Another Year has passed

Here I am again, another year has passed in a blur and I realized I hadn't blogged here since finally getting the app.  The idea was I'd do it more often, perhaps replace the diary I've kept for going on thirty years now.  Ha!  Handwritten memories still are better than typed I guess.  It's been my therapy for far too long for me to give it up now.

I'd like to think that things have gotten easier, and maybe they have in some ways.  I have friends I spend time with, I keep myself entertained most days.  I try to tell stories and I try to share those stories with others though D&D and through my YouTube channel.

But spending time with people always has been rough on me.  I think I'm starting to better to understand why I am the way I am.  Learning that "normal" people don't understand how someone like me exists.  I want clarity in ever situation, I want acceptance, I want planning and structure.  I don't want drama.  I don't want to feel like someone can break my peace at any moment.

But I'll fight for that peace.  I'll avoid the battle as long as I can, but like a trapped mouse, I'll fight back if I have to.

This is kinda a vague post, isn't it?

I enjoy the life of a content creator but when you risk making content with others you risk getting in the way of their creativity too.  We have disagreements about how things should be handled.  We either learn to work with one another or we stop doing it altogether.  I don't regret making the decisions I've made along the way, but it doesn't make things easier.

All that to remind myself if I read this later at some point: you did what you thought was right.  It was right for you whether you made others uncomfortable and angry.  Their feelings are theirs.  And yours are your own.  Maybe it wasn't enjoyable at the time, but you did get a laugh out how how silly this whole thing is.  A twenty-something doesn't have the life experience you do, so don't let them diminish your wisdom by saying you did wrong.

You did what was right for YOU and YOU are what matters.

Thoughts and Stuff

It's been two months now and although I'm mostly having good days, one or two bad ones creep in here now and again and I find myself sobbing and alone somewhere.

Yesterday was the "Gotcha" anniversary or bringing Olivia home from the Humane society, and everything came crashing down around me all over again.  Just seeing those sweet toe beans and remembering what a little ball of crazy she was even up to her last few months on Earth and I have my memories and videos and pictures, but I can't experience it again.

I've been trying to do things to find peace again, reminding myself of things I can do still, the things I should be working on right now, but instead I find myself going back to those moments and just being miserable instead.

I know it will get better, but the constant reminders are around me at all times.

Depressed but Willing

About a month ago I lost one of my best friends.  It hasn't been an easy road for me, and I don't think it will get better in the near future, but little by little the pain lessens.

If you haven't lost anyone in your life it's hard to imagine, and every time it doesn't really work the same way.  Grief does come in those stages they all talk about, sometimes it happens fast, sometimes it happens over years.  And each stage can be a lifetime summed up in little moments or more painful ones.

I believe that Olivia was willed I to existence by me wanting something so incredibly special that it seems sort of impossible, and in the forefront of my mind I'm really hoping I can do it again.

Yeah, maybe I'm marking myself as gullible or superstitious, but when my dad died I wanted a cat so bad that I asked my mom for one almost daily.  And we did get a cat, but he immediately took a liking to my brother more and so I waited for a time when I could find MY cat.

A friend had kittens a few years later and I sat patiently waiting for one to come to me, to pick ME, and when he did he was my cat, he got into things, caused trouble, but spent almost every free moment he could with me.

And then I found my future husband and we moved away and I was so sad he couldn't come with me to the apartment.  I pushed so hard to get a house before we could bring him home, but he went down hill so quickly it broke my heart.  I blames myself for leaving him behind and vowed he'd come back to me one day.

When we found a house it took very little time for us to settle in and start looking for a cat of our own.  The first one I thought would be ours fell through immediately and just as a whim at the very last hour before the humane society closed we went to go look at cats.

Right there in a display up front, romping with other kittens was the little grey kitten named Brioche (terrible name) but I flung that cage open and she romped over to me and for almost thirteen years we were inseparable.

Olivia (Livvy) was a menace, throwing herself at rugs, meowing at all times of the night, wanting equal time to play and cuddle, demanding I spend all my time with her (to the detriment of husband cuddles) and wanted to be chased, play tag, go outside, climb on every surface and just took over the house.

She wasn't my old boy, six months later we'd find out black girl and she even looks like him as she sleeps....

I feel Olivia was the part I needed the most, the one who got me through the pandemic, climbing all over me during conference calls, keeping me company in an otherwise lonely house, getting me through any rough moments I had by rubbing herself into my face and covering my mouth in hair that I couldn't get off until it got into my eyes and I had to forget about whatever it was I was sad about.

Through all of that I thought I could keep her at least 13 years, but it was all cut short early by cancer and I made the terrible decision to make the pain go away.

And every moment I look for her in a spot she's gone.  Every place makes me cry.  Every memory brings me to tears but it also gets better with each time I sob over a memory.

But I'm also stubborn.  I want me cat back again.  I want THIS cat, I want the one that picks ME each time.  I know I have to be patient.  If you believe in reincarnation or whatever it is, nine lives...? I want to be there for the next one and she's not been gone for five weeks... Hardly enough time for a kitten to grow up yet.

Maybe I sound like a loony toon, but I've got to TRY...  I think that's what's keeping me going now instead of falling into the misery I went through the last few times I lost someone.