weekly retro #70: asked the vet for a lobotomy but they said no
happy june, happy pride. it's also the beginning of what i'd been preparing for weeks, which is a new chapter in my cat's life as a (hopefully) cancer-free tripod.
in this weekly retro i talk about some dark stuff but calling attention to the dark makes the light even brighter or whatever. oh, and go knicks!
taking care of people, and animals, comes easy to me. what's hard is making sure i don't isolate myself to just that care. i still have candles to make and ship, ceramics classes to attend and learn from, muscles and bones to exercise and strengthen, birthdays to celebrate and bloodwork to do. if i can sleep just a little bit more than the city does then i am doing okay.
i'd been through this before, in april, when pumagreg had his first surgery to remove and test the tumor in his leg. an "injection-site sarcoma", a rare cancer that's removable by amputating the limb - hence this current situation. it's been a really tough few days, for him and also for me. being there for him is very easy, but seeing him in pain is one of the hardest things i've ever had to deal with, and it brings back a lot of feelings from times where i was in pain and was not taken care of when i should have been.
when i was in second grade i had my adenoids and tonsils removed. my dad's then-wife threw a drunken fit the day after because i, a 9-year-old recovering from surgery, couldn't walk the dog. she opened the door to the apartment and spitefully let our dog out alone to walk itself and we never saw it again. i'd like to think the dog found a new, more loving and caring family - imagine the miracle of finding a little shih tzu wandering on the side of a route 9 just a few days before christmas! a couple days later on christmas eve i started coughing up blood from my throat wound opening up. no christmas miracles for me.
we'd like to think that humans are innately programmed to take care of each other, but if you look at the world it truly feels like that's not the case at all. i think moments like that christmas, where i wasn't nurtured or taken care of, taught me how to nurture and take care of others. waking up every 4 hours to give pumagreg his pills or crossing state lines during a heat wave for the equipment to make a cheesecake for a loved one comes easily to me. the hardest parts are the intrusive flashbacks to when i wasn't given that same care by adults who were supposed to give it.
i'm trying my best and my best happens to be really fucking good, but it took a lot of work to get to the point where i believe it when i say it. i have a more work to do, though, because i know life has more obstacles to throw my way and i am exhausted of feeling the feelings of 20-40 years ago on top of the present.
as i go into a week of myself being poked and prodded, my quarterly thyroid and pituitary check, i am feeling frustrated but also grateful to have my body and enough energy to care for others still. pumagreg, whose adoption was a christmas gift to myself 12 years ago - although from a shelter, not the street - is adjusting to the changes of his body well and he's under the best care and i've told him about all the well wishes all of you have sent him.
things i enjoyed this week
- go knicks!
- the cheesecake above was made from claire saffitz's lemon basque cheesecake recipe video. i don't have a large food processor but i have a vitamix and that worked out great. i don't bake often, so i typically expect things to go terribly but this was pretty simple and very delicious.
- i finally got an instant-read thermometer, just to make that cheesecake. i always assumed they were super expensive for some reason but i paid like $12 for it at home depot and i'm so glad i have it on me for future cooking endeavors.
- i finished bob the drag queen's harriet tubman: live in concert during one of my laying-on-the-bathroom-floor-near-pumagreg sessions. it's a fun read with a clever concept by an artist i've always enjoyed. it should be a broadway show.
preparation doesn't make hard things easy, just easier. this week was very hard, but i knew it would be and i'm glad i prepared for it. let's hope all that works lends itself to an easier week ahead.
xoxo jenn