Fat Cat...Meow

My mother has decided to get a cat...to keep my cat company because he's lonely....*SIGH*

Why is my cat lonely? Because he is ALONE ALL THE TIME.

And why is my cat alone all the time? Because we just don't belong there. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I feel like I'm just punishing myself. Saving up money, saving her...denying myself....

The cost to my psyche has been far more than I'll ever put in my savings account.

And so it goes... I'm back to where I was a long time ago, only this time it's far worse. When I think of the sheer energy it took to get the hell out in the first place. "Rage is my motivator" but I'm spent...

I go inside my head, back to my apartment and sometimes in my mind I just walk around...I open the front door and see the ugly yellow counter, which I grew to love because it was mine. I open the old frigidaire door and I'm satisfied. I close it again and stare at the pictures on the outside, my life...

Onward into the hallway, I always wanted to fix the floor. Gretyl's toys in a line on the throw rug which is now packed away, I don't know where.Her plaster paw prints hanging on the wall.

My bathroom with the candle burning, smells like bleach and Midsummers night.

I lay on the bed in my room, shelter....peace...I'm safe...I'm home. I don't want to leave. The chair is in the corner where it should be. Their shit just doesn't follow me here. Feather bed, down quilt

I walk around in my underwear, chain smoking...go into the living room, sit on the couch. Look at my books all lined up on their shelves. Friends. Smell of Orange Glo on wood floor. My dining room mirror with the chip in the corner...surrounded by windows open to the sound of fire engines, ambulances (home...), police cars and a loud game of Ecuadorian volleyball. Sheer curtains and ribbons blowing in the breeze....

At some point I have to walk out and close the door behind me. Give her back the keys...here I am. Trying to hold it together. New house, it's not home...My pictures still leaning against the wall, books falling off the closet shelves, half my life residing with them behind the closed door.Toothpaste spit on the bathroom counter. Ink stained quilt. Pot rack, pride and joy, tossed in the pantry with the overflowing garbage and smell of rotten zucchini that lingers from august....

Chaos. Lost. 8 months displaced. A whole year of my life I haven't been home. Unsettled. And it seems so small but just so incredibly HUGE.... The damn gate is open. I dream of Gretyl in the road and my teeth falling out. Anxiety.

And I can't go...tell me it's OK. Tell me you'll survive. Tell me you understand that I have my own life to live, that I've worked hard and I deserve to enjoy this moment...On my own. Because when I go, it'll kill me to watch you struggle and try to keep your head above water while I float safely on my raft with this fucking life jacket that I grabbed somewhere along the way. When I was scared that I would end up like you...

And so I cry sometimes. And today its over a fucking CAT...because I'm taking mine with me... and then yours will be all alone.