Friday Gauge Check: No, I'm Not Ok

[crankyoldman]

I never feel like doing emotional check-ins when I'm doing alright. Huh. Anyway, guage checks are vis Ripping Back, which you should read because it's like therapy in blog form.

So the short of it: my cat died this morning. For most of my life we've had two cats, Salt and Pepper, and Pepper passed on a couple months ago, and Salt passed this morning.

Somehow this brought a lot of doubts back.



I had actually sat with him the night before, I knew he was going to die soon, just not HOW soon. I haven't talked about it much because QQ more on me, my cat is dying. It's not like it's a human, right? Only this particular cat was my favorite, and he's the last of my childhood pets that have survived. In April he would have been 21.

Anyway, I told him last night that it was ok if he wanted to sleep and not wake up.

As you can imagine, the fact that he stopped breathing this morning was more than a little upsetting! It was ok for him to do so; this cat was an ACROBAT, he was very active up until about a month ago. He could barely walk, and if you didn't watch him he'd fall asleep in the litter box. Salt was a white cat that was VERY particular about staying clean, and his fur had gotten all matted. My parents took him to the vet to see why he couldn't walk right this morning, and while they were taking X-Rays he finally stopped breathing.

I know that he needed to go, he was old and it had been a few weeks too long where he couldn't take care of himself. I'm just glad we didn't have to put him asleep, that he went so quietly.

Both him and his brother died before a vet could put them under. Wild barn cats don't get put to sleep, I think. It's not in their nature. And that's what they were born into, the barn in our backyard.

I had a conference call with work for an hour this morning, and my parents came back with the news in the middle of it (I was supposed to be there in person but some schedules got mixed up and I was told it was canceled and slept in like for a normal non-meeting day and they decided to have the conference anyway and I had to call in). I think I spent about half of that call with my phone on mute and speaker just crying.

See, my cat died, and I started to wonder if I would ever make a difference with anything. This tends to be a dangerous line of thought. Because no matter what I'm doing the conclusion tends to be that I'm stupid and I'm not really doing anything good for anyone. And then I go look at furniture catalogs for a couple hours and watch Fight Club.

My grief is nothing if not predictable.

And even though I stayed at home to do work today, because I was incredibly sad and it was absolutely freezing outside, I still had to work on some Diversity Guidelines for our huge NASA collab that may turn into nothing because NASA is full of bureaucrats that are more concerned with who is endorsing them than what they are actually doing.

I found myself kind of sickened as I tried to talk about how to make avatars actually look like the ethnicities presented, hold back my vitriol over certain gaming communities and their attitudes towards women, and wonder just why the hell I am the one writing this when it should be someone who has actually experienced the things NASA outreach is trying to cater to.

Then I read an article about intellectual property as it relates to imperialism and was glad that I didn't write the diversity essay for a fellowship, because I frankly don't deserve it. That girl I met at the open house who wants to go into engineering education in order to help people from the Ghana become engineers themselves and wants to use technology to improve her homeland, she can talk about diversity and what she plans to do for it.

I ended up spending two hours half writing and hating on academia then, and wondering why the hell I applied for grad school, because can I seriously do anything?

Then I thought about personal issues which I won't discuss here because it's personal.

But I finished those guidelines, and ate chili and had a couple beers, and my cat is still dead. And I'm still sad. And I'm still shaken in my confidence because I can't fix everything that is broken. Which is actually a major problem with engineers; we want to fix things, and when we can't we sometimes can't accept it at first.

I am however sure this will pass, as it always does, and if I sit in my bed with my iPhone of First Worldness and watch movies or shows until I pass out.

It will be ok later, but right now, it really is not. And I acknowledge this.

Comments

[wandererriha]

*hugs*

The death of a pet is always hard. Yes, they may be an animal, but they're still members of the family. I'm glad too, that he chose his own time to go. That's the way wild animals roll. 21. Holy SNOT. That is OLD for a cat. Even most Chihuahuas can't say they've seen the other side of 18. o_O;; Sounds like he had a good long run and felt that it was okay to say goodbye now.

Maybe I'll donate a bag of cat food to the local animal shelter in his honor. Usually I patronize the puppies (being a dog person, myself), but he sounds like he was a really awesome friend as well as pet.

Like you said, it sucks now, but it won't suck forever. *hugz again for good measure*

[finch]

I dunno, you may not be re-engineering Ghana, but you're helping educate kids. That's a very important thing whether it's in Africa or Europe or here. You can't FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS!!!1 but you're doing what you can.

