End times.
This has been a terrible year for death. It seems to be everywhere all at once. WTF.
Two cats in less than 4 years. (Neko's 4th anniversary is coming up in February.) This is the 4th death I've had around Christmas. I think we're done here with the holidays. It's hard to feel all happy-shiny when your life just gets ripped to shreds.
I'm not doing well. I wish I'd just go to sleep and not wake up again. I'm tired. The current weather (crappy, foggy, gray) is a perfect manifestation of how I feel right now.
Thank you for all your kind words about KC. I miss him. There is no justice in a jackass universe when good people and pets die off so easily, so fast, and pieces of shit like Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh live on forever and get paid to be vile, hateful assholes.
For most of my life I've always lived with a quiet but persistent sense of doom in the back of my head that kept getting larger and louder the older I get, and now it seems this has come due. I always had a feeling that I wasn't going to be able to keep KC and Boo. Every now and then, something would come up - an argument with the folks, moving issues, the discovery that my SIL and mom were sneaking behind my back to possibly give them to a friend of SIL's - and I'd wonder. I know that the only reason my folks let me keep them was because they know how badly they fucked up with Neko when he went. And to be honest, I felt that they owed me big on that. My family has never understood me (nor I them), I've come to realize in recent years, and I accept this, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. They don't get how I can be so torn up over my pets every time one dies. If I hadn't been so upset, if I'd had more of a spine, I might have told my dad to shut the fuck up - in that exact language - when he was yelling at me to knock off the hysterics when I first found KC dead.
I don't stand up to my parents (mainly my dad) very often because I recognize how dependent I am on them for shelter and survival. It's not that I'm not grateful for it. But that dependence comes with a heavy price. If we hadn't moved to this isolated dump in the middle of fucking nowhere, KC might still be alive. He was an indoor cat before, since the old house was large enough to comfortably accommodate 3 people and 3 cats (while at the same time keeping Boo and Sam separated, since they hate each other).
I had a look around the garage to see if there was anything amiss. It's hard to tell because it's such a junked-up shithole, but I didn't see anything that looked like it might have been gotten into and eaten. Frankly, I don't want to know what killed KC. That'll just make it worse, because if it was something preventable, it will confirm that it is my fault (which I still feel it is to some degree). I still feel sick over the thought of him dying in pain on that cold crappy floor, alone, probably scared not knowing what was happening to him or why. There are still drool and urine stains on that floor from where he voided in death. The sight of him lying there, holding him cold and stiff in my arms... I got nothing in words for that.
I cut myself on purpose the other night. First time I'd done that in years. I scratched a K into my forearm hard enough to draw a little blood. I rarely cut, but when I do I'm a careful cutter - I know where and how hard without causing serious injury. I'm not pleased with the result but I hope it scars anyway. I wish KC had left a scar on me. He had such a cute little squeaky meow for such a big cat. Didn't expect him to get so big, either, when I first got him. We actually thought he was a girl, till we took him and Boo in to the low-cost shelter to be fixed and they examined him and, surprise.
KC never much liked to be picked up and cuddled - when they're kittens, you have to socialize them early on, or they'll retain a kind of distance from you forever. KC was born on the streets, no doubt, and he was only a few months old when he and Boo came to me. He was such a cute little kitten, too. The only time he really would let me hold him was when I would sit at the desk downstairs, at the computer, after I came back from Florida. I think he retained memories of when I'd hold him in my lap when I had my computer upstairs in my room. I couldn't take him and Boo with me when I was in Florida for the same reasons I couldn't have them with me in the Shoebox: not enough room/cat fights with Sam. So I missed out on almost 2 years of KC's life. When I came back I was surprised at how big and beautiful he'd gotten. But he was such a sweet cat.
KC grew to like me inasmuch as he was capable of, and from time to time, if I'd catch him at the right time, in the right way, he'd let me pick him up and hold him and give him back-scritches. He loved his scritches. He'd give you head-butts, too, hard ones even, when he wanted your attention. I hope he knows that I loved him very much and I wish I could have given him better. He deserved so much better than a shitty end like this. I feel it's my fault in a way because I could never get my shit together like a Proper Adult so I could give him the type of home he deserved; the sad thing is, I've finally realized that I never will either. Too many factors stacked against me now.
