Things I will miss, part 2

Cats
  • Aperture: f/5.6
  • Focal Length: 95mm
  • Shutter: 1/1250 sec
  • Camera: NIKON D1H

Northport, Alabama

There are so many things I will miss about this apartment, but I have been so very low while living here.

How many days have I spent lying in my bed, staring out this window, gazing at the cool green expanse of grass in the spring and summer, the drab browns and grays of autumn and winter?

Through it all, Boogie has been my constant companion. Sometimes he seems as depressed as I am, trapped in his own inner world that I can never breech. I want so very much for things to be different for both of us at the new house. I worry that he will miss his window with his birds and squirrels. I worry that he will be even unhappier than he has been here.

I worry that I will be too.

Because this was paradise. It was a dream come true. But it wasn’t enough to stave the darkness. Every time I pick Boogie up, I feel the sharpness of his bones. Every time I look into his eyes, I see the unhappiness that I feel. He doesn’t eat. He rarely expresses interest in anything. I remember the kitten who used to come flying up onto my bed, eyes ablaze, tail flashing.

I thought he would have more room here. More freedom. I thought I would escape the spiders that plagued my old apartment. I thought that no one could possibly be unhappy with the sunlight streaming in every morning.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.

I walk through the rooms of my new house and whisper litanies to myself. Please let us be happy. Please let me see that look in Boogie’s eyes again. In my own eyes. That spark of life. The will to live.

There are spiders at the new house. Lots of them. There are roaches and snakes and mice and dirt. There are big empty rooms and not a squirrel in sight. A nagging feeling tells me that realistically, at the age of 14, this may be the last house that Boogie will live in. I think about the things that have happened at this apartment that I never could have imagined when I was spinning my pretty daydreams, and I wonder what will transpire within the walls of the new house.

I lie in the middle of the floor and stare up at the ceiling, watching the ceiling fan turn. I try to feel the rhythms of the house, try to breathe my spirit into its walls, try to quell the fear that was never a part of River Run, but has been a part of this house from the beginning.

No matter how hard I try, I can never seal all the holes, never completely stop the spiders from hiding in the dark corners, waiting to ambush me, waiting to destroy everything I am trying to build.

When I left my last apartment, I was running from spiders. And for a while at least, I found everything I was looking for and more. Warmth, safety, comfort, love.

Gone. Vanished in the rain.

I have made so many mistakes. I have lost so much. And sometimes I wonder if life will ever be right again.

Music: Haunted by Poe (lyrics)

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