(no subject)
It's a difficult thing to write about.. and I think it'll become obvious why, in a moment or three. People tell me to cheer up.. and believe me, I wish it were that easy. I try, but it feels like my back-brain isn't so willing to let go.
I'll be in a decent mood, and then a memory will bubble up from somewhere... 'Hey, remember when you did /this/? Wasn't that stupid? Jeez, you really sucked then, didn't you?'
Said memory doesn't even have any relevance to what's going on.. it's just out of the blue amd squashes my good mood back into ambivalence, or perhaps even depression if it's a strong enough one.
I've no idea why this happens.. I deal with it as best I can, but it's always there. Several times a day, something will come to the surface.. demand a bit of energy and attention.. and then dissipate again leaving me somewhat diminished in energy and mood.
This morning, I was in a good mood.. I really was. Hell, I was even croaking along to the music on the cd player. Then, the memory came by.
It was Jazz. There was a journal entry many moons ago regarding this lovable little stray cat..Jazz was the 'campus cat' for my apartment complex. Abandoned by a previous owner and left to his own devices, he survived by the largess of the population of the apartments. Jazz didn't even have a name that I knew of.. /I/ gave it to him. He didn't seem to mind.. all he wanted was some snuggles, scritches, and attention.. along with a bowl of cat food and water. Jazz disappeared for a few weeks once.. I thought he'd gone to the Rainbow Bridge.
He came back.. but was very, very sick. People stopped feeding him, and shooed him away when he came by.. no one wanted a sick cat around. I didn't turn him away.. how could I? He was sick.. he was hungry. He seemed to get better at first; and he knew that he always had a bowl of food waiting for him, and that I'd always take a few minutes to hold him, and scratch under his chin just where he liked it.
Well.. I found Jazz laying in a patch of sunlight, having trouble breathing. I picked him up, and nursed him for a few hours in my apartment.. but it was more than I could handle. The poor guy was laboring to breathe. So.. I picked him up and wrapped him in a warm, fluffy towel.. and took him to the vet.
They gave him a shot of an antibiotic.. and then ran a FiV test. He'd come back positive.. the little guy had what amounted to kitty AIDS. The only thing I could do, was to give him a merciful end.. a quiet and peaceful one in my arms as the vet gave him that fateful pink shot. He died in my arms.
Today, the memory that decided to stop by was looking into his eyes as they dilated from the drugs.. 'You failed me..'
Now, I know I didn't. I know I did all I could. But my back-brain just had to twist that particular dagger a little, re-opening old wounds. My mood is currently a wreck... I'm just this side of falling apart and crying for the little cat that died those years ago.
I might not know why this happens.. I don't know how to stop it from happening.. but one thing I know for a fact is that i'm going to head home when work is done, and spoil Cassie and Tsume totally, and utterly, rotten. And think about a poor, sick stray that I named Jazz.. and hope that he'd forgive me for failing him somehow, if I did. Rest, little one. We'll be along to the Bridge someday.
Now if only my own brain will just leave me alone.
--Hinoki