When you're poor, everything costs too fucking much, and you have to gauge how badly your need to eat is versus your need to get OUT of the suffocation before you go crazy and start clawing at yourself. There is nowhere for me to walk to, not safely anyway. I can go on the gravel roads but I still have to be careful because people out here think country = we can drive as batshit as we want. That's why accidents out here are more often fatal than ones in your 'burbs where it's a fender-bender. People drink, get high, go speeding and end up wrapping themselves around telephone poles or rolling into ditches. My dad drove me around yesterday and there is a WHOLE lot of NOTHING surrounding us. I had no idea it was this vast and desolate. Where I grew up was rural enough, but we were on the outside of town and it was about a 5-minute drive away to civilization. When I moved to the town with our old rental house, I thought that was bad enough for isolation (though I did, and still do, love that old house). I was wrong. Seeing this out here...I do not understand how people can live like this and not go nuts. I guess you just have to be born into it and live nothing but to get it. (And actually, the rural mindset is particularly prone to certain trains of thought, some of them Not Good. Read the book Harvest of Rage by Joel Dyer - it's over a decade old but it perfectly catches how rural folk think.)
I feel I'm reaching a tipping point and there's nowhere left for me to go but down. KC's death made me realize that I probably don't have much of a future, considering how things are anymore. I'm just tired of slogging on, having little carrots of hope dangled in front of me, trying to grab at them only to have the universe suddenly turn and kick my face in and knock me about ten steps backwards for every one that I manage to struggle forward. At some point, enough is enough. I don't have the energy to get back up again anymore. I don't care enough to bother. When Sam and Boo are gone, I think I'm done too. Not for a couple of years, probably (unless the universe/God decides to squash me without notice). But the hourglass grains are trickling.
Till then, I'm just waiting it out, one sliver at a time. Not much else I can do. *shrug* I just never thought things would end up like this.
Two cats in less than 4 years. (Neko's 4th anniversary is coming up in February.) This is the 4th death I've had around Christmas. I think we're done here with the holidays. It's hard to feel all happy-shiny when your life just gets ripped to shreds.
I'm not doing well. I wish I'd just go to sleep and not wake up again. I'm tired. The current weather (crappy, foggy, gray) is a perfect manifestation of how I feel right now.
Thank you for all your kind words about KC. I miss him. There is no justice in a jackass universe when good people and pets die off so easily, so fast, and pieces of shit like Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh live on forever and get paid to be vile, hateful assholes.
For most of my life I've always lived with a quiet but persistent sense of doom in the back of my head that kept getting larger and louder the older I get, and now it seems this has come due. I always had a feeling that I wasn't going to be able to keep KC and Boo. Every now and then, something would come up - an argument with the folks, moving issues, the discovery that my SIL and mom were sneaking behind my back to possibly give them to a friend of SIL's - and I'd wonder. I know that the only reason my folks let me keep them was because they know how badly they fucked up with Neko when he went. And to be honest, I felt that they owed me big on that. My family has never understood me (nor I them), I've come to realize in recent years, and I accept this, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. They don't get how I can be so torn up over my pets every time one dies. If I hadn't been so upset, if I'd had more of a spine, I might have told my dad to shut the fuck up - in that exact language - when he was yelling at me to knock off the hysterics when I first found KC dead.
I don't stand up to my parents (mainly my dad) very often because I recognize how dependent I am on them for shelter and survival. It's not that I'm not grateful for it. But that dependence comes with a heavy price. If we hadn't moved to this isolated dump in the middle of fucking nowhere, KC might still be alive. He was an indoor cat before, since the old house was large enough to comfortably accommodate 3 people and 3 cats (while at the same time keeping Boo and Sam separated, since they hate each other).
