Be the change you want to see.

The short post is: my cat is 16 1/2 years old.

Do you ever grieve something in advance?
Like, you know you're going to lose it, the loss is inevitable, and you FEEL SOME FEELINGS ABOUT THAT.

I didn't do that when dad died, we were too busy living the day to day and caring for him, so the grief just sat on us for like, years, one monolithic lump, until a variety of griefquake episodes of varying intensity and duration broke the monolith into more manageable chunks. The chunks are still pretty much around but after 25 years the edges are worn down and don't cut you when you get too close, they don't fall on you and crush you, you can get around them, they don't prevent you from living your life and getting stuff done. They're kinda inconvenient, they twang on heartstrings, but they're not incapacitating.

When Scotty was diagnosed with cancer (fuck cancer!) He died 8 months later (fuck fatphobia in doctor's, a sudden rapid weightloss is TEXTBOOK for cancer, literally), it was 13 years after dad. I'd been doing therapy and writing as well as ritual work around grief, and about Dad and his varied inabilities "to Dad", as a verb. I was more emotionally healthy. I was in a supportive loving and nondramatic relationship (thank you Jeff) and I processes my own various feelings (anger, shame, disappointment and grief) at ten times the speed as I did with Dad. I almost was able to feel them in real-time, quite an accomplishment.

Years ago I gave myself explicit permission to feel my own feelings,even if I was worried or afraid they would be inconvenient or something to the people around me.

Now I'm fifty. I've lost all four grandparents, many friends my own age, people who stood in as adoptive aunts, uncle's, and grandparents. My dad. My little brother. The cousin who was only six months older than me, six months after Scotty died.

And I spent two years doing detailed medical care for our beloved Big Kitty, Otter. He needed daily subcutaneous (sub-Q) fluids, insulin for almost a year, and eventually, bathroom help.

When it was time for him to go, it was really clear. He stopped eating. He couldn't climb up on the bed anymore. He tried to hide, run away, (to die, I was sure) and that terrified me. I'd been pouring effort and love into him so long and so intensely.

He was my first kitty to go. I didn't get to be there for the kitties I had with my ex, when it was their time.

And now My Nose, my Tribble-cat. She's having bathroom problems, of a different kind than she had when we had to put her on anti-crystal food. She's perky and snuggly and affectionate, doesn't seem to be unhealthy other than yowling a lot, pissing in the living room, and hissing at every damn reflective surface in the damn house.

So yeah. I can imagine the end coming.
I have to admit, that it Must Come. That The End Is Unavoidable.

And the world sucks, and I have incompletely grieved the changes from coronavirus, and the California wildfires (so we get to wear TWO kinds of masks); how I miss my family and my friends and my dance community and my new lover, and Jeff and Tribble and J and D and their kids are what makes all of that remotely bearable, and I don't know what I'm going to do if I, when I, lose Tribble. my First Girl, my sweetheart, the yodeler in the hallway, who curls up over my heart when I am sad, and on my lap when she is lonely.

So today I was scrubbing up a pee-lake, and I blew up at Jeff a little bit. Because between not wanting to do that task, wishing SO HARD it wasn't necessary, actually breaking down the steps needed to do the task without spilling pee across the living room and or the kitchen, and Feeling the FEELINGS ABOUT THAT... And then he asked me ... SOMETHING, I got overwhelmed, and a bit of stuff blew past the gasket I guess I'd sealed over the Everything Going On.

A thing I've been encouraging myself to do is let myself cry whenever I feel the need. Intellectually I have figured out that shedding the salts and chemicals will help balance the stress and the FEELINGS.

So right now I am finishing up this post with her on my lap, the tears are drying up. My floor is clean (or as clean as I personally ever get it, though now I need to do laundry). I have a bowl of strawberries and the new Animal Crossing update waiting for me, and Jeff made us lunch and made sure I ate it.

This equilibrium is not horrible.

And I will continue to try and let out the safety valve on the FEELINGS bottle every so often so I don't hurt myself or anyone else, I hope.

old ghosts (tw: termination of pregnancy)

I was looking in the mirror one day and thought, "I would have none of this if I hadn't ended the pregnancy."

