Being a Writer is a Curse

Being a writer is a curse because when something happens, you have to write about it. It torments you until you do. And if it's a sad story, you get to relive it through every draft and rewrite. You let it break your heart over and over so you can recreate the pain and put words to it.

My second husband was a drinker, so when something bad happened, he drank to it until it went away. I have to agonize through what happened and why, put in it words somewhere so I can keep revisiting it and reliving it.

I've put the details of my less than two months with Callie on my cat blog, but there's no getting around the fact that I stressed that cat out today by picking her up and taking her to another room for a few minutes -- she did not like being far from her chair in the back bedroom. I stressed her out so bad, she had a heart attack or a stroke and died in my arms. And I can't give myself closure now because it's already getting dark and there's two feet of damn snow on the ground and I can't even get out of my house, much less find a fitting place to bury her.

I can't even comfort myself with any good memories or kitten photos because Callie came to me as a rescue, a deaf, declawed cat of an unknown age with an unknown history. Unknown everything. She never seemed thrilled to be here, despite our lavish offerings of gourmet foods and a cushy chair in a quiet room, kept warm around the clock with a heating pad. Except for the heating pad, she wanted none of it. She didn't want the fancy foods, or the attention, and certainly didn't want to be picked up and shown the snow through the window. If I had not done that, she'd still be alive, sitting behind me in the chair. She'd be able to die when she was ready, not when I pushed her into it.

I've had two cats die in my arms this year and I think both of them just wanted me to leave them alone.