Apathy

Haven't felt like writing at all, about anything. Dangerous, that. I've gotten out of the habit, and once that happens a dry spell can go on for years. So here I am! The Biweekly-At-Best Pagan, here to jump-start my fiction-writing habit again. 

I'd never wondered before if there was a god/dess of apathy. Turns out there isn't. one, at least not that I'm seeing in what was admittedly a cursory search. It's not surprising, I suppose. Apathy by its nature doesn't exactly evoke a personality.

My cat is sick. This is what's on my mind, so I'll write about that. 

Peanut is sixteen, and has always been the healthiest, most kitten-like cat imaginable. Then a few weeks ago she developed a tooth/bone infection, which wasn't diagnosed properly until it had already become severely infected. I'm full of guilt for not noticing until she stopped eating. I should have taken her in the day I first thought her breath seemed especially stinky. But it was even longer before all the other tests were run to rule out everything else that wasn't obviously her teeth as I suspected all along. 

In any case, she has had three teeth removed and we went through an agonizing week and a half of antibiotics medication that I would like to never repeat ever. Still, it persists, and we're doing another course of a different type. If this doesn't work, the next option is a bone biopsy. General anesthesia. Maybe they can kill the infection if they can identify it, or remove part of her jaw...lovely options, aren't they? 

It's a strange thing about pets, how close a bond we form. Peanut is the longest-running relationship in my life outside of my immediate family, and I have certainly seen more of her than them. She's as dear to me as a child and I can't believe that all of a sudden it may be time to think about her life, her future. I want more time. I won't ever be ready. I say this having lost my mother, my brother.

I'm an optimist, though, and I'm not going to concede that it's her time just yet. It'll be fine. She's got at least a couple more years, even if she is possibly going blind as her right eye slowly becomes filmed over with the third eyelid. It's bizarre and horrifying, reminiscent of Vikus becoming a prawn in District 9.

At least, that's what I think when I see it, and it makes me chuckle a little because humor, no matter how dark or inappropriate or badly timed, is how I deal with pain. 

Not too sure what any of this has to do with Paganism. We love animals, pagans. I'm a witch, but I wouldn't call Peanut my 'familiar' so much as my...child. I love her spirit, her voice when she hollers her meows into the echo-chamber of the bathroom, her demands for milk every time I open the refrigerator. 

Those last two haven't happened much recently. :(

It's a reminder that everything comes and goes and lives its time and we are never spared the pain of loss. It's a reminder that love comes in many forms, and that some of our closest relationships aren't with humans.