I was 25 years old when I got pregnant.
Can't decide if I should phrase that as "had an unwanted pregnancy", "got impregnated", or what. "got knocked up" isn't quite appropriate for the situation, because I can't afford in telling this story to be too flippant.

it was 1995. My dad had been dead less than a year, after being sick from diabetes and liver damage for several years, declining worse each year.
Mom and I were living together, in the house on Papaya Drive with the 1970's Spanish tile floors and the little fish pond and waterfall in the back yard. I had a great view of the green green green backyard, and had the constant waterfall noise in my ears every night as I fell asleep.


The smell and the feel of that house inform my memories of the time.

Brian and I were having sex and he didn't tell me that the condom broke, till after. Like, it still puzzles me, he says he felt it tearing, he says it was actually kind of painful for him, but he kept going.

He told me afterwards that he thought I wanted him to, to keep going, which yeah, who doesn't wanna get off, but seriously WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE DOESN'T TELL HIS GIRLFRIEND THAT THE CONDOM BROKE. I still ... *makes incoherent rage noises*

You know how I learned that the condom broke? I reached down to hold the top of the condom when he went to pull out, and the horror of it was that all there was to hold was the ring that was the top of it. That was all that was left. … we had to dig inside my vagina and find it to pull it back out….

I could try to put possible reasons on what he was thinking, maybe it was as simple as HE wanted to get off too so he kept going even without the condom.

But I don't really wanna think about his alleged motivations because **I** was the one who wound up pregnant.

I felt the change in my body almost immediately. Within just a few days after the "accident," my boobs got bigger, the nipples got softer and more tender. My pussy and labia were constantly hot and tender, and I just had this internal *awareness* low in my pelvis and belly. And I had so many feelings about all of it.

mostly I came to a sudden and crystallized awareness that, more than not wanting to have to raise a child, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with BRIAN. And I knew immediately, at a gut level, that in some way or another, no matter what else, I'd have to deal with Brian forever if I chose to have this kid.

and it was almost inconceivable anyway, (heh, yeah I went there) to think of having a kid. You spend so much of your early adolescence and twenties controlling your fertility really tightly, worried about the what-if. And sex is mostly fun, mostly meant to be fun, when you're not in a serious relationship and *planning* to have a kid…*

I had done research for a paper in college into medical side effects of being pregnant, it's no kind of easy walk in the park! There's real risk of gestational diabetes, blood pressure problems, varicose veins, digestion issues, likelihood of daily vomiting over months, *massive* mood swings and hormone changes, I mean the number of side effects you have to suffer through for a WANTED pregnancy, not to mention the non-zero risk of DEATH, or single parenthood, or ... all the different ways your children hurt you or break your heart.

That little... blue line on the pregnancy test. Oh my god. Possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen, and I already even KNEW. Like, there was no MISTAKING what my body was doing. I had this swirl of emotions going through my brain and body.


And I left the test on the bathroom counter, under a sheet of newspaper.(back when we still took the paper) Like I had zero idea how to talk to my mom about this. I was terrified I was going to be a disappointment to her, but I knew without thinking that if I *didn't* conceal this test, she would find it and know and help me. (and it turned out that she did find it, and she did help me, which I'll talk about at the end)

I can't even tell you about all the other things I was feeling then because even now, 25 years later, it's still hard thinking about that time in my life; emotional chaos and turmoil, still angry and grieving my father's death, along with everything else. I know I haven't quite forgiven myself for my own ignorance (and what feel like bad-choices when I am being hard on myself).

Though, trust me I do know all about the extenuating circumstances. I know why I made those bad choices especially because I have gotten therapy and done a lot of self work over the last two decades. I can see my own patterns and recognize where those impulses arose from and I don't let that part of myself drive the bus anymore, because I've healed a lot of those childhood injuries, or at least mostly healed them. Largely through talking and writing, both writing the blog and longhand and poetry. All kinds of ways.

