I’m sitting here and I know I have to go to sleep soon. So much has happened in the past week, my head is spinning from it.
Severe pain, to joy where I am unknowingly singing and humming through my day, and within 24 hours, back to severe pain and wondering what the heck just happened.
Sometimes, I wonder why I care about anything. Sometimes, I wonder if I can ever care about anything again.
I’m actually avoiding a writing project tonight.
I learned how to make homemade playdough. I’m kicking myself, because I’m tired and I made a major blunder on such a simple halving of a recipe. The dough was for some game pieces I will need soon. I’ve tried lots of different materials before hitting on the dough idea and nothing is quite working out right, so messing up the first batch, when my kitchen is my lab, was sort of, no pun intended, the icing on the cake.
But, way cool that I learned how to make playdough. What I’m actually doing isn’t playdough, but learning how to frost and make shapes. I’m going to avoid my writing project again tomorrow by trying a different dough recipe and see if that does what I want. I’m thinking the flour gluten is too gooey and maybe tapioca would work better for what I want.
Lots of stress in the homefront because one of my cats almost died two weekends ago. He has a major infection, and I don’t know the cause of it. I think it may have been the burst pipe and some major fall housekeeping kicking up yuck, but I’m not sure. His health is inching back to normal, but I worry. Of course I worry. The incline is too slow for my liking.
So, in the other hospital room in my house, I have a cat that has a back injury. It’s permanent, poor thing, and I don’t think it’s safe to ever let him outside again. We have laser therapy a couple of times a day, which he thinks is just plain fun. It’s been two long years but this babe finally can move around without his back legs going out from under him all the time. My vet, who is just amazing, by the way, can’t see what’s wrong.
I mention these two, because I have a lot on my mind. Major, life altering stuff on my mind. And, of course, I am thinking about all the things that went wrong in my long term relationship. Sometimes, I wonder if I will ever not feel the effects of that. There’s too much going on right now that is paralleling the past. I can’t help but feel it. Different people, vastly different circumstances, but I wonder, just how different is it, if the pattern is the same? I have to remind myself: different. And how different. Not to judge two people by the same stick. That it wasn’t all bad, way back when. And I kick myself because that’s how the start of talking myself into not leaving when I should have started. Each and every time.
I don’t like some of what I’ve turned into, due to a couple of long-term, hopeless, helpless situations that had no end in sight. Yet another parallel. And I wonder, finally, there is a possible ending to one of them, was any of it worth it? My answer is still mostly coming up no, even though I didn’t have much choice at the time. I have more of one now. Because I stopped caring. I wonder how the other one will turn out and I just can’t process that information anymore. It hurts too much.
So, a third cat I have is incredibly old. 18 or so. He came to live with me as a kitten-ish. He’s had a chemical imbalance. Poor thing. He can’t handle stimulation and was mostly hated by the other cats in the house. He does not move or sound like a normal cat, either. He chirps, whistles, howls, clicks, and spits. None of the other cats would or will play with him. Even now. We bought him a couple of stuffed animals, which have made it through the washes all these years.
And me, with my sleeping issues, tried just about every white noise generator out there, to try and stay sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a shot. Just before Kitten-Ish had moved in, I found these sound tapes. One of them is the jungle, and there is a soft soliloquy of birds, humming insects, frogs, brooks. Quite soothing. Just as you are beginning to relax, a howler monkey comes on. Rather loud, in the foreground. It’s completely unexpected. I laughed so hard, the first time this happened, I actually fell out of bed.
I think this CD is part of how Kitten-Ish learned to “talk.” Because he howls like this monkey.
Anyway, it’s fifteen years later, and Back-Trouble Kitty, who had been thrown out of a car, by the way, right in front of me, moves in. As I am beginning to nurse him to health, and hopefully find a new home, guess what happens? This new household inhabitant also howls like a monkey. I have two of them now. They sing the song of my people, quite frequently, and my very old Kitten-Ish has finally found a playmate.
They sing the same song, speak the same sort of crazy, and have a blast. Kitten-Ish has been a most clingy companion for most of his life, sitting on my lap, shoulder, dashing out to tap my feet, because I have been his primary playmate for so long. He leaves his play mice on my pillow. But this past year, no. He wants in with Back-Trouble Kitty. All day. All night. He comes out to sit with me every once in a bit, but he wants his buddy.
My heart sings with the joy of it. And I have some hope left inside of me for my future. Because I have, occasionally, found people who speak my kind of crazy, and I will again. And in the meantime, I now know how to make play dough.