Good Bye Mister Pink

I surrendered Frankie to Animal Care and Control today.

I was fine, really, just fine, I don’t need no stinking cats.

I was fine until they asked why I was surrendering him.  Mild outburst of tears.  How humbling to be at a place in my life where I am incapable of taking care of anything else besides myself.

I have no pets.  I have no charges.  I have no plants.

I am left with me.

I just got off Google trying to locate a place to go get a massage.  I have been dreaming of this massage now for days.  And with the newly discovered extra day off I have tomorrow, I want to do that.

I was going to go to Kabuki after I dropped off Frankie.  But once the paper work was done and I said my goodbyes, all I really wanted to do was go shopping.

And how handy.  I am right by the Valencia corridor.  Lots of shopping there.  Let’s do it.

I crossed the street on 15th and Harrison and walked one block toward Valencia, which brought my to Folsom.  I crossed Folsom.  Then I realized, oh, I want to retail therapy shop.  There is nothing I need.  I have food in the fridge.  I have lovely clean clothes.  I do not need to feather the nest any more and the only thing I really want to buy, is better left until tomorrow.

I am going to give myself a little art project to do tomorrow.  I am going to make home-made Valentines Day cards.  I have been thinking about doing that all weekend.  I am just going to have a little play date with myself.  I will go to the store, which ever one makes most sense, and buy some stickers and some construction paper, and some glitter glue and go to town.

I will go to the post office and buy “love” stamps.  I will be silly.

Because today I am sad.  And sad is alright.  Once I realized that I was headed toward retail therapy land I turned back around and headed home.  I enjoyed the walk.  I let myself feel sad.  I looked at the sky.  I felt the quiet of the city, all eyes turned toward Footballlandia, and breathed, in, out, full breaths, quiet.

I got home.  Made myself a cup of tea and did some reading in the late afternoon sunlight.  I finished the first 164 as it was suggested to me and then I made dinner.

I am responsible to nothing but myself.  No man, no family, no pets, hell, not even any plants.

Although I did get myself a gorgeous bouquet of flowers yesterday–my space is cozy and sweetly scented and pretty.

Muy bonita.

Aurora just stopped by to make sure that I had a shower curtain up and that I was not throwing toilet paper down the toilet.

Ahem.  Cultural differences aside.  She quite likes what I did with the space.  Muy, muy bonita.  Thank you.  I like it too.  And it’s all I am responsible to.

So strange.  What is left when I strip away the ideas of who I am and what I do.  The spinster with cats is no longer on my story board.  Neither is caring for everyone and everything to the determinant of my own care.

Learning again and again and again to keep the focus on me.  How do I love on myself today?  Find a massage for tomorrow.  Call Carolyn.  Let my feelings happen.

Take comfort in the compassionate woman at ACC who intook Frankie and was sweet as pie and said what  a handsome boy he was and that they would have no problem placing him.

Thank you.

It is humbling to have these things taken.  My identity.  My thoughts about what I need to be and for whom and what.  I am uncomfortable putting the focus on myself.  But that’s where it must be.

Last night Thea asked me who got me flowers.  I said me.  The she asked, what’s the special occasion?  And I said, without thinking, I love myself.

And what do you know, I found in that moment that I do indeed.  That the constant habit of giving myself nice small things, actually has helped me cultivate an atmosphere of love.  Letting myself have warm blankets, more than one.  A bed that is not a mattress on the floor.  Organic fruits and vegetables.  Clean socks.  Nice lotion.

Small kindness that I always believed you deserved, but me, not so much.  Or if I had something I liked, and you liked it, of course, it’s yours.

I have felt at times, a lot recently, that I also buy my way into relationships.  I want to buy you things when I feel the need to be connected.  To be loved.  Love cannot be bought that way.  I adore doing small gestures for people, but what I find is that often I  feel an obligation to purchase some thing for some one.

And this need pulls the attention off me.  Boy, on some hands, I love, adore, give it to me, drama, adulation, attention.  More, MORE, MORE.

MORE.

But it is a certain kind of attention.  One that is flamboyant and noisy and rah-rah rah.  Look at me, see the smile pasted on my face, see how wonderful and awesome and cool I am.

Really, I’m not.  I just want you to think that.  So the kind of attention that I am talking about is letting myself discover what it is that I like to do.  And what I can do for myself.  I feel that I have gone over too far to the side where I do nothing for people, to compensate for all that I have done before.

I am striving to find the balance.  To replenish my well.  To better be of usefulness.

For that makes for happiness.

So for the moment, I am shed of yet another thing, my cats, that I believed defined me and who I am.

I am just a girl, in a room, in the Mission.

Tags: cats, love, play date, postaday, The Mission