I was 25, and Brian was 28. Theoretically that was old enough to know what we wanted, but both of us were dumb and inexperienced in relationships. We'd not really thought and especially not talked about what we wanted at the time or at any time in the future. We were just slinging along together because I think both of us thought we were the best we could do.

But we were old enough to decide if we wanted to have a child together and we met at Tower Cafe in downtown Sacramento to talk about it. about two weeks after the condom broke and a few days after I had taken the test. I'd said "we need to get together and to talk face to face" and he said yes, so we scheduled it. We hadn't even sat down properly at the patio table when Brian said, "You're pregnant, aren't you?" and I said yes. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went but I remember it wasn't a difficult or stressful one.

We were unanimous, that we didn't want to have a child (together), and we were both relieved to find that out. That neither of us had to try and convince the other to keep or to terminate. We were agreed to terminate.

I made the appointment. I had to stay pregnant for a total of eight weeks before the hospital could perform the procedure. I don't remember why that was.

To his credit,(Brian) did take me to the appointment, and did get me home safely.

My mom, and this makes my eyes fill up with tears, had a heating pad, an extra blanket, and she'd set up her bed, the big bed, for me to have a nap. She brought me a bed tray with my favorite tea, some toast with jam, and a little rose-bud in a little vase. I absolutely did cry from that, and everything else.

Brian stayed with me there on the bed until I had the snack and fell asleep. It was dark when I woke up, and he wasn't there anymore, and I was disappointed and angry, but realized there was really only so much I could expect from the guy.

Mom was good to me. No judgment, no anger, just support. She had my back. I had her back. We were a good team back then.

I don't like contemplating alternate universes for this story. Like, the what-if game doesn't work out well for me.

in 1995 I hadn't gone back to school to get a teaching credential.

I hadn't met my first husband, or even the boyfriend before him (who was and is a better human being and more thoughtful and kind than either Brian or my first husband).
I hadn't started my spiritual journey that gives me so much richness and meaning in my life (and which I was turned on to by the boyfriend I mention above)///
I hadn't started getting therapy for my relationship with my dad and my inability to grieve him or to get out of the anger stage of the grief.

My mind shudders away from the idea of having had to raise a kid in the conditions we were living in. Not that those were horrible, but it would have been stressful, hard work. And while I know motherhood is supposed to have its rewards, I just don't even know how I would have coped, without the skills that I have been able to acquire BECAUSE I didn't have a kid...

It's this fork in the road that my life took, and I DEFINITIVELY chose the one path and left the other path behind.

I'm glad I am HERE. I'm glad that THIS is what it is. I'm glad to have Eeyore and my priesthood and Burning Man and a lot of beloved friends. I'm glad to have the writing, and the making and the sewing and the dancing, and the work toward social justice.

The ability to choose when and whether to have a child is HUGE in your ability to determine your life's path. HUGE./// 12 Minutes

I don't have any kind of snappy ending, except that I am grateful that I got the chance to have the choice about whether or not to have a kid, and I will continue to fight for other people's right to chose whether to have a kid or not.

NOTES Performed this on the spoken word stage at center camp, Burning Man 2019 Mon August 26. One woman thanked me and cried. One man told me about, before he knew he was gay, his girlfriend got pregnant, and when she miscarried, they also cuddled in bed with the heating pad. And a couple that were pregnant (8 months) and beautiful "the first one I've carried to term"
But the last person said, "did you do this as a TED talk? It feels familiar" and I said no, it was a blog post and he said "huh well I guess we know what comes next"
SQUEEEEEEEEE

TAGS abortion, actions have consequences, anger, becoming, challenge, children, choice, dad, death, designing my own life, feeling some feelings, feelings, guilt, karma, life is good, making things, mom, open hearted, pagan practice in everyday life, paradigm shift, parent, past lives, pathwork, personal cartography, pregnancy, probably more than you really wanted to , sad, self, self-worth, spirituality, state of the liz, stomping brain weasels, stream of consciousness, taking care of business., truth falling out of my mouth, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, words, spoken word, burning man

Hard for me to believe that I haven't posted anything here about Otter yet.

