trisected

Tag: sadness

  • Learning from Sadness and Pain

    Today I spent some time with my friend, and just listening to him and how he is working through a really rough patch in life. I won’t share about his problems for sure, but I will share about what I learnt when I went through my own times of grieving and sadness.

    There is always something to learn about yourself as you suffer.

    I think I’ve gone through a lot of sadness, and in different forms. I’ve experienced grief from the passing of a loved one, the heartache of breaking up, the loss of a pet, moving and the change of where home is, alienation and exclusion, and the list goes on. It’s not a bad of honour, but it’s just the amount of things I was forced to learn at each of those times. I hated every moment of it, but I learnt the softness of my heart. I learnt how I can’t handle separation very well. It hurts for me to go through disunity. And I can’t stand the feeling of losing a pet.

    One of the key things I end up asking myself is how I could have avoided the situation. How could I not feel sad? Is there a way to avoid it? What do I need to do to make sure I can avoid this feeling? In this whole portion, I also found out how avoidant I am about sadness, and the length I would go to to make sure that I don’t feel too sad. But with things like death, I don’t have much of a choice. I have learnt to accept death, though extremely painful.

    There is always something to learn about the world around you.

    The world is not a great place, and as much as a lot of people like to say that everyone in the world is just trying to make the world a better place, they’re just trying to make the world better for them, and it’s always at someone’s expense one way or another. That itself is a sad situation.

    But directly dealing with things like grief and loss, I have learnt that it is actually common in the world. We are all sad creatures that are dealing with loss in one way or another. In fact, we’re losing time as I type this and as you read it. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to cry about it, but at the same time, I’m not really happy that I’m losing time. But I will cry about losing a friend, about losing a friend to death, and about losing animals to death too.

    The way the person dies is almost irrelevant, I will feel sad the same way. It is the absence of the person. The distance of eternity of living and dead, and I can never speak with the person this exact same way ever again. Death is the worst because I just cannot do anything to link back up with the person ever again. There is no more connection. It hurts the most.

    There is something to place about God at a time of loss.

    Perhaps God isn’t your term for this. But there’s this entity, after all your shouting and screaming, beyond the other sad people. There’s this person that you ask “Why did you take this away from me?”

    This question to this entity, I call God, and I know as God. I ask Him often (I attribute male because I am male, but I assume gender as a human thing, not a divine thing), why do you allow humans to take away from each other? To murder, to steal, to take emotions away.

    My answer from Him is usually because they can choose to give as well. As much as I am grieving from loss, I am also glad when receiving something. I am glad to to give sometimes, not all the time, because when I choose to give, I’m choosing to part with something.

    This portion gets a bit more Christian, but bear with me, I’m just sharing what I learnt about God through my sadness.

    This frames as well my idea of Jesus as a saviour, as God’s gift to mankind. It’s an imagery of God parting with Jesus. It is sad, it is hard. It is painful and difficult. But he gives Jesus to us for the sake of our futures. It is good to receive Jesus because I can later have a solving of a lot other brokenness because what having Jesus means.

    It is painful, but God relates. It is separation. God relates.

    Why, God? Because there’s something to learn from it.

    It might never feel good, but I am learning from it.

    I don’t know how to cheer people up very well, as you can tell. All I can ever say is, I know your pain, and I will cry with you. I am crying with you tonight my buddy. I hope it cheers you up a bit to know that.

    Why, God? What do we have to learn today?

  • Too many feelings

    There’s a lot that I think about during the day, but I found out in my teenage years that I feel a lot too. There’s good and bad things to feel about. A good thing to feel would be the sympathy for stories in the news. Something goes wrong and an accident occurs, and I feel sad. A friend shares their sorrows, and I grieve with them. Then there are bad things to feel. Not bad, but just not worth my emotions. Like when I read a book, and then I dive into this weird world of feelings, and I can’t get out of it, until I finish the book. Then the feelings resolve, because the story resolve.

    But now in my thirties, I don’t know how I really feel at times. I think I am hiding a lot more sadness and grieving. For family and friends who have passed away. For friends of friends, or family of friends, that affects me too. There are moments where these feelings peak from under the covers, and I find myself crying a bit too much at certain moments.

