Note: This post was originally written on 2023-10-30 and it is a rambling mess. You’ve been warned…
This year was harsh… I spent many days sitting on a small red couch on my balcony, worrying about the future, about how to navigate… fucking everything.
I started the year still suffering from burn-out, depression and severe anxiety attacks. I struggled through and survived.
My partner and I had a serious relationship crisis. Luckily we both found ways to listen and talk to each other. We struggled through and survived.
I saw someone who I never ever wanted to see again on a family event. The host told me they were invited because they “had to” invite them but they would surely not come so I had nothing to worry about. I had a lot more anxiety in the next days.
Then both of our cats fell from the roof and Princess snapped her left triceps tendon. She needed surgery followed by six weeks living in a cage. My partner spent almost every day of these six weeks in the same room. I tried to help, but most of the time I couldn’t and I felt bad for not helping. Not being able to. And they struggled through and survived.
We had a couple of wonderful fast-blossoming friendships, many of them also fast-withering after an initial honey-moonesque phase. Bonus: Some of them sticked.
I returned to work. Partly because I needed to get back into the habit of actually doing things and partly because my insurance would stop paying me sometime in the future and I needed money for living.
Then Princess’ fell sick. Seemingly on very short notice. I only realized it afterwards. She was eating her regular meals, just a lot less. She was drinking a lot and I knew because she loved drinking water from our glasses. She generally loved water but I’m sure she loved it most, not for the water, but for what it was: stealing something delicious from us. But things slowly and subtly changed over the course of a couple weeks… She stayed inside more and more, slept a lot more, ate less, in the end she had even stopped waking up and immediately running to the food bowl whenever she heard the rattling sound of her beloved food pouring out from the cat feeder.
She also slowly stopped spending time alone and tried to hang out with us as much as possible. At the time we noticed that something was wrong and brought her to the vet, her kidney had already failed. My heart broke when they told us that the creatinine value from her blood sample was higher than what the test could measure and that this meant that her kidneys had failed. The vet got us an emergency appointment with the vet clinic and we rushed her to the clinic where the vet told us that, while the situation was critical, he had hopes for her because Princess was young and otherwise really healthy. So they hooked her up to some injections and we all hoped that her kidneys would start working again.
Leaving her there was horrible. I still cry while writing this.
The sight of her getting carried away by the nurse. Getting carried away into the dark and unknown backside of the clinic which was only accessible to the working staff.
Then the waiting started. We went home and cried and held each other and discussed what we knew. Rinse and repeat. Our hopes were low, but the vets said, that their hopes, so we could hope too, right? Rinse and repeat. The prospect of Princess dying totally kicked us off-rails. Off-everything so to say. Nothing was important anymore and most of the time we were just coping, helplessly waiting for the next step to happen. Whatever it might be. I was abso-fucking-lutely tilted.
At some point we even admitted to each other that a dark part of us wished for “her to die already so we could finally get over with it”. The next two days were weekend days, but they allowed us to come up and visit.
Both days princess greeted us with a heart-breaking meow, clearly articulating how she did not like anything about the situation except for the fact that we were there now. It was so hard to see her suffer… She looked small and helpless. We stayed as long as possible on both days. Gave her company. Most of the time we sat around on the floor, playing cards or videogames while Princess snuggled up on or up-to one of us and slept. And we hoped for her to get better. For her kidneys to spring back to life in a god damn miracle.
But she did not get better. And with fleeting hopes, ever so more, we awaited the dreadful message: Her kidneys had not come back to life and she would be doomed to die a gruesome dead with all the goodness and poisoning, you get when your kidneys stop working… Fuck!
So we visited her one last time to be there for her in the last moments of her life. They allowed us to come “early” so we could spend more of her last time with her. It’s kind of ironic that it’s nice to be allowed in early on the planned killing of a dear friend.
When they brought her in she was as happy to see us and as unhappy about everything else as the days before. We didn’t do much except her snuggling up on my lap and us trying not to cry to much. I remember looking down at her, she had rested her head in my hand and was slowly falling asleep, feeling all these chaotic and turbulent emotions inside me, wondering if I was selfish for crying while Princess was actually dying.
She was still lying on my lap like this when the vet euthanized her. It only took a couple of seconds and she was gone. Fucking gone. Forever. Only leaving behind her dead cat body. I still can’t not cry when I think about these moments.
So here’s to Princess
You were a wonderful friend to me and if I was a religious person, I’d say that you were a god-sent gift. It was an honor that we’ve got to spend time with you and had even earnt your love. I’ll always remember you dearly.
RIP
Oh… I just shut down the matrix and nextcloud instances for werise.de. That’s what brought me here initially but apparently I had other things to say as well. Oh boi… the times. My partner and I built a small authentication backend so you could have “Werise Accounts” and take them with you between the Nextcloud, your beloved Matrix-Chatrooms and maybe even other services.
I remember that we were so excited back then. About actually doing something. That was before we realized that, while most of our friends and family loved to yammer about how big tech was eating all their data for free, they didn’t actually care that much about privacy and this whole “rights to your own data”-thing and we didn’t have enough energy to continue with that little of external appreciation we received.
I remember folks unironically telling me that they were “too clever for the system, because they only wrote in obscure dialect and thus, “the algorithm” (today they would probably say “the AI”) would not understand what any of it meant. And they were never buying from any ads, thus they were safe and not giving up any of their privacy.
But for us the stuff was marvellous. And we used it a lot. We’ve grown so used to the luxuries of it over the years. Like: How cool and easy is pasting a link on my phone into my personal Element chatroom and opening it on the PC. Or: Having a shared grocery list. Sharing a file that’s too big to send via chat with someone.
RIP, too.
And now…. coming back next year. All I can add is: RIP Bojack :( You too were taken from us far too early… You were a wonderful sweet little cat man and now you’re gone too. I promise to gladly remember as many of the precious moments we had as I can. You spent countless hours napping on my lap or laying with us on the bed and couches. You wholeheartedly appreciated spending time together and playing. Your last favorite was the laser pointer. :) And how you loved the cardboard castles I had built you from old packaging cartons. Chasing your sister around and tricking her into epic fights made you so happy!
RIP, too, too. :(
