what goes on

lingering in my life forever

*** as a quick disclaimer, I’m moving toward writing more fiction, trying to inhabit different voices. Obviously anything you write about is going to be loosely rooted in your experience. But this is intended to be fiction, the narrator of this is not really meant to be *me* … I feel the need to clarify bc I write a lot of personal essays on here. I want to do more stuff like this.

also tw - animal death . :(

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i show up at the art store in a shirt with tear stains on the collar. i'm looking for a type of paper that absorbs the medium so the painting dries faster. it's something henry told me about the last time i saw him. i was crying because we had to put down our dog last night. she shattered her femur. 

she was so fragile near the end. i was comforted at the thought that we gave her a good'a life as possible. treats whenever she wanted. she could sit up on the couch and on my lap, and she did, all the time. when her legs got too weak, we even carried her down the stairs to go outside a few times a day. i really started crying when i was thinking about how to explain to the cat that she was gone.

i think the cat knew the dog was getting older. she used to rub up under her chin. someone told me cats do that when they're trying to heal you. it's touch medicine. 

i've got my own stupid problems. it's been a while since anyone's held me, or stayed to love me. i thought i could see the end of my suffering with henry, but then i stopped hearing from him. when i'm down bad like this i become such a snot-nose brat. i keep singing to myself a song about girls never calling.

the cat's going to be mad at me. i'm not sure when she'll realize the dog's not coming back. it seems so painful to wait forever. 

"hi, i'm looking for a special type of paper. it's for oil paints, it's supposed to absorb the medium quicker? do you have it?" i ask the kid in the aisle. they're not very helpful at this art store all the time, but this time she knows what i'm talking about. sometimes i don't like when i find what i'm looking for this quickly. i like to meander. i like to browse. i like when i can't find it and i have to keep looking for it another day. gives me something to do. 

i think about how every time now when i look at this pad of paper i'm going to think about henry and his recommendation. he barely stood in the doorframe and now he gets to linger in my life forever. i’ll never get to know if he thinks about me even in an ordinary kind of way.

my poor dog. i don't know how you move on from a thing like that. i grew up around farm kids who would raise animals meant for slaughter, like sheep and cows. it was like a badge of pride and something they bragged about, like it made them so tough. i understand the cycle of life. and it's better to be close to that process then be a hapless carnivore, someone who doesn't know what goes on. but sometimes those sheep and those cows would be like pets to them. i watched one girl brushing out the coat of her cow like she really loved him. when you put an animal down, they don’t know that this is their last day and that there are no other days coming.

i paid at the register and then walked my new pad of paper out to the car. i sat there in the hot car before turning on the ignition, just looking at my supplies in my lap. i like to see how long i can go before i need the air on. eventually i drove on. sometimes it bothers me how i can’t just leave myself behind.