My, our, beloved Big Kitty, Mister Man, My Tail, has gone Home. I'll be making more posts because I want to keep what I wrote on Facebook somewhere indexable/taggable, and that's here.

Today I'm about ready to head into therapy, and I have more social stuff scheduled for the rest of the weekend the weekend, would usually helps. All right more soon.

Otter is doing better! The doctor found out that his blood tests were fairly good, after a week out of the hospital, and then including his blood sugars! As follow up, she instructed me to start feeding him the kidney support food, instead of the diabetic support food and, what do you know he started eating again! And he has energy, he's even peeing more reliably in the cat box, he's clambring back up on the furniture, he's bothering us gently when he wants to eat. It is such a f****** relief.

It was probably something I needed to do. Like, I'm not glad that I had that time of despair, and several days of anguish and mourning him before he even died.

But I'm so good at denial. I'm so good at denial that I had somehow convinced myself that I would never have to deal with them dying. That things would always be the same. That they would always be there for me. And then its simply not the case. ☹️

I hope I didn't traumatize any of y'all in expressing my grief and worry and despair. And while I'm glad that my Otter is better, I needed to break my disbelief, I needed to stop denying that this is something that *will*, will eventually happen, and I need to be able to deal with it without completely falling to pieces. There will be jobs to do, when they do finally pass. There will be all of the everyday jobs, on top of the additional "now I have to deal with a funeral type arrangements".

I let myself feel all the feelings. Let myself be open to the feelings that are natural when you suffer a loss of someone that you love. And this is huge, for me.

This week (April 28th) is the 25th anniversary of my dad's passing. And I couldn't grieve him for the most part of a decade. I spent 9 years angry at him for everything that he didn't do for us, for himself. It took me 9 years to get out of the anger stage of grief and into The sadness and the other parts.

The fact that I can actually grieve like a healthy person, that's a really good sign for me. And now, while I know it's going to wreck me, I have learned enough about what you can do when a beloved pet dies, and I'm not afraid of that anymore. I know what I will need to do and I will be able to handle it even if I am an emotional wreck.

So yeah. I learned a thing or two. And he's still with us, and I'm still taking care of him. And I'm glad he's still around, and so is my husband.

I'm supposed to have a list of goals for the therapeutic process. I did write some of them down, and I'll add them either here or in my bullet journal once I have my head in order.

I was thinking earlier today about jobs I've held, and my favorite job. And why it was my favorite job, and I wanted to break it down a little, in hopes of reproducing the conditions someday. In part or in whole.

this is the job I held for eight years and a bit.
it's the reason why every smartphone I've ever owned had "librarianing" added to the spellchecker.
=)

I used to be a junior high school librarian.
I just wanna list the things that I loved about that job, because there's a lot of things I loved about it.

• It had a regular daily schedule with rhythmic breaks in it.
  
• ...but I got to choose my daily tasks, and when to do them.
  
• High responsibility, low supervision, I got to determine when something was done.
  
• some built in regular deadlines occurred weekly (overdue notices compiled and sent out)
  
• some deadlines quarterly (grades for Library TA's), or at other calendar dates (budget deadlines, book ordering, etc)
  
• Lots of time with people, specific agenda of helping people (students and staff both)
  
• lots of time alone to do one on one tasks (repair, budget work, tidying)
  
• Teaching. computers, dewey decimal, how to process books for circulation, some basic book repair, how to circulate books, how to pull records for books that were overdue, how to research, how to use the card catalog, how to find books you wanted... so many teaching opportunities, all in small groups, and NO GRADING.
  
• I could take pee breaks as needed. That's a fucking luxurious situation to consider after teaching full time in a public school. I swear to god you can't get five minutes to pee, because it takes you 3-5 minutes to just walk to the other end of the school where the faculty bathroom is, and god help you if you're on your period or have to poop. it's *exhale* inhumane. actually.
  
• Professional development funding.
  
• Networking with the other librarians in the school district on a monthly basis.
  
• Training to be a union site rep and shop steward, learning the history of unions in the USA
  
• generally speaking, high interest high novelty work, high number of positive social contacts with students and staff. Decent respect from peers and students. Increasing responsibility the longer I was in the position.
  


