Two-thousand Sexy!
Last year, on January 2, I wrote this to a friend:
“I’ve never believed in New Year’s resolutions or in the idea that a new year brings forth new beginnings and opportunities to start over, but 2005 was so uniquely horrendous from start to finish that I’m looking at 2006 with gobs of hope. I resolve to take better control of the things I can, embrace positivity so I don't drive everyone away with my incessant complaining, stop swearing so much (although I will make exceptions for words like “assclown”), and actively pursue a side career in English tutoring. I’m doing well on the quest for productivity so far: I was inspired to make pancakes yesterday, and because I’m trying to be optimistic, I have convinced myself that the next time I make pancakes, I won’t burn them. I also paid my maintenance check on time, washed the dishes, shaved my legs before they got to the stage of forestation, I even flossed. It’s all good.”
Well, what I can say from that is that the next time I made pancakes, I didn’t burn them. The rest is a wash.
Ask anybody and they’ll say 2006 was one of the worst years they’d ever had. Lisa had taken to calling it Two-thousand Sucks, which inspired me to rename 2005 Two-thousand Fuck This Shit (hence, contributing to the miserable failure of my resolution not to swear so much, cuz really, truck driver). For me, 2005 and 2006 were fraught with illness and fear and upheaval and stagnation and financial woes and emotional exhaustion and separation and loss and general, all-around shiteousness for myself and the people I care about. When the ball dropped two nights ago, I celebrated both because a new year had begun and because a craptastic one was over. Since then, I’ve been feeling reflective and weary, which had already been my state of mind since Gwendolyn died.
What happened with Gwendolyn was this: She was never the same after she lost her eyesight in November. She tried as best she could to adapt, and she really did well, but she had grown depressed, and adapting was so much work for her. Her blindness, combined with her kidney and liver disease, it was all just too much to take, and she began to let go. In the last week, she had stopped cleaning herself and wasn’t eating much, and by the last two days, she wasn’t eating or drinking at all, she wasn’t peeing, she couldn’t walk, and her breath had gotten so bad that we knew her kidneys had completely shut down.
The last night, the 26th, she could no longer hold her head up. We brought her into bed with us, slept with her, and we all went to the vet first thing Wednesday morning. Sadly, the vet who took such remarkable care of her all these years, Dr. Kinnear, was in Florida for the holidays, so he wasn’t able to say goodbye to her. Honestly, without Dr. Kinnear, we wouldn’t have had so many good years with Gwendolyn. But the vet who was there was so kind. He told us she was in end stages of kidney and liver failure, all of her organs had given out, and there was nothing we could do. We had some time alone with her, they put her to sleep, and Josh and I went home to figure out where we wanted to bury her. We know we did the right thing, and were somewhat comforted in knowing that Gwendolyn was smiling when she died. She was ready.
Let me say this: In my mind, euthanasia is the most humane way to let go of somebody. It allows the sick to make decisions for their own lives, it allows those left behind to say goodbye, and it’s painless and peaceful and complete and, in its own way, cathartic. If we’d brought Gwendolyn home to die, she’d be unable to move or eat or make decisions, and then she’d be gone. On Wednesday, we think she knew we were there and she knew we loved her and we were able to thank her for taking such good care of us. I think of the pain that my grandfather was in for the months before he died and the frustration and sadness that my grandmother felt in the months before she died just this July, and it boggles the mind that the most beloved people in our lives aren’t spared that pain but our pets are.
We buried her on Saturday in Josh’s parents’ backyard, in a spot that gets sunbeams all day long. Ironically, it was a cloudy day, but just as we finished pouring the dirt over the box, one ray of sun splashed across her grave — the only sun we saw that day, anywhere. It was like she was approving the spot. (Another sign of her approval on Saturday: We buried her with several items, one of which was one of her favorite toys that chirped when she batted it around. On the way to the vet to pick her up, the toy didn’t make a sound in the box, even when the car hit some sizable potholes. After we picked her up, we put her in the box and put her in the car, and the toy chirped during the entire drive to my in-laws’. We could have sworn she was playing with it.)
I have decided to look at Gwendolyn choosing to go when she did as her knowing that, despite the horrendous past two years, Josh and I will be fine. So I approach this next year with so much hope. I’ve learned a great deal in the last year, because after 2005, I knew I didn’t want to have taken all those punches without having gleaned something from it. So 2006, no matter how difficult, was a time to strengthen myself. Among so many things, I learned that sometimes the best you can do to take care of others is to take care of yourself first, to ensure that you’re strong enough and centered enough to do things the right way no matter how difficult. I learned, through my blog, how to keep perspective and hold onto a sense of humor when it seems like few things are funny and loose. I’ve learned, through losing my grandmother and Gwendolyn, that you can’t choose when you mourn — that if you need to cry at 3:30 one afternoon just because, that you should do it — and that nobody ever truly leaves us.
And I’ve learned that laundry lists of resolutions are all well and good because they remind you of the path you want to forge, and direction is a good thing, but the best thing you can do is take one day at a time and find the beauty where it is. And I truly feel that moving forward with that in mind is what’s going to make this a grand freakin’ year.
I wish all of you a happy, healthy 2007.
