Related Post: Falco
I tried to take a much needed nap when I got home. I couldn’t. Thoughts that I’d pushed out and back suddenly came flooding into full view as my brain tried to relax.
This happens even outside of vacation but the intensity of the dynamic, vacation mode vs everyday mode, is more apparent. When I go on vacation I easily compartmentalize so that I’m only thinking about the experience. I’m very present. It’s a good thing for the most part…. except that the way my mind works it’s not always super patient. Things creep in anyway.
So when I got home and started to drift asleep for a nap, I found myself lightly dreaming/thinking… about petting my cat Falco. Actually, in the dream I was also watching one of my friends (from the trip) pet my cat too. He also really loved him. My cat, that I had to put down right before Christmas last year. I still think about his little desperate face looking at me as they took him back. I don’t think I ever fully processed that and I know I’ll never forget it. I loved him so much and for months I’ve not been able to feel anything about it… even when I tried to think about it I felt nothing. It actually bothered me that I felt nothing. Like I’d had this animal for years of my life and not even a year later I felt absolutely nothing about his death. I walk by his ashes and picture everyday on my way to my office and I felt nothing almost like my brain intentionally but subconsciously avoided acknowledging these reminders. I had never had to put down a pet before and I didn’t know if this numbness towards the experience was normal. It didn’t feel normal, but I also couldn’t force myself into feeling anything so I just let it go. And then there was today, and for some reason that loss hit me really hard when I got home.
Maybe it was because being away from home meant being away from the things that bring me comfort. Those things have been so very important to me the last year and half. I have relied on them to keep me sane, it’s one the reasons why, in the past I used to love traveling…and now it’s difficult to want to even leave for more than a few hours. Part of that comfort is most certainly my pets.
When I would tell people how many pets I had, for years, it had been five: two cats, three dogs. I still mistakenly say that sometimes. So maybe, it’s because that is what home is to me. It’s a comfortable bed with blankets and pillows that are my own. It’s the familiar feeling of dogs padding up to me excitedly and it was my two goofball cats yawning and slowly slinking into view. I can take my art supplies and laptop or games with me… but I can’t take certain things. Certain precious things. And as we unlocked the door and stepped in to our house, the picture was off. It was different because Falco wasn’t a part of that picture.
It’s not that I haven’t been on vacation since Falco passed away. We went to Florida for an intense week, but I think I was so shell shocked by the experience and the fact that Rich was sick with Covid… I don’t think I had a moment to really take it in. The day we traveled home was of course chaotic, we bustled and moved around the airport with the family. And when we landed. Casey was there to pick up the twins so we needed to re-group and collect luggage and it was somewhat awkward with my brother there. Not to mention, there was just so much to process from that trip alone, my mind was reeling when I got home. My anxiety was through the roof and I could barely keep myself together.
This time was different. This time, was a short trip that I enjoyed. I left relaxed and excited to go home. I actually really enjoy long driving trips. They set you up for music and scenery or just chatting. I took full advantage and had three hours to chat with Rich about all sorts of interesting things. And most of all, in the back of my mind I was excited to see my pets. And that’s when I remembered who wouldn’t be there…. that’s when I remembered his face looking at me desperately over the vet’s shoulder as they took him back to put him to sleep forever….
I am so sorry Falco. I should have stayed. I let Rich, who in all kindness thought he was sparing me pain, convince me not to be with you in your final moments but I regret it every time I think about it. I miss that you’re not here… that you aren’t around to cuddle with your sister. And I have stressed over the past three months worrying about Fox as she walked around the house yowling for you….searching in every nook of the house expecting to find you. I worry about her. I took her to the vet recently and her blood pressure was through the roof… I know she’s just an animal, but she hurts misses you too. We miss you so much and…
I miss my brother too.
As we neared our home and I surveyed the familiar landscape, I realized how much my perspective on “home” has changed. I used to drive home from Texas for years and I remember thinking that it was nice to return home. I remember being excited because home meant seeing my parents, my brothers, a few close friends – the familiarity of my home town. And then when we moved here, that picture largely stayed the same, but now my pets got to be apart of that picture, all five of them. In a lot of ways I felt pretty lucky. But that picture has radically changed.
My parents no longer mean “home” to me and it’s incredibly painful, heart breaking, stressful, and anger-inducing. The situation is complex and makes me want to scream and rip my hair out, every – single – time I think about it. Home no longer means, passively thinking to myself, “I should really see if Eddie wants to hang out soon…haven’t seen him in a while”. Home doesn’t mean the excitement of holidays anymore, especially Thanksgiving which was Eddie’s favorite holiday and was the last holiday I got to see him alive. And Home no longer means seeing my goofy tuxedo cat anymore either.
In a lot of ways, I don’t feel like I have a home at all. At least, not the one I grew up with. That one is gone. That picture, fantasy or not, was my foundation for all of my life up until a year and a half ago and that home no longer exists. It burned down in an angry and devastating fire and all that’s left is ash and rubble. It makes me feel hollow inside. If you have no home, you don’t know where you come from, and if you struggle to know who you are.. you have no identity. If you don’t have either of these things… are you even really alive? Do you even matter?
Maybe that’s why when I returned home all I could think about was cutting. I have barely thought about that for at least a couple months. So I had no idea where those thoughts were coming from. There’s something there… that I don’t quite understand. Something that hurts too much. Something about being here that is a painful reminder of how my life has taken a hard left turn into obscurity…uncertainty. And it’s like, every time I close my eyes I still keep thinking that I will wake up from this dream and my brother will be alive and the kids will be with him and I won’t have much of a relationship with them, but they would have a dad and that would be enough.
It’s all the responsibility of being here – of being me. It’s needing to be “with-it” day in and day out. It’s the expectation of being healthy or skinny and happy and stable and supportive and responsible and loving and friendly and fun and all the fucking things that are asked of me when I struggle to just exist as a person – at all. I don’t know who to be… I don’t know what I want… I’m just being carried along by the tide of change and I feel at a loss to control my own path or to swim for the shoreline… or to have any control over the situation at all. It’s this that I return to – and while the comfort of my bed or my house shield me from the outside world… it’s still all there, waiting for me, expecting everything from me. That’s what home is right now…
Look, I know that my concept of what home is will continue to morph and change as people and pets move in and out of my life. I will probably switch jobs again or be promoted into new roles. My relationship with my family will change – including with the twins. I’m an adaptable person, I’ve never really been afraid of change. But, I suppose I’m still processing this new chapter of my life. It’s not the first time I’ve had major life changes like this – moving cross country several times, breaking up with David, getting married, being hired on to my first big-girl job, those were big life changes too. But this is different. This is about loss. And big loss, the kind that forever changes you, well – it changes everything.