The Huntress and the Fireman

This morning I watched two of my pets while they were in the back yard. Chessie, one of our cats, appeared to be hunting something. Crouched low, swatting and pawing at the ground. She would pounce then claw pulling grass and dirt up with each strike. She would reposition herself lock back onto her prey and strike again. As I watched she was removing a fair amount of soil and was reaching deeper into the earth. It turns out she wasn't hunting prey but rather digging a hole in the yard. Bandit, our dog, Was lying there watching Chessie throughout her entire excavation project as well. He watched, his head turned lightly, his ears perked up, his stare unbroken. Bandit is a border collie and they are known for their stare. You'd have to see it to fully understand the intensity of this gaze. There we were, Chessie digging, Bandit watching and I being witness to the both of them. Chessie stopped digging and I can only guess it was to admire her work. It was then that Bandit got up, walked over to chessie, Stood beside her giving her a sniff then he raised his leg and commenced to p*ss into the hole that Chessie had worked so intensely at creating. Chessie looked down at the hole then slowly back up at Bandit. Without so much as a meow or twitch of her tail she walked off. I'm not sure if you're familar with cats but they can and will hold a grudge and if I were Bandit I'd sleep with one eye open the rest of the week.

Reality

Realization is a painful discovery.

Does no one see it?

Well, I am 7 months post-breakup and feel like I'm not making much progress in the healing process. I still think about what happened and try to find some sense in it, I still search for an explanation, and I still am affected by those feelings. I feel as if it affects EVERYTHING I do and, most of the time, I feel as though I go through the motions of the day with there being little meaning to what is going on around me. I fight every day to put on a happy face and go about life as though nothing has happened, but it is extremely difficult.

I heard the lyrics to a song the other day and it reminded me of how I feel most of the time:

"You cry yourself to sleep
Cause the hurt is real and the pain cuts deep
All hope seems lost
With heartache your closest friend and everyone else long gone
You’ve had to face the music on your own
But there is a sweeter song that calls you home

You’re not alone for I am here
Let me wipe away your every tear
My love I’ve never left your side
I have seen you through your darkest night

And I’m the one who’s loved you all your life- all your life."

This was a religious song, but it seemed to fit how I was feeling pretty well. On top of going through all of this, I find myself wondering why people can't look at me and see very plainly that I am still hurting. Do I really hide it that well? I look in the mirror and see it plainly. Do I act the same as pre-breakup? I don't think I do. I feel as though I'm screaming inside, "IT STILL HURTS!" but that no one notices or can hear me. With family and close friends, it's difficult to determine if people can't see it or if I'm doing a good job of faking it through each day.

We all have our own lives and this at least offers some explanation as to why no one notices - why it isn't plain to those around me. It's life and I need to get on with mine. It's a constant struggle to convince myself that's what has to be done.

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Misery seeks companion

Throughout my life I have heard people say "Misery loves company" and until recently I thought I understood what this meant. I believed it to mean that misery would bring about more misery. That while one is miserable they act and speak miserable and thus bring those around them to become miserable as well. At other times I thought that this meant that people who are miserable will only gather others who are miserable around them through commonality and that those who are not miserable will not want to be around them. These were the two main thoughts I had and understood to be true where misery was concerned.

I was thinking about misery again over the weekend, trying to understand it and why it loves company. Was misery trying to grow its numbers, gather a force? If it is true that misery loves company, why? What purpose would misery have for wanting additional misery around?

As I pondered over this, trying to get inside misery's head I started to come to another point of view. I thought about where misery comes from, where it likes to hang out, what it does from one day to the next. I was it turns out building a profile on misery much the same way an investigator builds a profile for a "person of interest". I was filling in the unknown details, fleshing it out and bringing it to life. Yes, I said life. Misery is a living breathing life form. It has a birth, it feeds and grows, it reproduces and most of all it is self aware.

With my new profile in hand I took another look at misery and the common quote about it and realized it was not correct. Misery does not love company...it longs for it. Misery needs understanding, it needs an ear to bend. Misery needs to be nurtured and embraced. Then like the catepillar turns into a butterfly so will misery morph into something beautiful.