This year: continuing to deal with the accident, feeling old & tired & sore; Sasha (the cat) getting sick & dying; and then entirely on the flip side, going to work at Evergreen. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what I’d be thinking of this year. Spending February through September worrying about Sasha, trying to take care of her, struggling over what to do with/for what was after all just a tiny little cat. And feeling old because of that too, because we’d had her for 15 years, and that measures how long we’ve been together, and her passing is the passing of time in some nebulous way. And then I’m just sitting in a coffeeshop crying over a cat. I’m grateful, too, for Matt & Rosalyn (?) & Bridget at Dylan’s birthday party for giving — I don’t know what to call it, but the understanding of fellow animal lovers and a bit of Buddhist wisdom helped hugely when we put her down two days later. Even if remembering the walk down the alley to the vet’s with C, with her in the laundry hamper, brings the tears right back.
The same way that six or eight months ago, I could end up dazed or weepy by just a flash of memory of the truck crash: the look of shock (?) on the guy’s face when he realized, I guess, that he was in fact running a red light, and going to hit me, and there was nothing either of us could do about it. And as much as I said that I was “ok,” I don’t remember this time last year really at all, except that I went to the “Apocalypse Party” that the library girls put on for New Year’s Eve, and that I got horrible stomach flu right after. (As in, ended up in the urgent care getting rehydrated.) I can still close my eyes and see the front of the truck crumpling up in front of me.
But really, once I got over that, it’s been the slowness, the way that the aftermath of the crash connected to every other thing I’ve ever been through with my body, having to treat myself gingerly, having to remember to have exactly the right posture and wear the right shoes and do my exercise…or I can spend hours of just barely bearable discomfort. And for a big chunk of the year “discomfort” meant too much pain to do dishes or knit or write or anything that meant moving my right shoulder at all. Massage and physical therapy and heat and cold and naproxin sodium, and all that making me feel old too, because every little thing is connected: the way I tilt my head or how I sit at the computer or a fall off of my bike 10 years ago. And also dealing with insurance: who gets paid what when, how are the bills handled, who talks to who. I still haven’t replaced the truck, even though I got paid for it, because I don’t know what I want, or even if I really want a car again. (We still have the Kia…which needs work.)
I’ve felt too stuck and shell-shocked to really get much else done this year. Which feels stupid at the same time, because I wasn’t “seriously” injured, and Sasha was just a cat. But at the same time I feel mostly relief at having dropped most of my volunteering obligations, even if I didn’t use the time or space to get anything useful done.
I have to stop here to go catch a bus to go to work. Maybe later today I’ll write a second year-end-ish post about that, since changing jobs has been one of the highlights of the year. And then maybe I can write a year-end-ish post that doesn’t make me cry. :\