    Perhaps its about sharing my emotions. I’m not sure when they should be shared, and now with my wife, I feel like I can share a lot more often. I feel like they might leak out because they will eventually come out when I talk with her. I know that sharing emotions of joy and happiness is easy for everyone to deal with, but at the same time, sadness is one that is a lot more common than happiness.

    I’ve got some deep feelings about something that I can’t write about yet.

    It’s sad, like a big sad. Like a whale sized pimple of a feeling that is deep inside my heart, and it’s aching from the soreness, but at the same time it’s not popped. That sounds disgusting a bit, but I guess the feelings attached to this situation is deep and painful. It’s not gross, but just a deep sadness.

    Also, I guess because I’m sharing this sadness, hopefully this means that I’m not actually depressed. I mean I’m pretty sure I’m not depressed, but I know that I’m sad inside at this time.

    But on top of all this, I’m happy and excited that work is picking up in big ways. That one everyone can understand, so I don’t have to relate too much. No imposter syndrome, some anxiety, but mostly a sense of general happiness and excitement to get some work going.

    Maybe it’s time for a personal work of art to finally start because there’s so many things to feel for.

  • Updates on Life after Junah

    It’s been a week since, and I thought to update everyone how things have been on the pet side of things.

    I’m still sad, but I think many of my friends have comforted me. I have had people to talk to, and other friends who have also lost pets have grieved alongside in the past few days. I personally think that just being able to share about my sadness and to have people understand it was greatly comforting.

    I think one of the first things that gave me the most comfort was the funeral. I wasn’t in attendance of course, but the aunty next door showed me the pictures of the funeral. I saw how well loved Junah was taken care of, and I really felt a certain sense of peace and rest. It was really a lot more mentally for me to let go of. I could just see her resting, and then there was a cremation, but it seemed peaceful in that sense still? I’ve been for so many cremations, that I think life just happens that way for sure. But it was still comforting to see the ceremony before they cremated her. I still cried, but at least there was comfort in the passing.

    Over the week, I’ve been more concerned for the uncle next door. He’s not very mobile, so it takes some effort for him to move around. He only goes out of the house for hospital visits, and Junah was really his best friend for the past nine years. I’ve been feeling his sadness the most now.

    I was worried that he might not have had a time to talk it out, to just say whatever was on his heart, so I actually made quite a bit of effort to stick my head there and ask him if things were okay.

    Junah used to bark at every single one that walked by their house, including Clarice and myself. This really gave some sort of life to the house, and also gave him a sense of activity. So I commented to the uncle that our houses have been so quiet with her gone. He reminded me that she would bark, and then run out of the house to hang out at my house every time I came home. It still pains me a bit to type this part of the story out, because it was really as if Junah had two houses for the past three years. I feel as if I’ve had a pet dog over the past three years too.

    Uncle shared about how he took care of Junah at the start, and how he had cared for her through and through. There were other things we ended up talking about, but I told him that I’ve been praying for him this whole time. I wanted him to know that I also know how he feels, because I feel similar. I am sure he feels it so much more, but hopefully knowing that I share that little bit with him would help him find some little bit of comfort too.

    Anyway, tonight, one of their son’s dogs has come for a short stay over – her name is Coco, and she is a very cute poodle. Hopefully that helps Uncle for tonight. I had my time with Bobby (my family dog) and I’m sure that helped me in a large way too.

    Although, I am really not looking forward to Bobby’s passing. It will be hard for all of us for sure.

    Thanks for caring everyone, it truly means the world to me.

  • Dealing with Separation

    It’s been a very emotional past few days for me. I’m finally at a point where I think I’m ready with my feelings, and I can actually say something that makes sense. If you’ve been following my Instagram, or read a few posts back, I’ve said briefly that I’ve been fostering two kittens. It’s been a good month since, and now we’re at the start of June, and the kittens have been adopted.

    Fostering Kittens:

    involves availing your home to be a safe space for kittens to stay in. This means cat proofing your house where appropriate. My windows had a simple mesh placed over it, where the cats would not be allowed to climb through. Later, we also found out that there should have been better ways to manage the kittens climbing through our cutlery and crockery.

    As this is going on in your house, a listing for adoption goes up, and the kittens can be legally adopted into your home. I don’t know what the full process of that is, and would probably be an adoption post on its own, but all I did this time was fostering. The foster family is given priority to decide if it wants to keep the kittens and adopt them. Unfortunately for us, we’re in the middle of too many things for us to take on a pair of kittens that would grow into full size cats.

