Posts tagged with "cats"

eight lives left

A lit­tle while ago, Byron stopped hold­ing down his meals, and we’d con­sis­tent­ly find chick­en parts scat­tered about the house short­ly after he ate. A vis­it to the vet, along with the usu­al blood tests, came up emp­ty. It was only an x‑ray at the ER that showed a small object lodged at the start of his small intes­tine, block­ing the path of diges­tion.

It did­n’t come as a huge sur­prise. Byron was a relent­less cat when it came to search­ing for food. I could­n’t tell if he’d roam the house for things to eat cause he was hun­gry, or if his hunger came from the con­stant roam­ing. Sometimes we’d find chewed up toys passed through his sys­tem, but more often than not they came up the oth­er end, cov­ered in bile. It was only a mat­ter of time before some­thing got stuck.

cat in cone

The face of a killer defeat­ed by a fur­ni­ture screw.

I try to have a prag­mat­ic view about my cats. Operations of this scale on any sin­gle one are hard for me to jus­ti­fy, when I could use those resources to save sev­er­al more (espe­cial­ly when I would­n’t love a new cat any less). So I left the deci­sion up to Heather, con­sid­er­ing the fact that she’s the bread­win­ner now, and she’s had a stronger con­nec­tion to him ever since she start­ed tak­ing care of the cat’s meals.

It was­n’t a dif­fi­cult choice for her, and she gave the vet approval to oper­ate with­out a sec­ond thought.

Cat at Wintersday

Heather’s spent more hours as his ranger alter-ego, Byron Tightslasher, than any oth­er char­ac­ter. Every detail of his vir­tu­al per­sona is care­ful­ly cho­sen to mim­ic Byron in real life, from the pat­terns of his fur, to the tilt of his muz­zle. In keep­ing with his per­son­al­i­ty, even the ranger pets that fol­low him are named after foods, such as his juve­nile eagle called Drumsticks.

This Christmas, Byron’s “Santa Claws” per­sona includes a snow­fall aura, Wintersday weapon set, wreath back­pack, and Ho-Ho-Tron mini with match­ing san­ta hat.

After leav­ing Leonard at the hos­pi­tal for an emer­gency oper­a­tion, then find­ing out the next day that he was gone, I was ter­ri­fied that I’d nev­er see Byron again, but he soon came home with a new col­lar and a shaven bel­ly, weak from not hav­ing digest­ed a prop­er meal in so long.

It’s been a few months since, and he’s rebound­ed quite well, though a lot more cau­tious when it comes to the things he decides to put in his mouth. I sus­pect he’s learned a very painful les­son about not eat­ing some­thing just because he can, which means by now he’s at least smarter than most pup­pies.

shaved belly

BELLY NEEDS BOOPING

I could tell Heather loved my kit­ties, cause she obsess­es over their health, projects their per­son­al­i­ties onto oth­er ani­mals, and talks about them cease­less­ly (whether it’s to me or peo­ple she just met). She even role-plays as them in Guild Wars 2, her favourite part of every sea­son being the chance cre­ate a new cos­tume. But after see­ing the how much effort she put into sav­ing my lit­tle boy, then nurs­ing him back to health with del­i­cate patience, I’ve start­ed to under­stand that love goes deep­er than I real­ized, for both them and me.

nothing lasts, but nothing is lost

It’s been a few weeks since I left the com­ic book shop. I’m glad to have gone through the expe­ri­ence of being a pro­fes­sion­al nerd, to have met the par­tic­u­lar set of chal­lenges involved and flour­ished, but I could tell it was time to quit when the stress was car­ry­ing over from one shift to the next, even with days between.

Without the need to run tour­na­ments, or the pres­sure of deal­ing with cus­tomers, I have a chance to breathe again. That means doing my best not to wor­ry about being pro­duc­tive or hap­py. Just try­ing to feel okay can be enough of a day-to-day chal­lenge.

Cat in Tigger costume

Their spe­cial bond comes from the fact that she lets him get away with more than I do.

Heather and I are tak­ing the next few months off to regain our bal­ance and adjust to our new dosages of SNRIs. Now that I’m in a place where I’m feel­ing more safe and secure, I can tell it’s still hard for me to let go of neg­a­tive thoughts, even when the stim­u­lus is gone. I’m com­ing to terms with the fact that I’ve been fight­ing depres­sion my whole life, and the fact that I’ll like­ly be on even more med­ica­tion for the rest of it1.

I wish I could turn to writ­ing for cathar­sis, but I’m not strong enough to process the mem­o­ries. Parts of the past are still too recent, too famil­iar, too painful. And some­times it’s hard to think of the per­son I was only a year ago, even know­ing how far I’ve come. I’m start­ing to real­ize that time is what I need most, which means I also need patience and trust from my friends.

Cat and Magic: The Gathering

The only com­mit­ments I’ve kept are my play­group on Sundays, and my Wednesdays with Lisa. Otherwise, I’m lost in Guild Wars; the eas­i­est way to escape and feel pro­duc­tive at the same time is to work on dai­ly achieve­ments by slay­ing drag­ons.

