I Feel Sorry For Myself (And I'm Not Sorry)

The funny thing about grief, I am finding, is that it's embarrassing. Like no, no, everything's fine, stop looking at me like that, ha ha! Make a joke someone please, how do we extract ourselves from this conversation kind of embarrassing. Like maybe I smell, I don't know. Because do I? Smell? Can you smell it emanating from your screen? The smell of bad things happening to someone and you kind of want to turn away? Don't worry, I get it.

It stinks.

Chachi is dying. 
My mom died in September, then we had to put my cat to sleep on the day of my mom's memorial, then we got a new kitten, because rebirth! And then my step-dad died last week and yesterday we found out Chachi, our new kitten, has a rare, incurable and fatal disease called Feline Infection Peritonitis and will die in a matter of weeks, months if we are lucky.

We are not lucky.

There is a zen saying or a Yiddish proverb, or maybe my dad just said it to me once: if we all put our problems in a huge pile and saw everyone else's that we would grab our own problems back. Or maybe it's if we all put our trousers in a pile and saw everyone else's that we would grab our own pants back. 

See how I make jokes when it's really not funny at all? The point being that I know I actually am lucky. I like my pants and I know that my problems could be way, way worse. But goddamn if things don't suck ass right now. I mean--a kitten? A fucking kitten dying??? It's like some off internet joke that's forever too soon...every time you (fill in the blank) a kitten dies. Only the blank this time is me not believing that there will ever be a time again in which I am not wading in embarrassing, clumsy grief.

Fuck this.
xo,
S