No More Denying It

I've spent the past 4 days grieving over my lost boy. After sending text messages to all my friends about Oliver's passing, I called work & told them I would be unable to come in to work the next 2 days. I was so distraught that my boss would not let me off the phone until I confirmed that physically I was fine. Everyone responded to my text messages with apologies, even Joe. He asked me if there was anything he could do and I responded he could make it stop hurting. He informed me that he couldn't do that and I had nothing else to say.

I spent the rest of the night crying off an on. Little clumps of Ollie's hair or one of his toys abandoned on the floor would set off another crying spell. Going into the kitchen was like torture. Seeing his abandoned food dishes just annihilated me. A couple of times I could have sworn I heard him meowing in the back yard. I even went to investigate once. Later that night I called Fashion Show at work & asked her to trade shifts with me the following week. She works on the overnight shift which is less stressful and about all I think I can handle once I come back to work. I turned my house and cell phones off and cried myself to sleep.

Friday I never got out of bed. I spent the day reading fan fiction on my laptop in between crying spells. I couldn't even go into the kitchen at all. Seeing his food dishes and treats and stacks of canned cat food was just more than I could bare. I finally forced myself to eat something to make my stomach stop churning. That was the only time I went into the kitchen that day. I worked blinded by tears to make something in the microwave. That seemed to be the longest 2 minutes in my life.

Saturday, I work up early and wrote out my bills. Have to pay the mortgage and utilities no matter how shitty and sad I feel. I turned the phones back on and found I had 2 messages from Friday. One from Fashion Show about our trade and one from EJ just checking on me. I forced myself to shower, get dressed and run a couple of errands. I needed to mail off my bills, get groceries and to wash the Honda before I returned it to the dealership.

I called my mom and talked with her while I waited 40 minutes to go through the drive through car wash at the gas station. I called EJ and made plans to meet her at the dealership around 6 PM. Returning the Honda was a 15 minute process tops. EJ & I were back on the road heading home in no time. I thanked her for calling and checking on me Friday night. On the way home, I cried to her about Oliver and my fucked up relationship with Joe.

She explained to me that Joe filled an emotional void for me...actually we probably did that for each other...and now that he has the husband I am not needed anymore. I think she is right, but that knowledge doesn't make me feel any better. Once she dropped me off at home and made fun of my new Kia Rio, I went and started watching the different TV shows I had recorded on my DVR. I really didn't process what I was watching, but it was a good distraction for a while. Again I went to bed falling into another restless sleep after a bout of tears.

Yesterday I woke up feeling hung over and exhausted. I found that McMargie had called checking on me. She also sent me a friend quiz email. I responded to the email and then later called her back. We talked for a little while catching up on each other's lives. I even managed a chuckle here and there. I hung up feeling a little less cumbersome.

I finally picked up Ollie's food dishes off the kitchen floor and begin washing them. I was distracted by someone banging on my door asking if I wanted his tree trimming services. After telling him no, I abandoned the dishes and started watching TV. Occasionally I got up and fooled around on the computer and answered a couple of emails. During one of my TV shows, Mo-Mo sent me a text to my cell to see how I was doing. I responded and thanked her for checking on me.

I hadn't heard from Joe all weekend. No text message, or phone call, or email or anything. He knew how important Oliver is...was...to me. He often joked that if/when Oliver died he was going to have to put me in a mental hospital. And yet now that the incident has occurred he cannot even be bothered to see if I am alright. I cannot believe that just last month he was my "supposed" best friend and now I don't even warrant a fucking phone call to make sure I am okay. I guess this is the wake-up call I needed. Our friendship is completely over. No more denying it.

I deleted his AOL screen name off my buddy list and removed him off my friend's list on MySpace. I am broken. I finally went to bed at midnight. I only slept for a few hours and then got up to check my email. One last pathetic attempt to see if Joe at least sent me an email. I knew he was spending the weekend with the husband, but I thought just maybe he would at least care enough to send me an email. There was nothing.

Around 5am I called Old Lady Red in tears. I had called to see if she would be willing to trade shifts the week after. I told her all about Oliver's death and Joe ending our friendship. I told her how completely broken I am and that I just couldn't believe how insignificant to Joe I appear to be. I kept her on the phone for almost an hour. She said she would do whatever she could to help me. That Joe was going to regret ending our friendship the way he did. I highly doubt that.

The past 2 weeks Joe has cut up and joked around with everyone at work like nothing has changed. He talks and sends text messages on his new cell phone all day to the husband. I sit at my desk feeling awkward and sad and he appears completely fine. And now that I am devastated over the loss of Oliver, and Joe knows how devastated I am, he hasn't even attempted to contact me. What does that say about our friendship? I am disposable, insignificant, and not worthy of even a moments worth of compassion.

So today, I plan to finish the dishes, do some laundry, watch some more TV and mentally try to prepare to return back to work tomorrow night. Sometime this week I will need to pick up Ollie's ashes and pay the probably astronomical Vet bill.

But life goes on. I know it does. And even though I feel completely isolated and lonely and unloved, this will all eventually pass. I just got to figure out how to endure it until it does.