    Then comes separation

    And so, the time comes when potential adopters come by to visit, and to check out the kittens. It’s a simple process, they just see if they like the kittens, and if they’re okay to take on the ownership of the kittens in the long run. If they’re okay, then they will have to start the process of cat proofing their house, and getting all the necessary parts in place.

    This process takes about a week or so on the quick side, and for us, it took about two weeks for the adoption family to confirm that their house was ready for the kittens to come.

    Emotions

    It wasn’t always easy taking care of the kittens, in fact, it was really quite a challenge. At the first week, they couldn’t jump too high, so we could prepare their meals easily, and they would just wait somewhere for us to get their food ready. Then after some time, they could jump higher, and get in the way of preparing food.

    I remember one morning, I was preparing the meal, and they jumped on the plate as I was weighing it, so I basically grabbed one of the kittens and the plate of food, and put them into a corner and sort of left the other kitten to struggle to eat whatever was left of the food. Probably a spoonful or less. I was really upset. The kitten with less food kept whining cause it was hungry, but it was because the other kitten had taken all the food, I wanted them to learn. The whining continued but my logical brain took over and realised cats cannot reason the same way. I took the kitten that ate more food, and put him into a locked room, then I fed the other kitten a full bowl of food. It was a very angry morning, but it forced me to think very creatively how to feed the kittens in a way that would be fair. Great lesson on how to think creatively.

    By the last week, we couldn’t eat at home, because the kittens would jump into our food, or try to stick their hands into anything. i wasn’t cooking anything, but just eating out before rushing back to take care of the kittens. It was really quite a mess of a schedule.

    There were good emotions too. The kittens were quite afraid of the rain and thunder, and during one of the nights, they were hidden away into corners of my house, trying to hide out. So I sat in the middle of my home, and they came out to sit near me. I placed them on my lap or around me, and pat them to sleep slowly. That really made me grow to love them, and want to protect them.

    And then there were deep sadness that overwhelmed, especially when they left and were leaving. The night before they left, we tried to sleep outside with them, but instead they were just running all over and having the zoomies. I still spent some time to hug them to sleep, or to just hold their paws through the day. I did this thing one with of them, where I would wrap the kitten with my tshirt, and pouch her up, like a little baby, then walk around the house. This gave her some sense of comfort, and I walked around the house like this for quite some time.

    And the moment they left, I cried, so hard. I missed them being around, hiding in the different corners. I missed having a little one to pat to sleep at night, or to carry around the day. I missed the hassles of having to feed them, or the frustration that came around our lifestyles. It felt real, and something bigger than ourselves, Clarice and me.

    The next day, I came back to the house alone, and I said “Hi Kittens, I miss you” to no kittens being around. Then I just walked around the house bawling my eyes out. Just plain and simple wailing, as if someone died. Because at that point, someone did leave me, and it was the kittens.

    I searched out how to deal with the loss of a pet, and I just kept looking for help. Recommendations were things like writing memorials (like this one), or to share with people who understood it. So I wrote a really sad post on Instagram, and cried profusely as I wrote it. I just missed them so much at that time.

    It was really a mix of the little things, having to close the door slow, or having to watch my feet. Paying attention to what time it was and what food was needed to be prepared. Closing the door quick enough at times as well, to prevent them from going in and out of places, or the weird visits while I was on the toilet. It was really a mix of all these things.

    In terms of lifestyle, it was a lot of coordination. Both Clarice and my own schedules needed to be aligned to see who needed to be feeding at which time slots. We were running around often, trying to settle our work timings, our free slots, and just trying to get by alive. It was a really crazy thing.

    And all these things were things I missed. I really cherished my time with the kittens and learning from all these things. I miss them so much, but they’re really just too much for me to handle in my life, at this time.

    But now

    Now they’re in a good place. They’re relaxed a lot more, and I think they’re really having a great space of their own to grow more, and become the kittens they could really be. I hope that all of the time we spent together was good for them, and I’m glad that they’ve survived us well. We were just trying to make sure they were staying alive at some point, but I think we really loved them deeply. I know I definitely did.

    I’ll do a few more posts coming up soon about some moments with them, but I’ll stop it here for now. I’m really tired, and I’m just putting my thoughts out before I forget them.

    I miss you kittens, hope you both are surviving well.