From Watership Down

My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

 

Waiting

At the beginning of October, I had every intention of breaking up with Alex when I saw him the first weekend of Fryeburg Fair. My mother dissuaded me. It would only cause drama and she didn’t want to deal with that. I owed it to her. Afterall, me and my father were leaving her there by herself. She was only doing it for me and him. She told me she didn’t have to spend her vacation time that way. “Wait until the fair ends,” she told me.

I thought this was fair. Afterall, after the fair ended it would be my fall break, so I would have a few days at home, in which I assumed Alex would come and see me. Except then, he got the flu. Additionally, he had asthma, which made it all the worse. So I waited.

Then, when I finally decided “today will be the day,” his grandmother died. With all these interventions, one might think I might take them as a sign that I shouldn’t break up with Alex. But I have been unhappy with him for some time. A lot of this unhappiness is derived from issues that Alex is aware of, so my unhappiness isn’t from a lack of communication about wants and expectations.

Now that Gigy is dead, I don’t know how long I should wait to break up with him. It would be cruel to do it now, but I don’t know how long I should wait. It’s been a week since she has passed; is it okay now? The funeral is in another week and a half; do I need to wait until after then?

Or do I take another route and try broaching the subject of my grievances again?

 

An Unsent Letter (Part VIII)

Dear Tessa —

Forgive me if I am wrong in this letter, but your grandson hasn’t really talked to me, so I don’t know if you’re still fighting or if you’ve passed on. If I refer to you as being dead and you are still alive, I am so sorry. I also apologize for my inability to say things politely.

I hope Alex expressed to you how excited I was to learn that you originally came from Poland. All my national backgrounds are the “normal” ones of French, British, and Canadian. I always longed for something more exciting or different. In my mind, this was my chance to learn a new culture. Learn the language, learn to cook the traditional meals. Even if I didn’t learn how to make traditional Polish meals, Alex always spoke so highly of your cooking abilities. So just learning some cooking from you would have been great.

Alex not only spoke highly of your cooking, but of everything about you. While I sometimes questioned whether he truly loved me or not, I know he loved his Gigy.

I feel truly terrible admitting what has occasionally crossed my mind. Half of me hoped that you let your grandson have what’s for and told him he needed to smarten up an marry me already. Not only encouraging him, but also giving him your ring to give to me. I am not at all proud of myself for thinking this way. I’m probably wrong anyway. Afterall, if you told Alex he needed to start treating me better, wouldn’t he be calling me up for comfort?

But I hope you had a good life, though it sounds as though it was hard at times. I wish I could have gotten to know you better and learned some things about Poland.

Rest in peace

— Sincerely, Rachel

 

In Which, A Haiku. Part III

One of my fish died

This morning. Down the toilet

It was flushed. Amen.

 

In Which, An Anniversary

Today is the four year anniversary since my first sheep, Gloria, was put down. The day even started out with weather similar to this day four years ago. Dark, damp, dreary, and rainy.

I remember that day very well. Most people remember it as the day that Pope John Paul II died. But for me, it’s the day Gloria died.

She was a champion. She was regal and noble and just had an air about her that commanded attention.

Sadly, she was too good for this world. Two months before she was put down, she developed pregnancy ketosis; an illness where the nutritional needs of the lambs inside her was greater than the nutrition she was taking in. She lost the strength in her legs and couldn’t stand any more. Even after she gave birth to her lambs, who both died, she still couldn’t get up. We waited a month after she lambed, to wait for her to stand. It never happened.

So we had to put her down. Like I said, it was April 2, 2005, four years ago. She was put down in the morning. If I remember correctly, the vet arrived at our house at 10:00am. I held onto her, crying for an hour, before it was time for us to load her into the truck to go bury her. All the while, news of the Pope’s health was on the TV and on the radio.

It was on our way back from the burial that we heard on the radio that the Pope had died. My dad comforted me by saying that Gloria was in Heaven, helping escort the Pope through the gates. It did help, and to this day, thinking of my dad saying that still brings tears to my eyes.

Gloria, I miss you and wish you could see your niece, Siren. She’s just like you. She really is. Georgous and powerful. You would be proud of her. I love you, Gloria. Rest in Peace.

 

In Which, Coincidence?

So me and Taylor have been having some relationship problems. These are mostly caused by the distance of me being at college and him still being back home. But, they are also caused by both of our own insecurities and mental incapabilities.

Like I said, we were having relationship problems. I mean, we were really having relationship problems. Like, almost to the extent where it would just be easier to end the relationship. We still really loved each other, we were just having a bunch of problems.

But then last night, I had a dream that Taylor died of a heart attack. And then later Taylor told me that he had a dream that I drowned, last night. We both feel a lot better about our relationship now. Because the dreams made us realize how much we really love each other. And how terrible we would feel were these dreams to come true.

The fact that we both had drems where the other one died, on the same night cannot just be a simple coincidence. It’s like the Cosmos are working together. Or some other strange rubbish like that. Haha