I had a look around the garage to see if there was anything amiss. It's hard to tell because it's such a junked-up shithole, but I didn't see anything that looked like it might have been gotten into and eaten. Frankly, I don't want to know what killed KC. That'll just make it worse, because if it was something preventable, it will confirm that it is my fault (which I still feel it is to some degree). I still feel sick over the thought of him dying in pain on that cold crappy floor, alone, probably scared not knowing what was happening to him or why. There are still drool and urine stains on that floor from where he voided in death. The sight of him lying there, holding him cold and stiff in my arms... I got nothing in words for that.
I cut myself on purpose the other night. First time I'd done that in years. I scratched a K into my forearm hard enough to draw a little blood. I rarely cut, but when I do I'm a careful cutter - I know where and how hard without causing serious injury. I'm not pleased with the result but I hope it scars anyway. I wish KC had left a scar on me. He had such a cute little squeaky meow for such a big cat. Didn't expect him to get so big, either, when I first got him. We actually thought he was a girl, till we took him and Boo in to the low-cost shelter to be fixed and they examined him and, surprise.
KC never much liked to be picked up and cuddled - when they're kittens, you have to socialize them early on, or they'll retain a kind of distance from you forever. KC was born on the streets, no doubt, and he was only a few months old when he and Boo came to me. He was such a cute little kitten, too. The only time he really would let me hold him was when I would sit at the desk downstairs, at the computer, after I came back from Florida. I think he retained memories of when I'd hold him in my lap when I had my computer upstairs in my room. I couldn't take him and Boo with me when I was in Florida for the same reasons I couldn't have them with me in the Shoebox: not enough room/cat fights with Sam. So I missed out on almost 2 years of KC's life. When I came back I was surprised at how big and beautiful he'd gotten. But he was such a sweet cat.
KC grew to like me inasmuch as he was capable of, and from time to time, if I'd catch him at the right time, in the right way, he'd let me pick him up and hold him and give him back-scritches. He loved his scritches. He'd give you head-butts, too, hard ones even, when he wanted your attention. I hope he knows that I loved him very much and I wish I could have given him better. He deserved so much better than a shitty end like this. I feel it's my fault in a way because I could never get my shit together like a Proper Adult so I could give him the type of home he deserved; the sad thing is, I've finally realized that I never will either. Too many factors stacked against me now.
When you're poor, everything costs too fucking much, and you have to gauge how badly your need to eat is versus your need to get OUT of the suffocation before you go crazy and start clawing at yourself. There is nowhere for me to walk to, not safely anyway. I can go on the gravel roads but I still have to be careful because people out here think country = we can drive as batshit as we want. That's why accidents out here are more often fatal than ones in your 'burbs where it's a fender-bender. People drink, get high, go speeding and end up wrapping themselves around telephone poles or rolling into ditches. My dad drove me around yesterday and there is a WHOLE lot of NOTHING surrounding us. I had no idea it was this vast and desolate. Where I grew up was rural enough, but we were on the outside of town and it was about a 5-minute drive away to civilization. When I moved to the town with our old rental house, I thought that was bad enough for isolation (though I did, and still do, love that old house). I was wrong. Seeing this out here...I do not understand how people can live like this and not go nuts. I guess you just have to be born into it and live nothing but to get it. (And actually, the rural mindset is particularly prone to certain trains of thought, some of them Not Good. Read the book Harvest of Rage by Joel Dyer - it's over a decade old but it perfectly catches how rural folk think.)
I feel I'm reaching a tipping point and there's nowhere left for me to go but down. KC's death made me realize that I probably don't have much of a future, considering how things are anymore. I'm just tired of slogging on, having little carrots of hope dangled in front of me, trying to grab at them only to have the universe suddenly turn and kick my face in and knock me about ten steps backwards for every one that I manage to struggle forward. At some point, enough is enough. I don't have the energy to get back up again anymore. I don't care enough to bother. When Sam and Boo are gone, I think I'm done too. Not for a couple of years, probably (unless the universe/God decides to squash me without notice). But the hourglass grains are trickling.
Till then, I'm just waiting it out, one sliver at a time. Not much else I can do. *shrug* I just never thought things would end up like this.