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serafaeryThere is a little skinny black 15yo senior girl cat named Nikki at Darwin's shelter in Corvallis looking for a forever home. She looks so unbelievably perfect. I was wondering for a moment if Avalanche might want a big sister. Sigh. They would probably hate each other. Girl cats tend not to want to share their human.
I finally got some groceries and cat food, and a new toy for Avalanche. Natasha's cats tore apart most of hers while they were here, so I've been slowly replacing them.
Josh and I are avoiding each other but being civil. He will go without me to Seattle this weekend.
I ate junk food all day as planned. I'm not sorry.
I would love to do some gentle exercise, a light evening bike ride later maybe, but maybe just rest. I don't feel well. From the junk food and also the emotional stress.
While hiking Neahkanie yesterday, I put a foot down wrong. This is an ankle I hurt on father's day that has not gotten better. ugh. This tends to happen pretty much every time I do any hike or bike ride, and each time it happens I wonder how many more hikes and bike rides I have left. It is so heartbreaking, when that was my reliable way to feel healthy and strong for so many years. Now it makes me feel weak and broken and fearful.
Need to water my neighbor's plants and sweep the floors here. Hoping Josh might make himself scarce tonight so that I can do some cleaning. Otherwise I might just sleep. I'm afraid even a gentle walk would hurt my body, but maybe a sunset walk in the park would be a good idea. I doubt I'd run into my brother, he generally goes in the early afternoon I think. I've been avoiding mom's memorial bench ever since I saw him there, except for a quick spin by on my bike. I have such confusing feelings around her memory, everything from severe childhood neglect (during which horrible things happened to me) and emotional abuse to a desperate desire to have her as a resource to deep painful shame around not being a good enough daughter to her to horror over how much she suffered during her 11+ year decline with Alzheimer's (she was diagnosed quite late, in my opinion; I think she had it for closer to 15 years). I wish so much that life could have been better for her, and to her. I wish having kids hadn't been so hard on her. Wish she could have had the resources to feel safe and protected and keep herself healthy and get support for her mood disorders and addictions. I wish she'd had the support she needed as a mom so that her children did not get brutalized by strangers and caught up in addictive behaviors, so that she'd been able to support us rather than steal from us, so that we in turn could have learned to support ourselves and then be of better help to her when she needed it. She was in the care of the state for the last 11 years of her life and although we did everything we could do help fill in the gaps where they failed her, and spent time with her several hours a week, it could have been better if we'd had more support and resources of our own, to learn how to navigate life better and have more stability and financial security to be able to do more for her. We were all just too far behind to ever catch up.
I feel these feelings amplified with my father, whose ashes were dumped into a nameless stream out of a plastic bag by his second wife/widow while she was stoned out of her mind and sobbing over her dead cat more than over him. I forgive her for this, she was also doing the best she could, and so were we, I just. He deserved better and I feel a lot of inescapable shame over the way he died, too. Too young, too sick, in too much pain.
It's too much to bear most of the time and I still don't know how to move forward, except to pretend that it doesn't hurt, until I can't, and days like this happen, and I don't understand why I keep going at all.
Full day of work tomorrow and Friday, then the weekend to myself thank goodness. I got my order out. Will have scheduling hanging over my head tomorrow but that's okay. Maybe I can work on the websites over the weekend.
It's okay to have down days. Days of no forward progress, wasted days. It happens.
At least I'm stocked up on non-alcoholic beer for a bit.
I finally got some groceries and cat food, and a new toy for Avalanche. Natasha's cats tore apart most of hers while they were here, so I've been slowly replacing them.
Josh and I are avoiding each other but being civil. He will go without me to Seattle this weekend.
I ate junk food all day as planned. I'm not sorry.
I would love to do some gentle exercise, a light evening bike ride later maybe, but maybe just rest. I don't feel well. From the junk food and also the emotional stress.
While hiking Neahkanie yesterday, I put a foot down wrong. This is an ankle I hurt on father's day that has not gotten better. ugh. This tends to happen pretty much every time I do any hike or bike ride, and each time it happens I wonder how many more hikes and bike rides I have left. It is so heartbreaking, when that was my reliable way to feel healthy and strong for so many years. Now it makes me feel weak and broken and fearful.
Need to water my neighbor's plants and sweep the floors here. Hoping Josh might make himself scarce tonight so that I can do some cleaning. Otherwise I might just sleep. I'm afraid even a gentle walk would hurt my body, but maybe a sunset walk in the park would be a good idea. I doubt I'd run into my brother, he generally goes in the early afternoon I think. I've been avoiding mom's memorial bench ever since I saw him there, except for a quick spin by on my bike. I have such confusing feelings around her memory, everything from severe childhood neglect (during which horrible things happened to me) and emotional abuse to a desperate desire to have her as a resource to deep painful shame around not being a good enough daughter to her to horror over how much she suffered during her 11+ year decline with Alzheimer's (she was diagnosed quite late, in my opinion; I think she had it for closer to 15 years). I wish so much that life could have been better for her, and to her. I wish having kids hadn't been so hard on her. Wish she could have had the resources to feel safe and protected and keep herself healthy and get support for her mood disorders and addictions. I wish she'd had the support she needed as a mom so that her children did not get brutalized by strangers and caught up in addictive behaviors, so that she'd been able to support us rather than steal from us, so that we in turn could have learned to support ourselves and then be of better help to her when she needed it. She was in the care of the state for the last 11 years of her life and although we did everything we could do help fill in the gaps where they failed her, and spent time with her several hours a week, it could have been better if we'd had more support and resources of our own, to learn how to navigate life better and have more stability and financial security to be able to do more for her. We were all just too far behind to ever catch up.
I feel these feelings amplified with my father, whose ashes were dumped into a nameless stream out of a plastic bag by his second wife/widow while she was stoned out of her mind and sobbing over her dead cat more than over him. I forgive her for this, she was also doing the best she could, and so were we, I just. He deserved better and I feel a lot of inescapable shame over the way he died, too. Too young, too sick, in too much pain.
It's too much to bear most of the time and I still don't know how to move forward, except to pretend that it doesn't hurt, until I can't, and days like this happen, and I don't understand why I keep going at all.
Full day of work tomorrow and Friday, then the weekend to myself thank goodness. I got my order out. Will have scheduling hanging over my head tomorrow but that's okay. Maybe I can work on the websites over the weekend.
It's okay to have down days. Days of no forward progress, wasted days. It happens.
At least I'm stocked up on non-alcoholic beer for a bit.
