We all have good weeks and bad weeks, and everything in between. I’ve learned that it isn’t so much how good or bad things were, but how you handled them.
I can’t say that I’ve handled this one in the best possible fashion, but I did get a few things done, a lot of rest, and a great deal of cuddle time with my grieving kitties.
Starting the week by losing my sweet, almost 11 year old boy, Scooby was dreadful. Even worse, because he was my daughter’s cat who she’d left with me when she moved out with her now husband because he was older and so bonded to Munchkin. Even though I’d had him at the vet several times in the last year because his behavior indicated that something might be wrong, the tests the vet ran didn’t detect the problem until it was too late. It’s taking everything I have in me to keep from overreacting to things the other cats do.
For a couple of days, Dylan (not Munchkin, to my surprise) was moping around the house, clearly not his normal self. When I brought Scooby home from the vet on Monday night after receiving the awful diagnosis, he chose to lay on the floor rather than the bed, and Dylan lay beside him, offering comfort. By morning, when the mass in his small intestine had, apparently ruptured, effectively poisoning him, Dylan wasn’t on my bed where he’d normally sleep.
When we came home on Tuesday without Scooby, both Heather and I a complete wreck, Dylan wasn’t comforting me as he normally would, but Heather, instead. For the next couple of days, he was lethargic and distant until Heather came over again. He gave her some more love, and she pointed out that he was reacting to my sadness too. Ever since, I’ve done my best to pay special attention to him, and he’s returned to his normal self, but more so. He’s talking to me and sticking by me again, even when he got locked in my room until almost 11 this morning with no food. Unfortunately, he then ate too fast and it came right back up. (as I type this, he just wandered in and rubbed against my leg before taking up his usual place on my desk.) So of course, because one of Scooby’s symptoms was vomiting, I’m having to make myself relax, not overreact, and just promise myself that I’ll keep an eye on him for the next few days.
As if loosing my sweet, loving, always entertaining, almost 11 year old boy wasn’t enough to throw the week into a tailspin, I came down with an ugly head cold which seems, today, to have migrated to my chest, but I’m getting lots of rest and pushing the orange juice and vitamin C, and thankfully, I am feeling much better today than I have in the last few.
If’ I’m to be honest, I believe that part of the cause of my health issue stems from some ugliness I experienced a week or so ago. I found that the old saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” can also be turned so that our good intentions can sometimes come back and bite us in the ass. I allowed someone to move into my house temporarily. She asked for three months, I offered one. It’s been longer than that now, and she’s really only using my front bedroom as storage while she stays somewhere else, which is fine, but when drama attached to her situation started affecting me in the form of lies I am being told which I can’t untwist or expose, it was time to clear my home.
Thankfully, she is being respectful of the time I gave her, and moving things a week before my deadline, so I have to give her credit, though, I can no longer give her trust because, frankly, I don’t know which of them is telling me the truth, and I don’t really feel the need to let myself get sucked any further into a drama not of my own making.
At any rate, my house is now clear, I’m feeling much better and haven’t needed to take any medications today (though my abs still feel like I went on a crunch marathon!). After her stuff was gone, I smudged the house and, whether real or imagined, I feel as if my life is returning to it’s normal, productive state.
That isn’t to say that the week was a total bust. I kept my promise to update a client’s books, albeit a couple of days later than planned, got a couple of blog posts written, and even managed to knock a few things off of my to do list. I’m especially proud of the fact that, except for the day we lost Scooby, I made my bed every day (which, for me, is really a good thing after many years of being a slob!).
Hopefully, after today, I’ll also be able to return to posting things which might be more useful to others, and less self-involved as I’ve been lately. For those who are still reading, thank you for bearing with me while I slogged my way through this temporary quagmire.
My gratitudes today are:
1. I am grateful for the clearing of my home.
2. I am grateful for my health which is getting better every day.
3. I am grateful for all of the kitty love I am blessed to receive.
4. I am grateful for chicken soup and orange juice.
5. I am grateful for understanding. We all need to give more so that everyone receives more.
Love and light.
