The Sockaroon

I've got about 5 blogs I haven't been able to get my thoughts to gel on yet so they're not posted. This one, though, I'm gonna knock out in just a few minutes or so.

I am still getting books and knick-knacks and stuff in the bookcases. I'm hurting so badly... physically, I mean. Ugh. I can only work so fast right now and I can't possibly work on the apartment 24/7, though I'd like to. So here I am putting stuff up, and I saw a journal from several years back when I was living in DC. I was complaining about one thing or another, making a list of things that I knew to be the truth. The second item on the list was this:

"2) I have a very sweet kitty."

I immediately thought back to the time this was happening. My father died 11 months later so this was a very difficult time for me. I was helping Mary take care of Dad and living in a house in DC with 2 roommates; one of which was seriously certifiable. I was so broke that I didn't have enough money to buy food for Socks. So we split the food I ate. I was sure to buy things that he could eat, too. I lived in one bedroom and had kitchen privileges [OMG - the memories make me cringe...] and Socks and I seldom left the bedroom because it was so awful. When I left the house I had to lock him in the bedroom. Whenever I did have my door open he would sit on the bed, stare out my bedroom door, and guard me. He watched out for me, as I had watched out for him when I was married to Michael.

That cat and I were the best of friends. I talked to him constantly and he would talk back when he had something to say. He let me know by the tone of his meows what he needed, and he traveled with me to Oklahoma, between Greensboro and Dave's and Dad & Mary's house in the DC area, and even down to Alabama once. I cancelled an entire week of activities when he dislocated his hip (including a very important Women's convention in Charlotte) to nurse him back to being able to walk. He was my son in every sense of the word except biologically, and in a very real way my comrade in arms during my marriage.

I'm lonely. I miss having someone around to talk to, to entertain, and to entertain me. We would play "knock the thing off the bathroom counter". It cracked me up and he loved it. He would hide under tables and attack my ankles when I walked by. He LOVED headbutts. He enjoyed walking across the keyboard when I was typing. And at bedtime he would walk up to my computer chair late at night and sit and look up at me. I'd look down and he would say, "Mom, time to go to bed. I'm tired." Well, that's what his eyes would say. He had the sweetest eyes I ever saw.

I still cry - often. I loved that cat for 17 1/2 years. I got him AFTER I retired so I was with him night and day. And it's not like he went off to kindergarten and grade school and high school. I was with him day in - day out, 24/7. I would call him when I went on vacation and demand that Michael put the phone up to his ear so I could talk to him. OK, so I was a little neurotic. Sue me. He'd always talk back and his ears would perk up.

I want another cat but I don't know if I can take the pain of loving and losing again. Loving something - or someone - feels like nothing else on Earth. The highs are amazing. The lows are as low as humans get. It's putting yourself out there and knowing that at some point this person is going to let you down and hurt you. You have to be strong enough, and love that person enough, to be able to get through that... and then live to love them again. A great deal of my life has been about loss; 2 cars in car accidents, my health, my teeth, my ability to walk for awhile, my independence for awhile, my hair (now), my job, my ability to make money at all, my Dad, my Step-Dad... people really are taken back when I tell them some of the things I've been through. And I thought most people had been through this stuff. Silly me.

I don't know if I have it in me to love another cat. That cat may have been my soul mate - as cats go. And what if I do get another cat? Then I'm tied down again if I want to travel - and I LOVE to travel - not that I have the money to do that right now. I don't mind being alone, but right now I'm lonely. I need... patience, I guess. That's what everyone tells me, anyway. I've dated off and on since I moved to Greensboro, but only a handful of men - say 6. Six men in 6 years??? And only two of them I am still in touch with because they were the only two that measure up to my standards. Nothing to brag about, huh. Although I'm not in touch with all the men I would like to still be in touch with from, say DC, I'm still in touch with a lot of them. I am very proud of that fact. Somewhere in here is a nice person that quality people liked. I don't know what happened to her. But no one of any quality has come along lately. That, or I am not who I used to be. Maybe part of her died when Daddy did. I don't know. But men go running in the opposite direction after they get past my looks - or they seem to. I wish I knew what signal I was giving off that makes me so undesirable. I know it's me because if it wasn't I'd be dating someone. People don't go through dry spells like this without there being a reason. I am working on looking for that reason.

I am so very grateful that at least I am in Florida where I can live happily ever after by myself. I can run to the beach now, and the beach makes me happy. Like I've said before, if nothing else good ever happens to me again at least I have the beach.

My girlfriend Wen Li, from China - well, originally from China - who lives in Greensboro, Vegas, and Naples, FL right now (she's in real estate) is coming to see me on Saturday. I am very excited about it. She has the means to travel and I am lucky to be able to see her and have her so close at times (Naples is about 3 hours away). I gotta get back to work getting this place finished.

I have a lot of thinking still to do on the cat front. Yes, no, yes, no - I go back and forth. It would take money that I don't really have right now, so I wouldn't do it immediately. We'll see. All my friends think I should get one, though. Even Mom does.

All I know is that Sockaroonie is still with me sometimes. He visits, like Dad does, except Socks follows me around the house and curls up and sleeps with me. Dad doesn't do that. Dad floats.