There's more of course. Some damn wonderful people really made the difference for me in that job. They got me through the first six months after my dad died, with challenging, interesting work, taking care of tweenagers, teaching and helping and finding and fixing, sorting and throwing out and organizing and tidying. Always something that needed doing. Always something that MATTERED that needed doing.

It's still MY library. In my heart it's still mine.
I miss it. Actually.

so I mean I want another job with some more of what that job had, without the soul deadening paperwork and jumping through hoops that teaching in the public school required.

And really I want more of that in my life. I've been trying to find that, build that myself, but it's just been so crazy challenging on my own. I miss the community, the sense of rightness and purpose, the ability to HELP SO MUCH AND SO OFTEN SO MANY PEOPLE. I was proud of my work there. It was crazy and sometimes boring and wonderful and the kids were always so amazing and my co workers were always weird, wonderful, dedicated, amazing.

Okay.
Okay.

I have more on this but this is a good starting place.
I'll go make myself some dinner and dig into my homework reading pretty hard once I've eaten, take some notes to be ready for tomorrow.

Hadn't been to visit a cemetery for many years. Got an artistic wild hair to go for a walk through one in my neighborhood today.
Really interesting. Gravestones have *fashions*. You could study the gravestone styles in a given graveyard and then learn more about artistic styles of a particular decade or era. That could be very fun.

Beautiful huge trees in this particular cemetery. Well established. One magnolia tree had roots which had encroached upon and embraced a particular black marble family marker. It was lovely, and oddly reassuring to me. (I've no idea if that makes sense to anyone who's not me.)

We don't even have any TRULY old grave markers, this area has only been settled by the kind of folks who mark their graves with tombstones, for about 200 years. And yet I came away thinking two contradictory things.

One, humans are mayflies. We are born, we live, we die, and then we are dead for a *really* long time. Same as we weren't born, for a *really long time...
Two, humans can make a giant impact on the world. Why are more of us NOT doing so? NOT improving the world, not helping other humans to live happier, healthier, more loving and compassionate lives? (mainly, WHY AM *I* not doing more to improve the world?)

I'm about to employ a rather ... gross... metaphor.
Maybe I'm the only one who experienced this during my teenage years, but I doubt it.
There have been a few truly memorable skin eruptions during my period of puberty... one in particular I'm recalling, analagous to my current emotional state.
( cut for gross description, enter at your own risk )
but fuck, I am tired of feeling so raw so often and so easily. I just wish I could be DONE now... not that I want to forget Scotty, I am just tired of hurting all around all the memories of him and how he's gone.

He should have been there today. He would have known what to say to Becky and Rachel... I hope they manage to scan the childhood photos of all of us, I would love to see the photos with Scott in them.

I'm going to bed. I don't wanna go to work tomorrow, but I'm gonna try.

I slept FOURTEEN HOURS last night - to bed at midnight, one wakeup at 7:20 when my "it's time to go to work" alarm went off, then back to bed.

I woke up, walked out into the kitchen and thought there'd been a power outage! 2:10? what?
then checked the time on the phone and computer. *sigh*

I think I still have time to do all the stuff I wanted/needed to do today; I guess the first order of business is to brew my caffeine and take the pain meds. (maybe it was the pain meds that had me sleep so long? could be)


...
Saw an orthopedist yesterday about my knee, per the advice nurse. I am pretty sure he ruled out major ligament damage (i.e. ACL) but _he_ was thinking it might be a meniscus tear. which would of course suck big rocks... though not the end of the world. He said "orthopedics referral will want x-rays" so I went & got x-rays, the Totally Nicest Technician Evar with a Patented Professional Manner did about 5 plates on my rt. knee. It was kind of weird having an exray and not being in OMFG EXCRUCIATING pain... I wasn't worried or hurting or anything. It was kind of neutral. (later that pm got a voicemail from the doc - the plates showed my knee as normal, at least normal in an exray, again very professional to turn that around so fast)...

