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I’m a writer; I think in terms of story. I assumed I’d have some definite third stage of recovery from that breakup, but no, just more process.

Not just the emotional work of disentangling two mingled lives and learning how to be in the same room and hold a practical conversation in civilized tones, and not give in either to the huge love or the awful rage.

There’s the special spoonie stuff, brought to me by CRPS/fibromyalgia/dysautonomia/Hashimoto’s disease. Learning how to get everything done every hour of every day of every week, with little help, no encouragement, no prompting or reminding that I don’t think to set up myself on that increasingly irritating & necessary phone, no underlying love to smooth the steps out or to rest in the soothing of, between efforts. With winter coming on, there is SO much to do. He has come over a couple of times to help with that. How do I say thank you without weeping?

I noticed when we first met, before we were ever lovers, that my pain and brain fog dropped when he was within about 16 feet of me. Once we were partnered, that symptom-suppression held pretty much all the time.

So now, I’m doing all this with an additional physical burden of pain and, dear heavens, so much brain fog.

It’s a process. It’s a two-steps-forward-one-step-back process… and, frankly, those are pretty boring to read about.

So yeah, it sucks. And I don’t get to stop working on it. Spoonies rarely get breaks, and never get vacation time, from being sick.

Onward.

I got a cat. She’s just over a year old, and came to me not knowing how to eat. (The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.) The first couple days, her hip bones kept getting sharper. A mini dog came over and showed her how it’s done. That was the first big bump forward. Her hip bones are marginally less sharp now.
She’s beginning to learn that that “I waaaaant!” feeling means she’s hungry. I don’t know how she lost track of that instinctive message, but she would sidle up to her bowl and then skitter away with a little flash of anxiety.

Drama is emotionally seductive and magnetic, especially to the young. So, that exciting pattern needed interrupting. I took up her food for hours, so there was nothing to sidle up to and skitter away from. At first, I held her bowl down to reassure her, but as she gets more settled and secure, I leave her to it once she gets started, and stay quiet so as not to distract her. I spent the usual cat-lady hours finding food she liked. (She’s definitely my cat: she likes real food, not Friskies.)

She’s quite a beauty — flared cheekbones, cute little nose, huge eyes with heavy liner, a charming overbite. A bit like Geena Davis, but with whiskers instead of dimples.

I’m taking her out with me everywhere. She gets along with everyone, having met eight cats, three dogs, two squirrels, and any number of people, with roughly equal aplomb. She’s turning into a service pet; already, my increasingly sluggish reflexes (which have given me some scares while driving) are slightly less bad. Wand-toys FTW!

Time to get on with wrestling the requirements for another day into a set of hurdles I can probably clear.

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