The Timeless Nature Of Grief. (Patreon)

Many of you will know by now that one of our dogs had to be put down the Monday before this post.  To me it feels like she's been gone a million years and was right next to me seconds ago.  I have soldiered on through every disaster of the last 17 years, but this one...  It's a particular kind of hurt because Dorothy was with me almost every day for 11 years.  Not usually glued to me, but around the house, amusing herself.  Checking on me.  Just living her best life.  When people outside my home die there's a sense like they are still out there someplace and I can visit them still.  Even though I know I can't the feeling of missing them is similar to the feeling before when I just couldn't see them.  Dorothy is just gone.  There is an almost tangible void where her presence should be.  Also, with the other pets, when they died and we buried them there was a sense that their essence was no longer there.  We were simply placing the soil they were made of back where it came from.  With Dorothy it felt like I was putting my living friend in a hole in the yard.  I still feel her there.  Some part of me wants to go out there every day, dig her up, and shake her until she wakes up.  It's the most irrational I've been about death since I was in my teens.  I keep saying her name instead of the names of people I'm talking about.  Even when they aren't similar in any way.  Some part of me is throwing a childish fit over not getting what I want, which is to turn away the hand of death itself, like a hero of mythology.   It wants to descend into the underworld and return with my dog.  

Maybe the relentlessness of the last few years finally wore away my defenses too much.  I can't be like "this is how it is and I have to accept it" the way I normally would.  And the icing on this terrible cake is that there is something wrong with my room.  It started before Dorothy died and has gotten worse all week.  A sweet odor coming from everywhere and nowhere in my room.  One that has happened before and I wasn't able to locate it then either.  It almost has to be a mouse that died in the vent at this point.  But it dried out and now smells like a sweet chemical as it rots from eating poison.  I can't think of anything else it could be. It's only in my room, so it has to be in the ten feet of pipe from the main line to my room.  Other wise the smell would be in more rooms.  At best I can only get a faint whiff in other parts of the house when the fan isn't blowing.  In order to get to the vent I am going to have to move 75% of everything I have in here from the carpet removal project going on in the rest of the house.  It's just like what the fuck.  Why does it have to be thing after thing?  Just give me a little while to get over one thing before hitting me with another thing...  

I didn't mean for this to be such a self pitying post it's just like, everything happens too much all the time.  On top of that there's the fact that everything is 3 times as expensive as it was a year ago but my income is lower than it was.  Everyone I know is worried about when we're gonna get a break.  Meanwhile no one in charge of things seems to care at all.  It's like everyone is in this place of increasingly impotent struggle.  

Anyway, I have to spend the weekend moving things I already moved with the intent of leaving them alone for a long while.  So I hope you can excuse my middling efforts as it applies to extra content.  At the very least I'm still getting the comic out, so that's something I feel like.  Maybe things will settle down a little bit soon and I can just have a chance to breathe without smelling whatever this godawful smell is.  >:[   

Until that time though, I hope you are safe and happy though.