And that’s how I lost the Autumn. I did­n’t even real­ize the leaves had turned and fall­en. Now that I’m not work­ing (and I’m the one who always hosts), it feels like I nev­er leave the house. The only reminder that win­ter is here is when the heat comes on, and the smell of dry fur­nace air fills the room. I was look­ing for­ward to the first snow­fall of the sea­son, but the plows have already been out and I haven’t had a chance to take it all in.

  1. On top of the anti-inflam­ma­to­ries, pro­bi­otics, and psyl­li­um husks I take every day to man­age my col­i­tis. [↩]

maelstrom wanderer

It’s been too long since my last emo­tion­al break. I can tell I’m in rough shape when I start to car­ry the ten­sion of the last shift to my next one, most­ly cause I’m get­ting lost between peo­ple and projects, instead of unwind­ing and recharg­ing. My Mac Pro also breathed it’s last, and I haven’t had the com­fort of my famil­iar elec­tron­ic space in over a week. As I build my next sys­tem, I’ve turned to oth­er forms of hap­pi­ness to fill the hole. They’re often just as worth my time, but don’t often leave space for the intro­ver­sion I need to cen­tre myself.

stick shifter

Still; the fact that I haven’t writ­ten in so long is cause I have a chance to talk to Heather on a con­sis­tent basis. As a source of imme­di­ate feed­back (along with end­less empa­thy and atten­tion), she’s become the out­let I’ve need­ed for so long. On good days, our bro­ken halves make a whole per­son. But on her bad days, I’m not always ready to be the strong one, and some­times I can’t help but feel inad­e­quate when she’s she’s still hurt­ing or not fixed yet, even when I know I’m not the cause.

comfy cat

It makes me espe­cial­ly anx­ious to get over a past that’s stop­ping me from fur­ther growth. I just want to stop suf­fer­ing from and strug­gling with var­i­ous forms of trau­ma, so I can reach a sense of sta­bil­i­ty. But that seems fur­ther away than ever at times like this, when I’m not cop­ing with the things I can’t con­trol, and I won­der if I should be mak­ing peace with it all instead of fight­ing it.

for you, i am sweeping words together

Winter has always been dif­fi­cult at times. At ‑15 or below, breath becomes a lay­er of ice on the win­dows when parked out­side, and I can do noth­ing but wait for the car to warm up again so I can see enough to dri­ve. At that point, it means I’m sit­ting in the car for longer than my com­mute. I try to take it as a good way to prac­tice patience, but it’s a hard wait after an eight hour shift on my feet. It’s still win­ter in all it’s muf­fling glo­ry though, the time in the year I most appre­ci­ate liv­ing in Canada. Girls and cats alike are more affec­tion­ate too, and I don’t mind being the source of heat.

cats and winter

I tend to get up around sun­rise now, and every time I step out­side before the rest of the world wakes up, it feels like I’m born again. It’s a chance for me to hit the reset but­ton on the last day. To let go of the past, even if it hap­pened only sev­en hours ago, and become a blank slate.

I also grad­u­al­ly broke the habit of check­ing my feeds after feel­ing jad­ed about news and media, then com­ing across this arti­cle. After months of absten­tion, I can say that I’ve gained time and lost noth­ing. It’s left me feel­ing increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the world, but I know that means I’m begin­ning to learn what real­ly mat­ters.

lessons learned on the path to awakening

Order mat­ters. Timing is impor­tant. It’s help­ful to arrive at the point where things can only get bet­ter, but los­ing every­thing takes time. Making mis­takes is okay. Being unable to cope is okay. Not being ready to say it back is okay. Life is a bal­ance between hold­ing on and let­ting go. Some peo­ple should nev­er have chil­dren. You’re only over some­one when you don’t need to make a con­scious effort to stop think­ing about them. The first step in tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for your needs is com­mu­ni­cat­ing those needs.

cat

Cats are lit­tle bun­dles of non-judg­men­tal, unas­sum­ing, food-con­di­tion­al love.

I need to be with lis­ten­ers more than talk­ers. A day spent writ­ing let­ters that will nev­er be read isn’t a waste. Some peo­ple don’t know how to help, but that does­n’t mean they don’t care. It’s impor­tant to make peace with one’s suf­fer­ing. You nev­er stop grow­ing with the right peo­ple in your life. She nev­er loved me more than the words I wrote. The last thing I want is to be ignored when I open up. It’s okay when friends pri­or­i­tize their kids before me. It’s okay to pri­or­i­tize myself before any­one else. Always be mind­ful of long hair when cud­dling.

Foxhole party

There are peo­ple who love me enough to save my life (and pants are option­al at their par­ties).

The ones with a lit­tle bit of dark­ness to them tend to be more inter­est­ing. If a guy in a suit is cute like me, that means I’m cute like him. Lisa is my third cat and that’s enough for now. I deserve to be hap­py. A bad trip does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a bad expe­ri­ence. Strength is often qui­et, recep­tive deter­mi­na­tion, rather than chest-thump­ing pushi­ness. Being kind to dif­fi­cult peo­ple is just as impor­tant as being kind to bene­fac­tors and friends; being kind to myself is most impor­tant of all.