Problematic

There are events you prepare for that color the day. Every moment is tinted, awash, with sadness. A murky, smothering color that catches in your breath. You shouldn't breathe color. I like blue and gray, so I don't think I would associate either color with this feeling. It's more surreal. A cloudy sepia tone. Hot and abrasive. It's been overwhelming. We picked her up at 4:15. I had already had a few sobbing fits and when the young lady handed her little brown box to me I startled her with my emotion. This in turn startled me. How could this not be normal? How could someone find the strength in little more than a week to keep themselves composed in this moment? How could I be expected to hold back my tears when I recognize her name on the small wooden box? I clutch it as I clutched her body when I found her and feel this new texture. This new body. So delicately carved with flowers. No perceivable way to open it. A shining black placard on the front- engraved with a ...

The feeling of loss is duller. It’s just a new awareness that travels with me. A constant buzzing that’s more annoying than painful. At times it feels on the cusp of overwhelming, but it rarely spills over. I feel higher functioning today. I have her photo as my home screen and lock screen wallpapers. I look at her often. It's a coping mechanism, but I'm not sure to what end. Sometimes it feels as if I am trying to convince myself she was always a memory. Sometimes it feels like flagellation- penance for allowing this to occur- trying to keep the wound open. I realize now that I did a weird and probably cruel thing when I got the call reporting her gone. I asked if he was sure. I wanted to believe this was some sort of bizarre joke. Or a mark of his stupidity that he couldn't tell. Or maybe there was still time to save her. I wanted to believe that last one until I picked her up and was alarmed at how rigid the thing I was holding was. I was explaining to a friend ...

Back to work. It's hard some days not to take the grayness of a rainy morning personally. Although, I suppose, I am not sure how a sunny day would be better. I guess it is more accurate to say that it is hard some days not to take the continued existence of the universe personally. I know others have suffered arguably greater losses within the last few days. Human life should typically outweigh that of an animal, I guess. But is it my fault that my best friend was a cat? Probably. I don’t know what the proper time frame to grieve would be…I am torn between trying to convince myself she was just a cat and dedicating so much emotion is becoming a spectacle (I knew she would no longer be here one day, even if I apparently hadn’t accepted that fact) and the urge to hold onto this pain like her body. As though trapping this tightness in my chest for the rest of my life will slowly regenerate her over time and bind her to me for eternity. That would be cruel, though, wouldn’t it?...

The kitten is terrified by the noise of her new neighbors. I can't stop thinking that Isis might have helped her transition better. Or maybe Isis would have been equally scared and confused, but now in a much smaller space. I took some of my medication and inactivated all of my social media outlets with the exception of Twitter. I pulled the kitten out from under the sink. I realized in doing so that no one will try to pull me from under the sink. No one will try to help me navigate this new scary reality in which the things I love can stop being. People give their condolences...but these are platitudes. They apologize for my grief but don't want to look directly at it and pass on into the wider, brighter, ocean. I can't blame them. I have never known how to react to the sadness generated by the loss of other's loved ones. I had no idea what it would feel like up until now. I wonder how long this will weigh on me. I can only imagine that this will burden me fo...

We were so full of hope and youthful exuberance, weren't we? Isn't that just the least inventive turn of phrase? The house is a mess. I am a mess. I have once again fallen short on motivation and energy. I have once again fallen short. Yesterday I learned after watching the ex's child that the ex has taken up again with the girl he briefly attempted to cheat on me with- luckily this revelation came toward the end of his shift and I was able to bounce pretty quickly afterward. He said they were just friends. He said he didn't really understand how this hurt me. I suppose I don't really understand how this hurts me. For context this other girl has been in his life longer than I have. She's the reason things did not work out with the mother of his child, beyond that they were fundamentally incompatible, and he had repeatedly stated she was a burden when we first started dating. However, he was very hard pressed to get rid of her. There were episodes i...

My friends and I have hit a very weird age. We've accepted we are most likely never getting married (except for the one who did, that bitch) and have moved on to the pursuit of being fabulous drag-queens. All I have ever wanted in life is to be a beautiful gay boy in amazingly elaborate costume. RuPaul's Drag Race is our new home. I recognize that this is probably appropriation, but The Lonely Hearts Club Band can't escape who they are any more than anyone else can. My greatest disappointment in life is probably that I will never be as gorgeous and interesting as Sharon Needles. I need this. I need them. "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?" has become my new mantra. Especially since I think I just got ghosted. That's okay, though. My sense of self-worth still relies too heavily on the way I might be perceived by others. It's crippling emotionally and creatively, so I have to let this go. If someone can...

Hello, World. It feels like it has been longer than it probably has. It also feels as though I open a lot of my posts with a comment on how long it has been since I posted, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to go back and check. The semester ended last Thursday and I promptly caught a cold. My immune system, you may have gathered by now, is not the greatest...but I think I'm on the other side of it at this point. Today I saw my psychiatrist for a one-month follow-up. I had taken my medication for three straight weeks leading up to my finals and then forgot about it for about a week and a half. My psychiatrist seemed unphased, but pleased that I was able to report less hair pulling and less fervent thoughts of creating large gashes in my body. She was impeccably dressed from the waist up- a string of pearls and a dreamy champagne silk blouse. I didn't notice what she was wearing as she glided behind the desk after welcoming me in, so I couldn't comment on t...

I have no idea what I want out of life. I mostly want it to stop. I don't know that any of my goals are truly achievable. I have been off my new medication for two days but I find it incredibly hard to believe that is why I feel this way. I probably don't need to be on the medication at all. One of the fun things about working in a doctor's office is that at some point you may have a conversation with someone about how they feel like killing themselves. You may be so taken aback when confronted with someone else's possibly fatal sadness that you put them on hold to find someone better equipped to deal with this, and then people will tell you A. don't put someone who claims to be suicidal on hold and B. what questions to ask a suicidal person. And then you will have to stifle your incredulous giggles because you don't want anyone to know you are secretly evil and attention seeking. Here's the short list of what you ask: Are you alone? How are you pl...