Ruger

Have I become hardened? 

I'm fumbling with my purse as the weight of the cat carrier drags my right side toward the floor. I slowly and carefully make my way out the door, trying and failing to keep the carrier from hitting the screen. It is evening and the wind slips in at the bottom of my jacket, leaving a thin ring of cold at my midsection that bothers me to no end. But there are more important things to do right now.

I make it to the car, gently and clumsily lay him down in his carrier in the passenger seat. I'm in the drivers side, pulling away from the curb and off towards the freeway.

The sun sets behind me and the world falls into the familiar eerie silence so peculiar to Monday nights.

I miss my exit. Stupid googlemaps!

I'm thinking about his tearing eyes, his quivering voice; his pain is too much to hide, too much to bear...and the gurgling wheeze coming from the passenger next to me.

I take the next exit, loop around back onto the other side of the freeway. Zoom off the correct exit and proceed to take another wrong turn.

I'm in a quiet, dirty backstreet that reeks of illicit activity. Little bunches of people littered across the sidewalks, creeping in the most ostentatious, vulgar manner.

I'm sure this next road will get me back on track.

I've never been in this area at night before. How strange to know I will be coming back here again tomorrow for work...

I see the rust-yellow sign for the animal hospital pull up suddenly on my right. Parking is around the corner on a street only slightly less occupied by the creeping, vulgar bodies. I zip up my purse and pull out the carrier as gracefully as I can, hurrying towards the dingy light of the hospital.

Its nicer inside than out, but there is a smell of surgical gloves and cleaner combined with a constant shrill barking from the back rooms. It brings back hundreds of memories that I immediately feel myself pull away from.

Oh dissociation, you wonderful tool.

Filling out the forms I can't help but feel a little ridiculous. I've only known you for two and a half hours, little fellow. But here I am claiming ownership, taking your whole life into my hands.

And you're ever so sweet about it. Purring and gurgling as your tiny, perfect nose leaks pus.

Waiting is to be expected, and its not too long. The lady at the front desk sprays some cleaner in a room with a glass window looking into the waiting area and ushers me in with my carrier. I fumble with my belongings again, trying to push my mental haziness away so I can coordinate my actions properly.  Beams of emotion and sensation hitting me from every angle...

Where is the balance? Too much or too little input; its dysfunctional either way.

 I stand next to him, petting him, soothing him, as the tech probes him. I take him in and out of the carrier, letting him roam around the room and look for exits. He stays calm. Happy to be warm and cared for, even on a cold metal table. The vet examines him. He notes a tag on his ear that indicates he was a stray brought in to be fixed before being released again. The vet's face displays a detached sort of pessimism. He is in very bad shape. Probably a virus. Maybe he could get better with enough care, maybe not.

We should test him for feline leukemia and aids. Its more money then I planned to spend. I feel the sharp tug on my heart in various directions as I try to make the decision. The haziness presses in around the edges of my thoughts...

I think we better do it. An impulse more than a decision. Regret, anxiety, uncertainty as the tech takes him to the back room. Ten minutes and we will know. I stand next to the carrier and wait. I take out my phone and do a few extra things for work, all my feelings humming in the background behind a thin layer of fog...content, expecting nothing to come of the test.

Bad news, he says. He has tested positive for feline aids.

So.

What is the next move?

Poor, poor Ruger!

Are the shelters open? No.

I've already named you, already added you into my life. But only sort of.

How long have I known you now?  Three and a half hours? What was your life like before you interrupted our late afternoon walk, thin and shivering and desperate for help?

Content,  eagerly eating a can of tuna and curling up in my lap. Warm and purring as you wheeze.

The vet seems just a little too enthusiastic about killing you now...

I'll take him to the shelter in the morning. Back in the carrier, sweet fellow. I will take you home and love you for a little while before you die. Oh you precious creature.

I pay.

My phone flashes with a text. The place you're at can't take him?

Desperation. Pain.

They could euthanize him for $85. Should I do that?

Please, I can't take it.

Ok.

The tech lifts the carrier out of my arms and silently moves into the back room. I'll bring your carrier back out in a minute.

Thanks.

He is back in a minute. Hands over the carrier.

Goodbye then.

Goodbye.

not by awe

I'm not sure where to begin. Some kind of softened soliloquy, saying nothing and going nowhere (story of my life?). Its one of those somber rainy days in the city, the ones they show at the beginning of movies, the cameras close to the ground to watch the water droplets splash up against shoes, delicate little white sprays flaring up around their pant legs as they hustle off to their sundry destinations.

