Feelin' Fine

Did you ever notice that if you rearrange the letters of "feelin'", you get "feline"?

Thank you to everyone who has been checking up on me. I have been doing much better this week. I think that the toughest part was making the big decision and then having to say goodbye. I still miss Chiara but I realized that I don't have that shadow of fear following me around anymore of when she was going to go. Since she had poor kidney function for much of my time with her, I never really knew how long she had. It's a selfish feeling, having a sense of relief after a burden like this is lifted--and I don't consider Chiara ever having been a burden at all--in fact, she was quite a gift to me. I'm trying to rationalize the normalcy of my emotions and this is the best reasoning I can come up with.

I have been keeping busy in my own way, as have my parents. I think they are distracting themselves by focusing on remodelling our living room and kitchen floors. Chiara had left a few stained (and smelly) areas on our hardwood floors and rug, so it's like we really are erasing her little by little.

There are many times where I wish I could project memories from my mind onto a screen and watch them over again. I wish there was a way to protect and preserve them. There are some things that I never want to forget, not just about Chiara. Emotions and sensations that existed for fleeting moments, inside jokes that made me fall over in laughter, wise words that made me think, beautiful messages that made me cry; morsels of information that made me stand back and look at the world with an overwhelming sensation of awe and gratitude. These are the things that I desperately want to hold on to.

Lately I have been feeling the fragility and fallibility of the human mind. Sometimes I wish I could defragment the hard drive that is my mind.