Went to have a steak dinner at Tahoe Joe's. Got a nice quiet table-for-one. Turned out my server goes to the private school that shares a boundary line with MY school. We got to talking. I got the name of their drama coach, I talked up our administration (cos they SO rock) & the upcoming musical (Some Like it Hot in a musical form) & I got the idea then & there to do some NOT-rah-rah-your-team-must-lose-our-team-must-win collaboration and mutual publicity with the other high school. I'm curious to see what kind of theater facilities & programs they have.

(short-attention-span-moment - SQUIRREL! on my back fence! the cute! - Look out squirrel, kitties are in the back yard!) (Yeah, the coffee's kicking in)

then went to kill the last little bit of time looking at pretty things at Cost Plus where I got a nice phone call from battymaiden. Thanks hun, it was a good call and I appreciate the support. (and thanks for the news about Josh and Rosalind - I still have to call him)

And a last conversation with the guys working at Cost Plus. I _must_ have become genuinely extroverted at some time in my life, cos I _definitely_ got energy from those exchanges.

Lots of the cat sitting-on-me last night and this morning.
Mom called (thanks, temperance14 for the idea of coding the ring-tone, I did that last night at dinner) just after I woke up, and it sounds like preparations for the memorial are moving right along.

that's all I got right now. I have a to-do list that's 15 items long, including PT for the knee and a condolence email to josh_summit.

I better hop.

thanks, everyone.

My brother died this Sunday. Yes, while I was in Japan.

I'm dealing. Work is helping me sort stuff out so I don't have to try and teach when I'm, um. Upset.
*nods*

My brother's, um, widow. *handkerchief*
is doing a college fund for Aubrey Faith, in lieu of flowers.

So let me know if you'd like to contribute, eh? You could contribute anytime. And prayers and kind thoughts/energies are always welcome.



and if you want to help, you can ask me how I am when you see me. I posted to Barbarians list about this but haven't um. tried to read the messages yet. thanks for people's support so far.

If there's an upside to this, aside from Scotty not hurting anymore *handkerchief*
it's that compared to April 28, 1994, when my dad died (yeah, my mom gets two deathaversaries in the same month now...) I'm actually grieving. Took me like 6 or 7 YEARS to move out of cotton-wool-stuffed denial and irrational anger about my dad's going.

So I guess that's something. Stuff is moving.

Better get going.

Just got notified about the sudden death of a dear friend's father.
I don't know what to do, aside from letting him know I'm here for him, as I know (from his other blog) at least a dozen people have already said.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.

And yet, and yet...

Brings me back to the death of my own father. We knew it was coming, it was not sudden, and yet it was still a shock.

Missing him grew less fierce eventually, the anger and frustration has moderated and matured into something mellower, yet still with a tang to it.

I've been there, it's been 9 years and 2 months since I passed through this door, and I still don't have any idea what to say to my friend.

Isn't the consolation about getting older the conceit that with experience comes wisdom? Shouldn't there be some point at which common experience allows me to comfort and perhaps even help such an old and close friend with his pain?

Words fail me. Words fail most of us at this time in someone else's life. Which was exactly what I found most frustrating, at the time of my own rite of passage. Nobody would talk about my father to me, nobody was willing to share happier memories.

It was like there was a conspiracy of avoidance, of silence. What I desperately needed to know was WHY all these people were at the memorial, why my father was important. In detail. Did he make them laugh, do a favor for them, was he just a great guy, did he ever make them mad?

We define ourselves in part through our parents. We discover too late the parts which are influenced or imprinted by "dad", by "mom", by "grandma" or the "favorite uncle". We define ourselves by our denial or rejection of parts of our parents which we find objectionable, only to discover later that those very traits are often hard-wired, and that we can't deactivate them.

Sometimes this hardwiring is like that of some kind of clock - helpful in maintaining a working, livable rhythm.
Sometimes, it's more like that of a landmine or pipe bomb.

I hope to the gods that K. has found his programming agreeable and that it helps him through this difficult time.

So, I suppose I'm feeling a touch cynical, referring to parenting as programming... Parents out there, please forgive me.

I love my parents, I just find it hard to forgive their mistakes sometimes.

Work in progress...
*sigh*