I'm not very good at sleeping in anymore. Waking up around 4 a.m. on weekdays seems to have reset my clock. It's probably partly a side effect of gardening and/or of becoming more of a "responsible adult": once it starts to get light outside, I don't want to go back to sleep because there are things I could be/need to be doing. It is also often forced upon me by Gytha doing naughty things to wake me up, presumably so I will go ahead and get up to do the morning feeding "since I'm already up." Both cats' appetites tended to decrease as the weather gets warmer, so I had noticed in recent weeks that they weren't pestering me on those early weekend mornings, and I was really rather happy to be able to just stay in bed and fall back to sleep.
Gink was never really one to pester me to get up for feeding time, though. He was often sleeping at my feet and took my predawn stirring as a sign that it was time for him to come snuggle. I would roll over on my back, and that was when he would move up to drape himself over my chest, or to snuggle between my arm and my body, or sometimes get up in my face and rub his chin against mine.
These early morning hours are one of the hard times for me right now.
I figured there would be certain times that would trigger the grieving pains, and I was right. Yesterday afternoon when I realized I hadn't fed Gytha her wet food yet, my heart started beating a little faster and my stomach tightened a little. I was trying to be very casual and matter-of-fact about it as I apologized to her for not realizing it was late, but when I took a single bowl from the dish drainer my chest squeezed a bit more and as I measured out the laxative powder that gets mixed with the wet food my hand shook just a tiny bit as I realized I was doing just the one dose now.
My physical reaction wasn't as strong when I did Gytha's evening dry food feeding, but that doesn't involve any prep time, so it was over much faster. I still haven't removed Gink's dry food bowl, and I saw her eating out of it yesterday afternoon. That gave me a little pang, but also made me kind of happy at the same time. They both often ate out of all four bowls interchangeably, and I had forgotten about that in my morose concerns about "his" bowls. Her not seeing it as "his" food bowl was reassuring in a way.
Still, I do think I need to change how their...her feeding area is set up. It was designed to fit four different bowls for two cats. Now the empty side will be a constant reminder of what's missing, and I don't want to have to deal with that. I want to reduce any triggers that I can, because there are many that I cannot.
Like bedtime, which is (so far) thankfully not as bad as the early mornings. Last night I was tired out from working in the garden all afternoon (and not having slept well the night before), so I had a brief moment when I looked at the edge of the bed where he sometimes laid by my side while I read or did crossword puzzles. I was relieved to not feel any pain at the thought. Gytha also settled in between the pillows more easily last night, which I realize now was a great help. Friday night she was very, very demanding of attention when we went to bed and kept sitting up and looking at the bedroom doorway as if she was expecting Gink to come in for their nightly routine of negotiating sleeping spots. Even after I'd turned out the lights I could see her checking the door and waiting in the dark. Very, very hard for me.
One of the most distressing triggers is the spare bedroom. For at least the last six months, if not more like a year, Gink had taken to sleeping on the twin bed in that room. I joked when my Dad came to visit recently that he was stealing "Gink's bed." In a way, this makes bedtime easier in general, because it wasn't unusual for Gink to go back to his own bed after a little cuddle time or during the night. Him not being in the bed with me when I go to sleep or when I wake up during the night is not a completely foreign feeling. But walking past that room and seeing the empty bed has been causing my insides to clench. It is ten times worse right now because we hurriedly shoved half of the contents of another room into the spare bedroom Monday night and Tuesday afternoon to make room for "new" chairs we're babysitting for some friends. That kind of clutter gnaws at me to begin with, and with all that mess and the painful Gink associations all rammed into one tiny place in such a short time, the room exudes unhappiness, especially in the dark. And you can't go anywhere on the second floor without walking by that door. I can deal with it if it is day time, the lights are on, and I'm working on getting rid of the mess. Focused, purposeful energy cancels out the negative stuff. So that's part of what I want to get taken care of this weekend. I thought about closing the door, but that just bottles up the bad aura and makes it seem even more menacing.
Night and darkness in general have become harder for me. I suddenly find it hard to
be in any dark room at all, and even dim lighting depresses me. I was so
relieved that the sun ended up being at least partially out for much of
the day yesterday. But as night fell, I realized my relative calm was starting to dissipate. And today and tomorrow are supposed to be
mostly cloudy. So far this morning has been the kind of dull, gray morning I
dislike anyway. If the sun doesn't come out at all, today may be a struggle.
Then there are the noises and the visual misperceptions. Ours is an
old house, and wood creaking isn't anything strange. But the attic steps
creaked yesterday while I was in the spare bedroom (where the door to
the attic is) and they keep creaking today, and it reminds me of cats going up and down those stairs. At night I'll hear a random noise from
one of the other bedrooms and, though it isn't even the kind of noise
the cats would make, it reminds me of Gink. At least two or three times
yesterday I caught something out of the corner of my eye and thought it
looked like a black and white cat shape. Each time everything clenched
inside for a split second. Actually, I almost had a mini panic attack at one point because I was seeing something at a distance that was triggering a mental image of Gink, and it took me a few seconds to figure out what I was actually seeing. For those few seconds I was getting incredibly upset that I couldn't figure out what it was, and I was struggling to stay calm so I could see the real thing instead and stop seeing Gink. That was a tiny bit intense.
