what a month (derogatory)

I have had quite the month… so consider this a sequel to the where have you been loca? post I made a few weeks ago. TW: pet loss 😦

This is not the epic comeback post I’d thought I’d have for this blog a month ago. I’d pictured a long post about all of the fun memories and lessons learned on our trip abroad, sharing pictures and fun encounters. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always work out the way you thought it would, and the past month has been one of the hardest in my entire life.

So, in my last post, I’d mentioned our oldest cat had a lump on our head when we’d returned from our trip. It was initially responding to antibiotics, so we were hopeful that she just had a nasty upper resp. infection and would make a recovery. She was acting normal at the time so we didn’t really give it much thought, but we also knew there was a chance this was something worse.

I’d love to end it here… say that it was indeed an infection and she’s taking a nap in the other room right now… That fantasy is just that.

To make a month-long story short, it was cancer. The antibiotics stopped working, and we were looking at two possibilities: cancer A or cancer B. Both would be inoperable and any “treatment” would be palliative.

We have a lot of animals here, and I of course want them to live long, happy, and healthy lives. But one point I have always kept strong on is that I wouldn’t put a pet through cancer treatments. They don’t understand why they feel sick, they just know they do. There’s no way to tell them the vet appointments and medications are for their health. They just don’t know.

Despite this point being my stance both in the past and present, it was really difficult for it to be Paris. I’ve had her since she was 6 months old, when she passed she was roughly 8 years and 10 months old. Sure, a senior cat, but she didn’t feel old enough to have life-ending cancer. She was starting to show signs that she wasn’t feeling good. We made the call to say goodbye to her 6 days ago.

Paris was like an extension of me. If I was mad, she was mad. If I was happy, she was happy. I could read her mind. I adore all of our pets and have bonds with all of them, but with her it was so different. Losing her felt like losing a chunk of my soul.

Pet grief is so weird. I’ve lost family pets before but never had to make the call, be in the room, lose my pet. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I spent the first few days crying multiple times an hour. At day 6 I’m not crying anymore, and can talk about her without immediately crying, but sometimes the details still make me feel the tears well up behind my eyes. There’s this overall haze just clouding everything. Even happy things are clouded by this loss.

Luckily, our home is full of vibrant animals and so much love. It’s been helping.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was just soaked with grief. I could feel it on every surface, every nook, dripping from the ceiling. I needed a project to focus on. So, I bought a Pax closet system from Ikea and spent the week working on it after work. Having something tactile to focus on really helped me let the necessary time pass throughout the day. Here’s a pic of the completed craft closet – I think I’ll post a tour of it at some point, but I need to finish organizing it 🙂

I have started crocheting again too – though it’s a bit harder for me because my mind can wander and it is exclusively wondering to my grief. I indulge it some – I do need to process everything after all – but I don’t want to get swallowed up by it.

As I write this, it’s easter, and I used a skein of yarn I got in the Bunny Box offered by Wildflower Yarns to make a bandana! The color is called Easter Egg Hunt, so it seemed appropriate to cake it up and make a fun spring-y project. This was also my first time using my swift, and it was a success! A much better experience than I had with Malabrigo’s Rio yarn… which came with knots before I even opened the hank. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the hank, but enjoy some eye candy of the crocheted bandana and the cake:

The box I ordered also came with a 12 count of mini skeins, I’m thinking a cat-motif granny square scarf. (I have successfully made my first granny square too btw.) More details to come at a later date.

Finally, before losing Paris, I’d started a project of making 20 videos. I wanted to give video-making an honest, hard-worked try, and set the goal of making 20 videos to decide if I really liked it and wanted to continue, or if I wanted to stop.

Of course, grief put that to a complete stop. However, I’m pushing myself to pick it back up… I’d gotten a video about 95% of the way there before stopping and I’m going to finish and upload it once I’m done writing this post. It’s aesthetically pleasing (to me at least) – the kind of videos I love to watch but didn’t think I could make myself. I think it’s a hell of a first video. I know not all of them are going to be to the same caliber (it took a long time to make!) but I want to incorporate the vibes of it into my future videos. It’s also been a great teaching project for video editing! I might share more thoughts about video making in my ramblings posts in the future, but I still intend this blog to mostly be about traditional crafts/arts.

And I am very excited for my next post on here to be happier – maybe I’ll finally post the results of the Omar Shawl I made, and share the shawl I’m wrapping up this week! (Keep an eye out for a review of Hobbii’s Frutta shawl and yarn!)

See you next time with a smile. 🙂

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