“I’ve never believed in New Year’s resolutions or in the idea that a new year brings forth new beginnings and opportunities to start over, but 2005 was so uniquely horrendous from start to finish that I’m looking at 2006 with gobs of hope. I resolve to take better control of the things I can, embrace positivity so I don't drive everyone away with my incessant complaining, stop swearing so much (although I will make exceptions for words like “assclown”), and actively pursue a side career in English tutoring. I’m doing well on the quest for productivity so far: I was inspired to make pancakes yesterday, and because I’m trying to be optimistic, I have convinced myself that the next time I make pancakes, I won’t burn them. I also paid my maintenance check on time, washed the dishes, shaved my legs before they got to the stage of forestation, I even flossed. It’s all good.”
Well, what I can say from that is that the next time I made pancakes, I didn’t burn them. The rest is a wash.
Ask anybody and they’ll say 2006 was one of the worst years they’d ever had. Lisa had taken to calling it Two-thousand Sucks, which inspired me to rename 2005 Two-thousand Fuck This Shit (hence, contributing to the miserable failure of my resolution not to swear so much, cuz really, truck driver). For me, 2005 and 2006 were fraught with illness and fear and upheaval and stagnation and financial woes and emotional exhaustion and separation and loss and general, all-around shiteousness for myself and the people I care about. When the ball dropped two nights ago, I celebrated both because a new year had begun and because a craptastic one was over. Since then, I’ve been feeling reflective and weary, which had already been my state of mind since Gwendolyn died.
What happened with Gwendolyn was this: She was never the same after she lost her eyesight in November. She tried as best she could to adapt, and she really did well, but she had grown depressed, and adapting was so much work for her. Her blindness, combined with her kidney and liver disease, it was all just too much to take, and she began to let go. In the last week, she had stopped cleaning herself and wasn’t eating much, and by the last two days, she wasn’t eating or drinking at all, she wasn’t peeing, she couldn’t walk, and her breath had gotten so bad that we knew her kidneys had completely shut down.
The last night, the 26th, she could no longer hold her head up. We brought her into bed with us, slept with her, and we all went to the vet first thing Wednesday morning. Sadly, the vet who took such remarkable care of her all these years, Dr. Kinnear, was in Florida for the holidays, so he wasn’t able to say goodbye to her. Honestly, without Dr. Kinnear, we wouldn’t have had so many good years with Gwendolyn. But the vet who was there was so kind. He told us she was in end stages of kidney and liver failure, all of her organs had given out, and there was nothing we could do. We had some time alone with her, they put her to sleep, and Josh and I went home to figure out where we wanted to bury her. We know we did the right thing, and were somewhat comforted in knowing that Gwendolyn was smiling when she died. She was ready.
Let me say this: In my mind, euthanasia is the most humane way to let go of somebody. It allows the sick to make decisions for their own lives, it allows those left behind to say goodbye, and it’s painless and peaceful and complete and, in its own way, cathartic. If we’d brought Gwendolyn home to die, she’d be unable to move or eat or make decisions, and then she’d be gone. On Wednesday, we think she knew we were there and she knew we loved her and we were able to thank her for taking such good care of us. I think of the pain that my grandfather was in for the months before he died and the frustration and sadness that my grandmother felt in the months before she died just this July, and it boggles the mind that the most beloved people in our lives aren’t spared that pain but our pets are.
We buried her on Saturday in Josh’s parents’ backyard, in a spot that gets sunbeams all day long. Ironically, it was a cloudy day, but just as we finished pouring the dirt over the box, one ray of sun splashed across her grave — the only sun we saw that day, anywhere. It was like she was approving the spot. (Another sign of her approval on Saturday: We buried her with several items, one of which was one of her favorite toys that chirped when she batted it around. On the way to the vet to pick her up, the toy didn’t make a sound in the box, even when the car hit some sizable potholes. After we picked her up, we put her in the box and put her in the car, and the toy chirped during the entire drive to my in-laws’. We could have sworn she was playing with it.)
I have decided to look at Gwendolyn choosing to go when she did as her knowing that, despite the horrendous past two years, Josh and I will be fine. So I approach this next year with so much hope. I’ve learned a great deal in the last year, because after 2005, I knew I didn’t want to have taken all those punches without having gleaned something from it. So 2006, no matter how difficult, was a time to strengthen myself. Among so many things, I learned that sometimes the best you can do to take care of others is to take care of yourself first, to ensure that you’re strong enough and centered enough to do things the right way no matter how difficult. I learned, through my blog, how to keep perspective and hold onto a sense of humor when it seems like few things are funny and loose. I’ve learned, through losing my grandmother and Gwendolyn, that you can’t choose when you mourn — that if you need to cry at 3:30 one afternoon just because, that you should do it — and that nobody ever truly leaves us.
And I’ve learned that laundry lists of resolutions are all well and good because they remind you of the path you want to forge, and direction is a good thing, but the best thing you can do is take one day at a time and find the beauty where it is. And I truly feel that moving forward with that in mind is what’s going to make this a grand freakin’ year.
I wish all of you a happy, healthy 2007.
Labels: food, health, pets, philosophical whatnots, the hubs, tributes
posted by Marla at 5:26 PM
3 Comments:
girl, you got it going on hard. that made my weep. thanks. 2007 gonna be a thang. watch out.
I swear, I didn't mean to make you cry. I've just been all reflective and pensive and unloadingish and stuff. Thank you for indulging me.
And I completely believe you're right: 2007 is going to be HAWT. I'm getting all sweaty just thinking about it.
never apologize for having done moved a person to tears. alls that means is we truly connected in ways only the lord understands.
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