Jan 16

 I have hit something of a soft wall.

The energy I was managing to desperately siphon from somewhere has finally sputtered out and I have begun to collapse into my perma-ill state.

Keeping up with Athenas meds is difficult. Blurring. The strict time schedule has fudged and now I keep up her her drops whenever I am near, with a couple of hard wake up alarm calls during the early hours of the morning to keep those on track.

I am worn down with everything. The stupid constant go since Christmas has finally started biting my ass hard.

My breathing has suddenly and dramatically worsened again. Crackly lungs, having to consciously gasp when trying to sleep. Dosing myself up with multi doses of asthma meds every day. Bone deep exhaustion beyond the tiredness, the heaviness of limbs, the slow firing of an exhausted brain taking hours to warm up. The massive flare up of pains all over. Sharp. Knifing. Breath stealing. Pains. That make you groan out loud and creak around like an invalid. The very punchy eyes. Bruised. Aching. All of these things, suddenly rising from the grumbling depths back to the foreground.

They all seem to connect. A status meter for the overall machine. 

Not Good.

Bad.

Yeah.

Vets tomorrow with Athena for a check up. Her eye has not improved at all. The same. My vet friend had a quick look at her today. She seemed to think that even surgery would not help at this stage. The eye is gone.

In and of herself Athena is ok. We had a nice run around today at the park, Athena and Poppy. And Athena was bouncing around, feet up. A sign she is playful. Her eye, doesn't really seem to bother her.

Tomorrow I will ask for a referral. Not an idea. Not a suggestion. Referral. To a specialist. Who will say one way or the other, try and save it, or too far gone. I suspect the latter. My vet friend suspects the latter.

So there is that.

Today I was so tired that I took a day off work. Too tired. Too exhausted. So I took a me day. I could not do much else. It made me feel a little better in the middle of the day, before returning me back to my miasma by the evening.

And a point that I will try not to make myself too sad with.

There is a point where the person you knew. The thing you knew. Is gone. But is still here.

Ares was like that at one point. The happy lovebug bouncy boy I knew faded. It was still Ares. And I still loved him to bits. But the dog I knew was gone. Replaced by another. Old. And tired. And at the end, in pain and afraid.

And so Athena slowly follows that same path. Much of what I have experienced Athena to be is gone. The boundless energy. The sass. The curiousity. The absolute force of nature. Gone. There is tired and old Athena left in her place. Our life is very different from what it used to be. End stage. She is, and always will be, my lovely baby girl. But it is like a slow winding down. A slow erasure of what your life was, almost preparing you for a day when they are no longer there.

I had exactly the same with my mom.

The mom I knew disappeared years before she died. It was still her. And yet. Not. Much of who she was, was only a memory of the past in her final year. A tired, and ill, and old worn out placeholder for the person she used to be.

Perhaps it is just the turning of seasons. Spring to Summer to Autumn to Winter. You can reminisce of the summer whilst the cold of Winter seeps into everything. The Winter is no less of the year than the Summer is. But the Summer is what was longest. What you remember. The things that defined them. The Winter is a period when everything has quieted, grown cold, all the people have returned home, and only a limited number of hours of sunlight, shed illumination on the pallid world.

Maybe there's a meaning there. Some bullshit about the circle of existence.

To me. It is just another facet of the cruel waste of life.

One I can't do anything about.

Athena is comfortable. Content. She has, as I write this, come into see me, tapped me on the leg, and asked for a boost into bed so she can curl up with me. An unusual privilege, as she is more often than not, still, an independent kind of girl, that likes her own bed - or rather selection of beds.

Her coat is still super soft, untypical of a boxer, untypical of any dog. She still smells like Athena. Looks pretty much like her. But Winter is upon her. And like many things. That fact sits uneasily upon me. Not entirely sure how to deal with it. Not entirely sure what to do with it. Except. Follow the wisdom of enjoying the moment. Do not fret about the crisis that has yet to occur. And just be happy that she is still here. And I can still give her a scratch.

But all too soon, time turns, memories blur and everything starts to disappear between your fingers. Much of Ares is lost to me now. I will never lose him entirely. But many aspects of his day to day joy are lost to me now. Blurred into forgetting.

Another nail of suffering that I stab into myself. A betrayal. Losing memories of him. You. Suck. Life. Sucks. All of this. Sucks.

I find the same with my mom. Bits of her float away on the wind. I cannot hold all of her in my head. And as time marches on I lose her, slowly. A different kind of loss. One that perhaps should be kinder. But I rail against it. Bitter. And sad. And disappointed in myself.

These are some of my flaws.

Unable to properly deal with loss and the passage of time and the overall nihilistic bent that seems to run through everything that is human existence. Stuck. Wishing for reality to be different from what it is. Fighting the idea of its cruelty without ever being able to do anything about it. Tilting at windmills like Don Quixote.

I am, almost certainly just tired. And worn down. And chewing on my own misery because of it all.

Focus on the moment. The small things. Take joy where you can. And do your best. Even if that means just sleeping.

Life is hard.

For all of us.

Be kind. If you can. That is perhaps, all that there is. Just. Be kind.