Moving Forward?

When you wish for something for years and years...decades really...and then just like that it happens there is this sort of free-falling shock that descends upon you.  I got my wish...now what?  I spent so much time thinking about the wish, the unattainable dream that I rarely considered the implications of the 'now what'...but here I am and 'now what' is a concrete, tangible thing.

Consider dear reader those people who wish to win the lotto and those who do and then they squander the gift bestowed to them?  We say with the certainty of the unlucky, that will never be my story.  But really...how can any of us know if we haven't walked in those shoes?

I'm in those shoes now, undoubtedly lucky, undoubtedly blessed and undoubtedly on notice to NOT FRITTER AWAY ONE OF THE BIGGEST ENDOWMENTS OF MY LIFE.

That's why my daily writes (I have taken to writing on a daily writing practice site) are filled with many lines of lists.  I am trying to urge myself in the face of no structures or strictures to create happy habits and customs that support my wellbeing rather than contribute to my degredation.  A good retirement doesn't just happen by itself people, you have to WORK AT IT.

Primary to this new state of weightlessness is attending very consciously to my physical well being.  This means that my natural tendency toward catatonia must be curbed in favor of movement, and daily motion at that.

I'll let you know how it goes.

RIP Magda

You know the old saying that goes as door opens another closes?  Well, even as I was rejoicing my new status, one door was slowly closing and I didn't want to look, was loathe to pay attention.  The door, only slightly ajar as I graduated to a retiree was my cat's presence on this plane of existence.  She closed that door last Friday.

This was a cat that hated the vet's office more than anything so we knew her death would be entirely at home.  She'd been suffering from wasting syndrome for two months but we'd managed to keep a little food in her through some slight of hand...shifting in different types of cat food...first this theoretically tasty and irresistible morsel , then another and then another, interspersed with small bits of roast chicken and ice cream from our own plates.   It kept her going but she lost weight, then teeth, then hair and one can not not look at the bony ribs and spine of a molting 17 year old cat and not know the end is near.  One knows it but doesn't know how to process it fully.

The thing about Magda was she was a scrapper from the hood masquerading as a long-haired show cat. She was active, vocal, flamboyant and single-minded right up until the last day when she dragged herself upstairs to my lap to announce, 'yes Mom, this is the day that I'm going to transition to another realm...can I just sit here with you for a while?'

God.

Of course I sobbed when it happened a short while later.  I'm crying now but with the knowledge that she lived her life fully.  That Friday was her time. Mags was one of those cats that literally had nine lives.  She miraculously cheated certain death multiple times and all without the aid of the veterinarian industrial complex.  This beloved feline, who started out as a feral maniac, made many conscious decisions to stay with me (yes, I begged).  So when she came to me Friday, exhausted, barely able to stand...I knew, I knew this was different than before.  It was leaving time.

Letting a pet go is such a personal thing.  They literally inhabit the most intimate spaces in your life.  They are there when you fall asleep, during your sleep, when you wake up, when  you come home, during meals, bathroom breaks, showers, through all seasons, good times and bad.  For 17 years she was a constant, she was my little shadow and knew me better than most people did.  To say that there is a void in my life now is an understatement but I'm very much in the better to have loved than not loved camp.

My life was enriched by her being-ness and I am so, so grateful.

Magda, I love you and I will miss you deeply.  Bye bye girl.