in the ground with dirt on top. Even if I didn't pick her out, she just kinda wandered into my house and setup camp on my couch like she owned the place. All I could do was admire her assertiveness and shrug with the bewilderment of -I guess I have a cat now.
I think with all cats, you don't really "own" them. You cohabit. They tolerate your oddities and you tolerate their constant hairballs, box they shit in inside your house, and the occasional dead thing on the front doorstep like you really wanted to see the chipmunk/mouse/bird they just killed.

So there's a nice alcove filled with tulip and daffodil bulbs and some irises as well. Daffodils are tenacious as she was and will remind me for years of that bulldog kitty that helped ease the transition from job to job to crappy apartment from my 20s to my early 30s. And no, I don't want a cat to replace that cat. I don't look for cats. They just kinda find me. And I love them back.