I'm sorry about your cat. I still tear up when I think about mine and he died years ago.

[yukie]

Anyone who says QQ more has my eternal contempt and wrath, seriously. When Mir died, I was pretty much shattered. She was one of the few things keeping me wanting to live this life out when things were really bad. I thought, 'if Mir still loves me, I cannot really be the worthless despicable thing I'm afraid I am inside.' (The fallout from emotional abuse is great stuff.) So when Mir died (on her own terms - she went outside, curled up under the car beneath the muffler, and went to sleep, and that was that) - man, you are not a wimp at all for mourning, I still get teary thinking about this!

Mir was - well, we thought fourteen, but there was no real way to know. She kind of adopted us, and she was with us from when I was sixteen to when I was twenty-seven. Those were some of the worst years, and Mir was my anchor and my comfort.

Anyway. What you're doing is damn cool work. I knwo I haven't commented much about it because I never know what to say besides OMGZORS COOL.

We can't fix everything that's broken. it's really, really, really hard for someone like me to accept that, too. I'm stubborn as fuck, and such a knight type that it's ridiculous. Everything you can't do and can't fix can really come to slap you in the head some days. You feel helpless and hopeless and dense and like a flyspeck int he windstorm of life. it BLOWS. But it passes.

And it's okay for things to be not okay anyhow. Seriously. And if you need any help riding out the suck, fling a couple jellybeans at my head and I'll be there and do the best I can.

Cat people represent.

*epic hugs.*

[jack_of_none]

*hugs* I'm so sorry to hear about your cat. It's always hard to lose a pet -- they may not be human, but they are just as capable of love and affection and can become a very important part of your life.

I know saying this sort of thing isn't necessarily useful all the time, but I really do think you're doing a lot of tangible things to save the world, so to speak. Certainly more than myself and a lot of people I know. And maybe you weren't the perfect person to make that diversity guideline, but you still did it and thought about it in an environment where a huge amount of people don't even CARE. That in itself means something.

[ambersweet]

I'm so sorry about Salt, sweetie. He was every bit as much a member of the family as you are, and anyone who says differently is an ass.

I'm going to try and say this as clearly as possible, because I think everyone who becomes socially aware goes through the same sort of - mourning period, I'll call it. The moments when you realize that life is brutish and short and unfair and full of pain for so many people, and you can only do so much. Some people are inspired to go bring clean water to Third World countries, but for the rest of us: the pain, ignorance, and suffering of the First World is still valid. Without those of us who strive to make our own little worlds a better place, full of beauty and awareness and diversity, and art and music and science, who will be inspired to reach out to anyone, anywhere? It is only when your basic needs are met that you can be inspired to reach beyond, for equality and growth. What you are doing, in part, is teaching children - the people we will entrust to help solve the problems we can't fix - is that the world is much bigger, more wonderful, more complicated and diverse, than they could ever imagine. And that's important too. Because maybe the young woman of color that you inspire - because the girl in the game she played in seventh grade looked just like her, and she realized that she could be a scientist - will be the one who invents the solution to clean water for African nations.

[crankyoldman]

My logical brain in fact knows what you're saying is true and that I was really only focusing on the bad. But I guess I just had to get all those feelings of despair out, so I could look at them objectively later. And positivity in particular is something that you need to keep up when you're around impressionable youngins, I've noticed. And it's my emotional brain that gets upset when I can't fix every thing that bothers me, particularly when something out of my control and upsetting happens.

But thank you for agreeing with my logical brain and laying it out so nicely.

Also, I swear, I'll be able to ping with Lotus soon, I just didn't intend to have basically the worst day ever today. After some sleep and more food and all that I should be good to go. I decided this evening I'd just let it all out and tomorrow I'd start the moving on part.

[ambersweet]

Expressing your feelings is definitely a good thing to do; much better to let them out than have them fester.

Totally don't worry about Lotus until you're ready. He's definitely a much lower priority than taking care of yourself is.

[used_songs]

I'm so sorry about your cat. One of my dogs died two summers ago and I still can't think too much about him without getting upset. I guess we let animals in so close that it's inevitable that we're devastated when they die.

As for fixing things that are broken ... yeah. There are so many broken things that we can't fix them all, and to attempt to do so is self-destructive. But fixing the ones you can fix is such a service to the world.

[whitemage]

*HUGS*

Grief is grief, even if not for a human.

And you do a lot that matters--but I know you know that. It's okay to not feel that way from time to time.

I'm calling you. This is your warning.