Saturday, January 30, 2016

Hectic month

After the holidays is supposed to be a quieter time, and it never really seems to slow down around here.

I know some of that is school (took my first pretest, failed as expected, but not as badly as expected. So I need to focus on a few things and try the pretest again.)

My birthday is also in January, and since I had not made it down to visit my mother for her birthday or for christmas, I went down for the weekend of my birthday. This was decent timing for her as well, as she had hurt herself and could use a hand around the house with cleaning and such.

After the visit, came home, and I always seem to underestimate how expensive that trip is. My car needs an oil change, and apparently there is yet another recall on something. So as soon as I have money (in another couple of weeks), I need to schedule a visit with the dealership to get all that taken care of.

Unfortunately, I managed to catch a cold or flu from someone, not their fault, I wouldn't have expected them to be contagious a week later, but it happens. I'm working on getting over it, but it does squash my idea that I would go visit a spinning friend this week. She's just starting really aggressive chemo, and needs to limit her contact with anyone who might be carrying anything. So I'm going to wait a couple of weeks and go visit her then.

I did use some of my holiday money to pay off the memorial ring I had custom ordered a few years ago when the bird died. It is one of those things that I couldn't really afford, but I kept waiting to be able to, and it wasn't happening. So I did it anyway.

I collected the birds ashes from the storage unit today.

This is how I know for a fact that I’m not really ready for a new bird yet. Just collecting the urn has made me start to cry again.

Part of me wants to get rid of the bird cage, and then get a new one if/when I get another bird. I don’t, because the cage is extremely expensive and I don’t know if I would ever be able to afford another one. But at the same time, it hurts to have it because I want my bird to be inside when I come home, ready for snuggles and kisses and cuddle time.

Getting a new bird might help with some of that grief, but it might not. And right now, I can't handle another set of stresses in my life.

On a totally different note... a friend suggested a new podcast for me to listen to. It's not safe for work, as it is about relationships, sex, sex education, and various cultural views of sex. It's very interesting as it is done by a sex educator and her best friend who works in the medical field, I believe, and has a background in psychology, addiction, and group therapy. But I find it interesting because of the viewpoints. They work not just within their circle of friends and acquaintances, but work on influencing the way sex is viewed in everyday life for others as well. Which I think is all for the good. I truly believe that Americans have a lot of issues and hangups about sex and sexuality and it causes issues in far more ways than just in the bedroom. But anyway, good podcast. Not one for my mother, though. :)

One of the things mentioned in it was a question of why blog? And a couple of people said it was because they had something to say and wanted a way to say it out to the world. I thought about it, and came the conclusion that I don't mind people reading my thoughts from my blog, but it isn't the main reason I blog. Initially I had started out with pictures of my jewelry and things I was making. And eventually that will come back. But it's changed to be more centric to myself. And I really realized that I use it as a way to put my thoughts down and look at them as an outsider. It allows me to be more objective about what I say, think, and sometimes do. Do I like the feedback of comments? Sure, unless it is the spammers professing profound love through LiveJournal... um, no. Piss off, spammer. But being able to put thoughts to paper (or digital page) and then look at them as someone else would, it helps me to take that step back and go "Nope, you were SO SELF CENTERED right there. You need to dial that BS right back in. Drama queen."

And part of me hopes that putting out some of the grief that I still feel for the loss of my bird might help to let some of it go. Because at least from a digital perspective, I did nearly vanish when he died. My Facebook account went away, and I stopped posting on twitter or Livejournal (okay, LJ was before that, but still.) I dropped off Ravelry for several days and was chastised (I still have some issues with that, but it wasn't like anyone knew.) Yes, I know he was "just" a bird. But he had been with me for 20 years. He'd been a near constant companion and playmate for most of those years. He was my little monkey guy, rude, obnoxious, spoiled, but not horribly so. He loved me and I loved him right back. I'd raised him from younger than 6 months, and even though at the end I told him it was okay if he needed to go, I lied. It's not okay. It's still not okay. Not a day goes by that I don't feel the empty space within me where he used to be. I'm not as happy a person as I was 5 years ago. I've had friends stop being my friend apparently because I'm not as happy a person as I used to be.

If that's all it takes to sever a friendship, it wasn't much of a friendship. Life is hard. And sometimes, it's really shitty (pardon the cussing). And I feel rather like the last 5 years of my life have been hard knock after hard knock. Sometimes a hand out to help me stand up, just in time for something else to come along and smack me back down. Do I want to have it change? Yes. That's why I'm in school. That's why I don't socialize much. Because I'm working on getting that piece of paper that says I'm smart and edumacated and worth hiring as more than a grunt at a company. But it doesn't make for a super happy person right now. I live hand to mouth and often the hand has to forego paying something. Eventually, eventually it will smooth out. I will graduate, and I will move on to hopefully a job that isn't one that has all the upward mobility of a sinkhole.

Someday I will feel like either the grief and loss has lessened enough that I can see my way to bringing another feathered monkey into the house. Or I will let go of the bird things and move on without another feathered monster. But today isn't that day.

Today is the day that I realized that the emotional wounds haven't scarred over. They were still just scabbed and bringing home the urn ripped off those scabs again. I will gather a small spoonful of the ashes up and put them in a bag. They will be packaged up with love and tears, and sent off to the ring maker who will make me the beautiful ring that I ordered. That ring will come back to me and give me a small part of my beloved bird to keep with me and close to me.

Today is the day that I will probably cry myself to sleep again and miss having the warm feathers under my fingers and my chin and little hard beaky kisses telling me that it's okay, he loves me when I am sad and would happily bite whoever made me cry. Then he would have licked the tears from my cheeks, and probably bitten me when I didn't stop crying. Not hard, but enough to remind me that me crying makes him upset too.