This could be the saddest dusk I've ever seen

[etherati]

So, this last week was pretty godawful.

First, my parents lost another of the cats that I helped bottlefeed and hand-rear from two days old, back in 1998. Cancer, again, just like her brother. Their other brother is now the only one left. I can't say a lot about this part because I am still too devastated to process it.



Then a freak frost came through and completely destroyed my garden weeks too early. Just an annoyance, but god damn it.

Then I lost the musical bedrock of my life, which leaves me feeling strangely like... I don't know, like without a soundtrack, the rest of my life won't be as real as the first 31 years have been. There are certain things you expect will always be there, like the moon and the smell of newsprint on transit in the morning and the way the sky looks bruised and translucent after a storm, and REM was one of those things to me. They got me through more shitty things than I can count, and they told me that everything I was feeling had been felt and survived before, and they promised me that there was nothing wrong with me for being nostalgic and sentimental and for looking for all the lost and forgotten things, traced out in grainy black and white and framed by transistor radio static. It was okay to see things differently, to resonate with strangeness. Now I don't know if it still is.

Ugh. Damn it all.

I guess I just needed to get some of this laid out, here. Hopes for a better week coming up, please? :\

Comments

[sandoz-iscariot.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear about your cat. She looks like a beautiful girl. :(

[etherati.livejournal.com]

She really was, and so delicate and tiny. They were all sweethearts; I can try to remind myself that they had a way better life with us than they would have on their own, if they'd even survived, which seemed unlikely at the time. But that only goes so far, i don't know. it's rough, but that's not news to anyone.

Thank you though, I really appreciate it.

[wednesday42.livejournal.com]

Aw, pretty girl. :( *hugs you* Thank you for sharing her with us; I hope things look up for you soon.

[etherati.livejournal.com]

I'm still just having a lot of trouble really understanding it, since I don't live there and don't see them all the time and wasn't there when it all happened... it feels like something I understand in my head, right, but i'm still not really feeling the reality of it. like, i will go home this christmas and she won't be there, I'm having trouble with that.

Thank you for the wellwishes though; the way I figure this week can't possibly be worse than last.

[wednesday42.livejournal.com]

I had something like that happen to me with one of my cats. Pansy was mine since my fifth birthday - a little white cat with faint Siamese markings. She grew old while I was away in college, and I came home to not having her there. :( It was hard, and it doesn't get any easier to lose a companion like that, but that's what makes it so important to build good moments to remember. ♥

[etherati.livejournal.com]

That happened to my older cat, too. also got him when I was five, he lasted until I was 22, living out of state... the summer heat got to be too much, and the next time I went home it was like... wow. Nothing here makes sense now.

I'm sorry about your girl... it's a really rough thing to go through, and harder when you're in school, trying so hard to be diligent and focused, and then you get a phone call like that and everything goes out the window...

[tortoisegirl.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry about the kitty; calicos are my favorite cats and she's very beautiful.

The REM news took me by surprise too, and it's a huge downer. The music is still there to be played and sung though, and it certainly doesn't change the message of the music. It's all still true.

[etherati.livejournal.com]

I know it doesn't change anything REALLY, it just feels.. different, somehow.

Thank you, though. I'm still working on processing things with her, it's all so messed up.

[steals-thyme.livejournal.com]

*hugggsss*

She was beautiful. What was her name?

[etherati.livejournal.com]

Olivia. My sister named her.

[brown-mousers.livejournal.com]

:( I'm so sorry to hear about your kitty, she looks like a complete sweetheart in the photo.

I was sure REM was pulling a prank when they announced they were breaking up; they can't *just* break up, not now. I think I'm still in denial.

Anyway, here's to a better week.

[etherati.livejournal.com]

She really was... she'd just crawl up into your arms, she was tiny and light enough to do that without it being a huge comical process heh. She loved being near people.

And, yeah, that was my first thought too. Now I'm on to the bargaining phase of 'maybe if we all buy a ton of records they'll do a reunion tour in five years or something'. :(

[lotus0kid.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor sweetheart, both you and your adorable cat. I definitely didn't raise the cats I grew up with, but it hurt like hell to lose them and there are still times when I just sit and remember and miss them so much. But, y'know, I'm happy for the good memories and all that. I hope once the pain subsides a bit you can enjoy your memories too.

I haven't really lost a band that means a lot to me (yet), but I suppose it's not a very different feeling. As with the memories of your cat, the music REM's made isn't going anywhere and you can revisit it whenever you want. It's very sad they won't be making new material (barring a reunion, which I wouldn't call outside the realm of possibility), but that doesn't have to change the good things you get from their music.

Anyway, those are my two cents, such as they are. Let me know if you need to talk sometime, okay? *hugs*

[etherati.livejournal.com]

I hate how vividly we're capable of remembering, sometimes. It makes memories feel like a crowbar to the ribs. But of course I wouldn't give them away, I just wish they hurt less.

[lotus0kid.livejournal.com]

Ain't it the truth? I feel like I remember everything, sight, feel, sound- even smell (I could pass on that one, actually).

[etherati.livejournal.com]

Smell is processed in the same area of he brain as memory, that's why it's such an intense memory trigger. Sights, sounds etc can consciously remind us of things--remind us to remember them--but the right smell can drop us into being-memory of entire parts of our lives, without any collaboration on our part.

So, idk, I just kinda go with that one. Only way we'll ever be able to time travel, after all.

[lotus0kid.livejournal.com]

Definitely. Just wish I had better scent-memories for my cats than their yawn breath. I loved them like crazy, but... ugh.

[jackiemei.livejournal.com]

She really is a beautiful little cat. Thank you for sharing her with us. The world is a better place with sweet lives like hers passing through, fleeting as they are. I was sad about REM as well, my favorite band broke up this year too, (the white stripes) it is really difficult. Feels like a friendship gone by.

[etherati.livejournal.com]

I know... and on a longer timeline, our lives are just as fleeting, and the entire point is exactly that, to make someone else's better or make the world better. It just seems so cruel that you can get so attached to someone you know will live such a short time.

And yeah, it's so weird, it feels exactly like that. Like you have a friend, and you're just going along and everything's fine, and then one day they're like 'oh btw, fuck you', and walk away. And you're left with your head spinning and your hands in the air like... what just HAPPENED? Where did THAT come from?