I’m really struggling to write these days. I have all these thoughts in my head and I just can’t seem to make them come OUT. I’ve been trying to write this blog post for a few weeks now, and so far all I’ve managed to do is put two pictures in a draft. That was TWO WEEKS ago. 🙁
The time of year doesn’t help I guess. Of course I would want to write about my birthday, but be unable to for some unknown reason. My birthday is coming up soon and I feel like, more often than not, it’s marred with sadness beyond my control. You can think I’m crazy for feeling that way, but I do believe it goes back to the day I was born. You see – I started life being born in the shadow of an older brother who had died as a baby. His birthday was four days before mine. My parents did a great job making my birthday special every year! Just knowing about his birthday will always remain in the back of my mind though.
Then last year… what was supposed to be a nice relaxing vacation turned out to be anything but. I needed a vacation more than anyone could ever understand. Instead, I am still trying to find the words a year later – still in desperate need of a VACATION. I’ll write about that someday when the words finally come to me.
Ah, but Millie…
It has been five years since we lost our crazy little Millie! She was our first experience with cancer and sadly not our last. I sure didn’t know at the time that she would teach me so much. This was one of those “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” situations that I would lean so much on a few years later.
Millie was 11 when we adopted her and she was quite set in her ways. This poor girl didn’t even know how to PLAY! I think she had been quite content with her life prior to coming to live with us. Just a lap cat. Once she understood what toys were for, there was no stopping her! She wanted to play ALL. THE. TIME. It didn’t matter how sick she got. PLAY. PLAY. PLAY.
Millie stopped eating suddenly in January. Our vet (who THANKFULLY doesn’t work there anymore) was no help at all and didn’t dare say the “C” word out loud. Our first priority was that we had a cat that wouldn’t eat and would quickly get fatty liver if we didn’t do something immediately. I took it upon myself to figure out what to DO about her not eating. This led to THREE MONTHS of round the clock syringe feeding. We didn’t have any control over the aggressive cancer that was taking over, but there was no way I was going to let this girl starve.
Millie lost her battle the day before my birthday. That’s when I learned: most of your “friends” on Facebook aren’t paying a damn bit of attention to what’s been going on in your life!
I got up the next day, still unsure of what had just hit us. I found my Facebook wall filled with wishes for a happy and wonderful day, and it absolutely angered me! Where were these people when I was going through HELL the previous three months? Of course there were several messages from people that wanted to wish me a happy birthday but weren’t sure what to say. I appreciated those wishes since they were sincere. The rest? Well they’re the reason why my birthday has been hidden from Facebook the last five years. I decided I only wanted sincere birthday wishes, not wishes because Facebook said so.
I’m going to try an experiment this year! I have so many new, positive friends on Facebook – I’m really curious to see how my birthday might end up. I figure I have nothing to lose and I can always change my settings back to hide my birthday if I feel that’s what needs to be done. Maybe it’ll actually be a POSITIVE experience. I sure could use that this time around.