I suspect its supposed to evoke some sort of emotion. But what emotion? Certainly nothing beyond an increased anticipation for the real story to begin, right?

But its that moment right there, with the splashy white water and the damp, shivering pant legs hustling down the sidewalk, that I relate to the most right now. I feel struck, but not by awe.

This blog is so interesting. A tiny time capsule of written emotion against a purple backdrop; nothing more than letters pressed in sequence across my keyboard as I sit here silently, alone, stoic. Nothing new there. What is this buzzing in my forehead? What? Sentience? Who knows, really. These words import some of the mystery, perhaps, but not really. Oh, geez, why must I always go there...

I wish so much to just to let go right now, just let the words flow out without stopping without thinking of what I'm going to say next because that is how one actually creates that is how one opens up and unfolds a story out of their mind, out of the secret recesses inside that they don't normally know about. Is this dangerous is this wrong? I don't know I can't say I'm torn in two directions.

Yes, there is evil inside me that I don't want to touch, but I cannot believe that is all. I hope that is not all.

There is some energy though that I want to unleash, something I cannot comprehend, and yes something that I am a little afraid of. What is that blackness I can see from above the rim of my glasses, so far out of my field of vision?

When will I ever stop skittering around my own particular brand of madness and see it for what it is?

Yes, what is this impending secret that I wish to unleash upon the world? Theres something sly, something sneering and prideful linked to it. This makes me pull away in shame.

I must stop now before I really lose it.

zzzzz pop.

I dont even know how to type right now. I have to push my brain to send a signal down to my fingers. Cold fingers. Cold brain. I can't stop shaking. My gut feels worse than just twisted into knots. Those knots have been sucked into some kind of miniature black hole clenching vigorously inside my chest. Not hungry but weak from malnourishment I keep trying to eat...ugh, what an awful activity digestion is...

I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it...

I feel like I need to breakdown, just cry and cry and cry, but the tears don't make it out of my ducts.

Ahhh!! Why do I feel this horrible? Why?!

I've lost all my senses. I just can't focus, I can't do it, I can't do it...

How did I even make it through this week? When can I just collapse? How can I not already collapse? Really, its too late...its already happened...

I can't do anything.

I don't know how to beat this one. I guess I just have to accept defeat... is that bad? Should I be trying to stick this one out?? Why right now does it seem like everyone keeps saying persistence is how you succeed in life? At any cost? Emotionally, physically, spiritually? Wheres the line?

Shiver while youre breathing...

 

whererrrwhirrrawherraawerraaaaaa

I can't even begin to describe how horrible I've been feeling for probably the last two weeks, almost completely continuously.

I am trying and trying to understand what exactly triggered it. I feel like something snapped and I woke up from a supremely fabricated delusion of ability. And so now I'm like a puppet hanging on broken strings, arms feebly wobbling towards my workload, my head twitching at an awkward, downtrodden angle... I can't keep doing this! Almost 9 months I've lasted, faking my way through this position, taking on case after case after case with almost no guidance given to me beyond the spontaneous, desperate phone calls I've made to people also struggling to keep up with their work. And the sad thing is its the clients ultimately that are suffering from my incompetence. The new employees I have to "train" end up with inferior training because I have only half an idea of what I'm doing at any given time... and it trickles, it trickles...

Whats the point? Am I supposed to keep struggling over the next few years, slowly figuring out everything I need to know to do this job effectively? Meanwhile, all of my clients become upset, realizing I'm not doing all of the things previous qualified people in my position did for them simply because THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING AND HAD THE CONFIDENCE TO TRY!?

Because now not only is it that I'm half-capable. The bubble of confidence I had managed to create has burst; I have lost whatever faith in myself to perform that I once had, the faith that carried me through countless meetings with parents and other professionals in the field that actually know a thing or two about appropriate treatments and so forth... And without that I perform even worse than before.

I'm just barely hanging on here, every moment feels like another opportunity to fall apart. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't even find the energy to move most of the time. I've never felt as low as I do right now, how sad. How sad that my world hinges so delicately upon something like my own delusions of confidence. Who is really to blame here? My company or myself? I go back and forth, hovering longer upon the latter in all probability, but thats nothing new.

Ugh, I just want to run away, or die. Preferably the first one, at least for others' sakes.