Welcome to the cluster-fuck that is my life.
I don't mean to be flippant. If I was writing about someone else's troubles, I'd be very sympathetic and tactful. But I'm not writing about someone else, so I'm not going tip-toe around any egg-shells. Might as well have some fun with this, right? It's not every day your life falls apart around you and leaves you standing there feeling like that little naked girl* in the famous photo from the Vietnamese war, running away from a napalm attack.
Some really awful shit has happened to me in the past two weeks. Nothing I won't survive, of course and, to be fair, nothing nearly as awful as a napalm attack. But it has not been a fun ride lately.
Ten days ago I was told I was being laid-off. I wrote about that in my last post, so I won't go into details. Suffice to say that the stress of that alone is taking its toll. Just the fact that I'm sitting here writing this at 5:30 a.m. after waking up 90 minutes ago and being unable to go back to sleep is evidence enough of that. The middle-of-the-night wake-up has been a sure symptom of extreme stress ever since my marriage started crumbling. Back then, I would go to bed early and be asleep by the time he came to bed. His stress showed the opposite way: he couldn't go to sleep wen he went to bed at a normal hour, so he'd stay up till all hours, waiting to get tired enough to basically pass out when he got to bed. However, light sleeper that I am, I'd always wake up when he came to bed, but then I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. So...pattern set.
But I digress...back to the present...
Then, late on Monday, my cat started showing signs of another one of his urinary infections. I kept an eye on him for the next two days, expecting him to get over it as he always did. Unfortunately, this time he didn't get over it. His condition took a sudden turn for the worse late on Wednesday night -- after I thought he had started to recover. Flat broke and with no other option, I had to take him to the Humane Society so he could get medical attention. But part of the deal with doing that is that you have to sign your pet over to them, and once you do, you can't get him back. Well, I signed him over. I had no choice. He needed a vet.
I may be coming across fairly collected and calm about this, but let me tell you it's only because I've had a bit of time to get used to it. I was not calm while it was happening. I started crying as soon as I realized how sick Bugsy was, continued throughout my phone calls to veterinary emergency clinics and the Humane Society. By the time I was on the phone with my parents asking for them to loan me the money to take Bugsy to a vet, I was crying so hard I was triggering my gag reflex. It was not good.
I wound up driving Bugsy to the Humane Society at just before midnight on Wednesday. Bless the kind woman who met me there and took him from me. She had to deal with a blubbering mess, but she handled it so well and at least I didn't have to feel I was leaving him with an indifferent stranger. Just before she turned away from me with Bugsy's carrier in her hand, she told me she'd stay with him.
You never think you can cry so much, but you can. And more. It's as if your body converts your blood into tears when you grieve that hard. Your life pours out and the whole process leaves you drained and panting and staring glassy-eyed into nothing for long periods. Then, when you think the worst is over, you go to get up and go to bed. But you automatically turn your head to make sure you're not going to step on a cat when you move toward the bedroom, and the realization that the cat's presence in your life has created instinctual behaviors in you makes the reality of it all come crashing back so that you stumble into your room, blind from the tears.
I only slept a fitful couple of hours, and when I woke up on Thursday morning I sat down and composed an email to the Humane Society. Bugsy wasn't my cat anymore, but I hoped they'd take pity on me and let me know how he fared during the night. I couldn't send it. I had a busy day ahead and I knew that if the H.S. replied during the work day, that I wouldn't be able to control myself if the news was bad. So I went to work and tried to pretend things were normal...well, normal for abnormal...and hoped no one would comment on my swollen eyes or pasty, sleep-deprived appearance.
They didn't, but I could tell my mood was not going unnoticed. The thought pierced the fog around me that I might be worrying my staff with my behavior. Bad things had been happening at the office and maybe I was scaring them that more bad things were coming. So I told them there was a problem with my cat and they were good enough to listen when I asked them not to show me any sympathy. I simply can't deal with sympathetic looks and words when I'm suffering. They're like a caress to a bubble...well-meant, but results in destruction.
That afternoon, the bunch of us who had been laid off all went out for lunch together and I managed to enjoy it and get through it without my thoughts falling back to Bugsy too much. We didn't even talk too much about being laid off. It was just a pleasant time with some people who had one very nasty thing in common. I didn't go back to work afterwards. I didn't have the energy to keep on pretending nothing was wrong. So I went home and started crying again when there was no Bugsy at the door to greet me like he always did.
I went into my email drafts folder and found the message I'd composed to the Humane Society that morning and sent it off and sat back like someone waiting for the results of a dire medical test. It didn't take long, and the news was the worst, and I didn't even read past the sentence with the word "euthanized" in it. I couldn't see anyway.
Remember when i referred to my life as a cluster-fuck? Well, now I had two things go very, very wrong. But two things does not a cluster make. Three things, however, does.
A short time after receiving the bad news about Bugsy, the phone rang. It was my boss. I couldn't speak at the time - literally - so I didn't answer. Then an email popped up in my personal inbox. From my boss. This was ominous. My boss never writes to me at my personal address. I logged onto my work email and found a copy of the same email. What the hell?
Long story short, all hell had broken loose at work over this "downsizers" lunch. In fact, without my realizing it, hell had started splitting at the seams two hours before we'd even left for the restaurant.
It would be imprudent of me to go into details about what happened here. But I can say that it affected me in a very unexpected way. It made me angry. It made me so angry I wanted to spit. And by being angry, I had no room for being sad. Being angry kept the tears at bay and replaced them with righteous indignation. Being angry focused my mind where it had been dulled to a quivering, useless blob. Being angry felt good. It felt even better when I learned that the people who count were angry right alongside me and knew that I was not to blame for the all-hell stuff.
By noon Friday it was all over. I had an extremely busy day. One of those days where three new things land in your inbox for every one thing you manage to accomplish. I wasn't able to focus on the one thing that's so critical, the one thing that simply HAS to get done before my termination date. And so I lost yet another day on it. But at least I wasn't bursting into tears every time someone gave me a soft look. I was grateful for the distraction, and now I have a whole long weekend to brood and grieve and whip myself into shape for the challenges ahead.
I'm trying to find positive spin for these events. For instance, I just realized a couple of hours ago that being unemployed at this particular time of year means that, if I want to, I can participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which people all over the world challenge themselves to write a complete, minimum 50,000-word, first-draft novel during the month of November. I probably won't do it. But it's nice to know I could if I wanted to. I may also find myself with some extended time off. As much as I want to get myself into another job as soon as possible, a nice long period of down-time sounds really good. My current writing slump started at exactly the same time as my current job started. Coincidence? I think not. It will be nice if this major life change results in the return of my muse and especially in the return of the creative energy I once had.
And that is how I will try to carry on. With a positive outlook for the future, and loving memories of the past. I just hope the cluster doesn't get any bigger.
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*Footnote: Did you know that that little girl in the napalm photo is now living in Ajax, Ontario? Huh!
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