Grim Anniversary

[mallorys_camera]

When I wake up these days, I never quite know where I am. There's always a few seconds of disorientation, and then I think, Right. A house on Long Island. It's a very weird sensation with a distinct overlay of being some place else – where else, I don't know, but I ought to try and find out because whatever that place is, it's home.

Although I suspect it's less a place than a person. Like after four years, it still feels weird not to wake up next to Ben. I've made my peace with it on the waking, conscious level. We're buddies in the day-by-day, but the vines don't wrap around the same tree. There are a thousand things I want to say to him in the course of the average day, and there's no one else to say them to. But I suppose that's just the way it plays out sometimes.

Plus there isn't any guarantee that I'd even be able to say them to him. I mean obviously the cosmic playmate in my mind is not really him.

This is the one year anniversary of the hepatic encephalopathy that put Ben in Cayuga Medical Center ICU for a week.

I honestly thought he was going to die. I'm glad he didn't.

And we are also coming up on another anniversary that will be very sad for me – when I had to put Milo to sleep.

Milo was the best dog ever.

When I win Lotto, I'm buying you your own herd of cattle! I'd tell him.

And he'd hear the merriment in my voice, wag his tail, give that one abbreviated bark that was like the canine equivalent of, "Word!"

Increasingly I gave this sense that everything I've done, I've done before. Dunno whether it's residue from past lives, fallout from all those acid trips I took in my adolescence and early twenties, or some minor depressive psychosis. But it just all feels so eerily familiar, like soon I'll come to and the characters will start taking off their masks in the greenroom backstage in Bardo – Oh! You played Max in this lifetime! Cool! Although I think Iiked you better when you were George Mallory and I was Sandy Irvine on Everest –

I dunno. It's just an odd sensation. Extremely bittersweet.

In other news, I am just working my little tushie off generating revenue.

Comments

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

Odd, I've been having that same sensation myself lately. Like it's all been done before, only differently. And then, of course, there's the next thing...is that all there is?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll figure out something new to do when you hit VEGAS!!!!!!!!!

[robby.livejournal.com]

Years ago, I had a dog that died suddenly, and I was really shaken by that. I would catch myself calling the new dog, Halo, by the old dog's name. When we found a second dog, which was a stray, I named him Pogi after the original dog. He likes the name, and responded to it immediately. I feel better about the first Pogi, now that I have a second one. It's a little weird to use the same name again, but it worked out.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Milo was really Robin's dog, but Robin was very irresponsible about taking care of him so I was the one who ended up doing that. I like dogs, but I'm more of a cat person. Milo had the nicest personality of any dog I've ever known. Really a sweet guy to people he knew, but a great guard dog too, very protective. I miss him. A lot.

[crookedfingers.livejournal.com]

your bittersweet entry made me shed a few tears-I love dogs and cats all God's creatures-dog are wonderful friends and we sorely miss them when they turn to dust

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm a big animal lover too. Animals are so ... innocent. My present cat, Rutger, has gotten me through some rough emotional times. He loves me and shows it.