I also can't get away from the litterboxes. The upstairs one in
particular is a trigger for me, since it has a lot of Gink associations
of all types. He had been rather lackadaisical about peeing for a couple
of years, just jumping in the box and going without looking, which was often right up against the edge and sometimes over it. Because of his "outside the box"
issues, I had to move the upstairs box out of the closet and into the
bathroom and get a new super large box with high sides. That's the one Gink used most and had used the day he died. I
seriously didn't want to clean up his last pee clumps. I avoided
cleaning it all day yesterday until right before bedtime, and even then I almost couldn't finish it.
I'm not sure Gytha needs such a large box, and the old smaller ones are
still in the basement. But just thinking about all of this is making my
chest hurt. Just cleaning the litter box is going to be difficult for
awhile no matter what I do, and I don't want to make too many changes in
Gytha's environment too fast.
Dealing with Gytha has been slightly distressing. She doesn't seem to miss Gink exactly, but she's been needing more attention and cuddling. Having to pay attention to her is a consolation that I still have my little girl and that she needs me even more right now. She needs me to reassure her of my love for her, and I need to focus on taking care of what I still have, of reminding myself that the rest of my heart is still there and needs attention. But she's also a constant reminder of what I've lost. We didn't have two separate cats. Regardless of whether or not they cared about one another, in my mind they were a pair. The dynamic has suddenly changed significantly. We are now cat parents of an "only cat." I've never had an "only cat." Gytha has never been an "only cat." This will take some getting used to for all of us.
Part of the reason I kind of wish she didn't need me so much right now is that my instinct is to draw away from interaction with others when I'm upset. This is not necessarily the best thing for me to do, since I know that being alone often makes any mental or emotional problem I'm dealing with worse for me. It allows me to ruminate and dwell, which is another reason why those early morning hours are so tough. Those were already times when I would lie in bed and think until I either fell asleep again or gave in and got up. Yesterday morning I woke up around 4 and had to get up and play on the computer for awhile before I could get back to sleep for another hour or so. At least this morning I slept in until about 5:30. But I needed to have another good cry, and it's even harder to breathe with a crying snot nose when you're lying down. So I decided it was a better idea to get up and write all those thoughts down instead. There aren't many people in my daily life that I can really "do" things with, and much of my social interaction is online. But even if no one reads this, I've always used writing as a way of trying to move things from inside to outside of my own head in order to give both the thoughts and my brain more open space. It serves as both a way for me to communicate with my own self, and maybe to share those thoughts with other people.
The one person I do have in my daily life (besides Gytha) is Tim, and he's the ultimate comfort. I'm definitely happier and calmer when Tim & I are together than when I'm sitting alone. We're both grieving for Gink, but together we can carry on our normal routines and that helps me feel more like things are "normal." Even though our version of "normal" tends to be sitting in the same room working on separate laptops, it's nothing like sitting alone in a room working on a laptop.
So, what's helping me so far is to keep busy and to stick to doing things I know I like to do. I'm happier and calmer when I'm working outside in the garden, which is an immense relief. Friday night I was looking outside at all my plants and didn't really care. The idea that the loss of Gink would steal happiness from other areas of my life was even more heartbreaking. But as soon as the sun peeked out Saturday morning I felt compelled to go outside, and as I walked around looking at all my plants my energy level started rising and my heart started feeling lighter.
Presumably I'll be fine when I'm back at work, although I'm wondering if I'll end up needing to take a half day or two off. I'm a little worried about Gytha. Being completely alone all day every day is different than doing your own thing in a house where another living being is doing its own thing. It occurred to me that Gink had the house to himself for a few days when Radioactive Gytha was in the hospital having her thyroid treatment, and I don't remember him behaving all that differently. Maybe some of Gytha's reactions right now are to our grief more than her own. But we're making sure she knows that when we leave we're coming back. We're probably going to go see a movie today or tomorrow, and we're going to make sure we both leave the house at some point on both days to try to prepare her for being alone all day after that. We're supposed to go to Dad's for Father's Day weekend, and I don't want to leave her. Even though we'd be gone for less than a day and a half, at this point I can't bear the thought of leaving her alone overnight.
I'm really glad the windows can be open now, partly because it gives Gytha something to do (birdwatching, nature study, etc.) and partly because I feel sort of claustrophobic being in the house. I also don't want to go up to the 3rd floor, probably because of that sense of oppression. It is where I found Gink hiding Friday morning, laying in the dirty, hidden space behind the door that separates the finished part of the attic from the unfinished room. But that's not really why it bothers me. He spent most of his time up there this winter when he was sick, so the couch up there is half covered in his fur. Which is part of why I really need to clean up there, but also not really why I don't want to go up there. It's rather dark, but there are lights. It's kind of small, but not terribly so. And I need to start taking crap up there to clear out the spare bedroom. But I don't want to go up there.
Maybe I will once I get done with this, get dressed, eat a little bit, get myself started on working through another day. Throwing things away and cleaning seems to be vital to my healing process as well as a good way to stay busy and something I wanted to be doing with my weekends anyway. So I really need to get myself working up on the third floor. Maybe music will help. There isn't much for me to do in the garden today. Not much on the internet or the rest of the world is of much interest to me right now. I have ingredients for a recipe that I was going to make on the grill, but I don't really care all that much about food right now, and I'm not sure the rain will make grilling feasible this weekend. I feel like maybe going for a walk even though it's still looking utterly dreary outside. Anything would be better than sitting around worrying that the tightness in my chest and gut will return. Crying again this morning felt helpful for my insides (not so much the "outside" with the puffy eyes, aching face, gums, jaw, ...), but a certain kind of numbness seems preferable as a general rule. I don't know if this is a form of the "denial stage" you hear so much about. I don't care about stages. I'm just going to deal with whatever I have to however I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment