Everything fucking Dies around me or leaves me

I remember when I wrestled with that feeling, and my dad, zen as he is about such things said; “Everything and everyone leaves or dies, those are the two ways relationships end.”

I’m not sure that I ever totally bought into that. It does seem to be true, but that gap that you’re with them is the part that matters, it can often go on for years

animals that humans keep as pets have higher metabolisms than we do, and thus shorter lives. Their hearts and brains run harder, faster, and that wears them out. I currently still have my second dog ever, which is the first one I have raised knowing she will die before me. Yet she keeps on going, much less age related problems than I expected. The day will come though, and it’s gonna tear me up.

One thing I have noticed also is what I attract. I don’t attract ‘healthy’ people into my life, only people who struggle, and occasionally that struggle takes them out early.

The worst so far was losing a friend near my age… in her mid thirties, and then one day she was gone, there was no expecting it, no way to plan. I’m still giving it room to hurt, to let that sharp pain of loss come back, allow myself to miss her.

Compartmentalization, that’s the key to excess emotion that can’t be processed. I imagine my mind is like a warehouse, and on the shelves are feelings I can’t let go of, but also can’t dwell on. If one of them jumps off a shelf, as they do sometimes, I have to mentally go through the process of straightening the box it’s in, labeling it when I plan to speak to it again, and back on the shelf it goes

it’s kind of a library of the dead, which I find a respectful place for memory to rest