Writing something down gives it the opportunity to scare you. Writing something down gives you the opportunity to etch your thoughts, anxiety and fear into this moment, the next, and the next. If you read it back to yourself later, you can torment yourself with your prior lament, or perhaps, if you're lucky, realise your worry was misplaced.
However, in the grand, cold, indifferent universe, no life is special, but we are creatures of habit, full of little chemicals and hormones. We are also fools. We tell ourselves that we can fight back against the inevitable. That things will stay just the way they've always been.
We are creatures of familiarity. Those people and creatures that surround us each and every day become part of the mornings and the evenings, and they have habits. Some make you smile, some make you scowl. The absence of either of them is a cause for sadness.
Earlier this year, my first, and my only cat (so far), Mia had some medical concerns surrounding compaction. In short, the old adage of if you don't shit, you die. A few nights at the vet, a whole bunch of treatments, and a whole lot (really, far too much) money later, she was back home and back to her healthy self.
In the time Its taken me to type up to this point, I've watched her try to use the litter box several times. It is a mechanical litter box, sso each time she tries to use it, it cleans itself thereafter, and my phone gives me an alert. She's in pain, and hasn't asked for food tonight.
She's been getting little laxatives in her meals for the last week or so, parafin oil, and flaxseed meal, to help her poo, and today she got proper Cat Laxative. I hope this clears, because, for the age she is, surgery to solve this problem is not the sort of thing that she would be likely to survive.
I'm not ready yet. No one really is. My wife certainly isn't.
We are fools.
We tell ourselves that we can fight back against the inevitable. The only thing that is inevitable is loss. That is why every single moment with every single person, and every single thing that you cherish is so very special.
You never know when will be the last time you tell someone you love them. You never know the last time you'll hear a particular song. You never know the last time you'll see your smile in a photograph next to a smiling friend. They too, don't know when that last will be.
The last time the so called kitten (who is really an elderly, grumpy old lady) wanders down the hallway meowing a loud greeting that sounds a little like "aye-lo" at four to five in morning when you're trying to sleep and be ignorant of the impending alarm.
I speak of Mia in present tense, because she is not yet lost to us, as I type this, but I have known, and do know - and did know, from the day that she entered my life, that someday, she would be lost. I saw that as a way of breaking down the barrier to the inevitable.
I am a fool.
I told myself that I could accept the loss before I experienced the loss, but here I find myself, on the precipice of a loss-that-may be, but not yet is, but that will certainly be - trying to tell myself that I will be okay.
I recently wrote about the fact that I am not trained to deal with success. I always expect the worst outcome, and that is my way of proxying my sensitivities and vulnerabilities, shoving them into a Schrödinger derived box. If I front-load the grief, it won't be as bad when it finally arrives.
I am a fool.
It isn't just the cats in the thought experiment who are simultaneously alive and dead. It is every cat, in every box, in everyone's lap, rubbing up against your ankle in the street, and those looking up mournfully for food.
We're all alive, and we're all dead. It is just a matter of observation.
