everyone hits a point in their life when you go, “why? who cares? why am I doing this? why am I doing anything?”
I’ve been hitting that point for the last week. Yeah, I’m updating the Shrine more often. Yeah, I’m finally getting a handle on how to manage all the various crap I’ve got going on. But it just seems so pointless. Everything does.
Brett calls it the grey lizard, that creeping greyness where you don’t want to do anything but sit & stare at nothing. It was a gorgeous weekend this past weekend, bright blue sky, nice cool temperatures in mid70s…and what did I do? Work on the computer, either Shrine or business or just stared & played mindless games.
I did a little bit of writing, only to wonder “why? no one reads it anyway” and stop. Grey grey grey.
We lost Robin yesterday, and all I feel is relief. Robin was our oldest & first cat, the big fat Oreo sociopath. No love lost, there. It was a state of detente in the household with him, and we kept him from duty (we adopted him, we’re keeping him) more than anything else. We had him for 14 years, and I’ve got the scratches/scars/claws/bites to prove it; me & Brett couldn’t even give him an in-passing, friendly head scratch without getting swatted at or snarled at. We lost tons of furniture to his pissing & shitting attacks — I’m not talking litterbox issues, he would use the litterbox just fine. We followed ALL the advice of cat sites, from one-litterbox-per-cat to daily cleaning to monthly scrubbing to cleaning with vinegar/oxyclean/enzymatic pet cleaners/pheromones/etc etc etc over all affected areas. But he would only go after the places me & Brett would sit…or sleep (I lost track of how many times we had to wash sheets right before bedtime)…sometimes even while we were sleeping there at the time. I mean, one time we got so desperate that we put the vinyl sheet ON TOP of the bed (“a deterrent,” said the vet, “cats don’t like being splashed”), and a few minutes later, walked in on Robin standing in the middle of the bed & vinyl sheet, pissing and glaring at us.
And it was ONLY with me & Brett. Visitors couldn’t understand why we warned them to be careful around him; the vet wouldn’t believe our stories, because Robin was always so well-behaved when we took his furry ass in. Yet the moment the apartment was empty or we got him home from the vet…sociopath.
Mind you, we’ve got three other lovable, well-behaved kitties (Puck, Frodo, & Scooter), fuzzy furry angels that snuggle up, claim your lap or sprawl over your feet or jump up on the headrest to purr behind your neck. Scoot’s the stray we took in, the girl we think was abused, and there’s NEVER been a problem with her. We have NEVER figured out what we were doing/had done wrong with Robin.
So he started throwing up early Saturday, wouldn’t stop, and we hauled his butt in to the vet, and they kept him for observation. They found him dead in the cage yesterday; we refused the autopsy. After all this time, I just did not care. I only felt relieved.
And it’s amazing how much more outgoing Scooter’s become in the last 24-48 hours…and how much more relaxed both Puck (our next oldest boy, 10 years old) & Frodo have gotten. I know Robin bullied the crap out of the little girl, to the point of following her around from room to room to snarl and hiss at her (and he outweighed her by a good 3x); he never lost an opportunity to “mount” Puck (yes, all are neutered), growling all the while.
So it’s just relief. Only relief. And a bit of sadness and guilt over that being all I feel. RIP, Robin. And I hope your heaven has tons of Prozac.
Across The Shadows 