life | the something garden

After how well I slept after the painting was done, you’d expect that to have ramped up even more after the carpet was installed, no? WE WERE ALL WRONG, MY GOD.

The new grey carpet feels amazing though, don’t ever let me convince you otherwise. And don’t mind Wilson looking sad… he was just confused as to why I was trying to get him to stand still.

Turns out I color matched the carpet to the cat too. So all that agonizing over the color and I could have made it way easier on myself and realized that earlier.

I went to bed the night after the carpet install feeling awesome and almost excited for a great night’s sleep… and it kicked me into some of the worst sleep I’ve ever had. I woke up every hour to my brain serving me horrible memories of grief and the last fight Lucas and I had, and memories of him heartbroken after his dad died… I’d say it was the worst night of my life but I definitely have one in there that beats it.

I finally got up and stayed up from 4am on because I simply could not bear the thought of facing another horrible memory served up on a silver platter. Some of which I had forgotten existed… so I also was kinda mad at the ol’ brain for reminding me of some of those.

The next night I had nightmares. Then a couple days of unsettling dreams followed. Also Wilson ran into my side table and knocked a glass of water over with his nose, and Asher missed when jumping on the other side table and knocked over the lamp and a plant…

I was like, is the new carpet cursed? Did they install 666sf or something, what the ACTUAL fuck is going on?

I didn’t actually think that, but I did start dreading going to sleep.

I am glad I mentioned it (talk about the silly stuff, no topic off limits) with my therapist. Because she said the animals were probably adjusting to not having any scent mapping in the room now, and it’s shocking how much their brains depend on those cues. And that, perhaps, it’s merely something similar to me. The old carpet did smell musty and a bit like dog. It was noticeable enough that I paid to change it, but also it was the grief den I found refuge in. So, perhaps, it being different dredged up some stuff. Ripping out the bottom of things in the room maybe did the same to the brain. Something.

It was interesting though- the animals didn’t bat an eye at the painting but Asher was freaked the hell OUT by the carpet removal and install. Granted it was like a crew of 5 guys in and out over 3 hours… but he was a mess.

This was him open mouth panting on the couch while that was going on. I tried to comfort him.

That was a mistake.

We all made it through, I GUESS.

Didn’t help to have had to clear out Lucas’s closet for this and then to move back in only a single pair of boots to the new floor in there. Probably played a role here.

A couple of days after the nightmares and bad sleep I then got INSANELY sick- I thought for sure it had to have been the flu or covid, but whatever it was made me sweat more in 30 minutes than I ever sweated before and then for my bones to hurt for 2 days and then for it all to pass as quickly as it came on. It was, she tells herself, not some mummy’s curse type thing from the carpet.

My aunt ran me over gatorade and a covid test (which was negative for flu and covid) and I just hunkered down and powered through the next 2 days.

The cats were back on their rockers and being nice by this point- and Asher especially is very attentive when I’m sick. I am glad he didn’t drop another dead mouse on me like when I had Covid last year. This year it was just a toy.

He can be nice when he wants to.

I am actively working to not BLAME THE CARPET here. This expensive ass carpet is the silkiest most amazing feeling carpeting ever, and it isn’t it’s fault that it dredged up so much unpleasantness. All of it was of course some bug going around (on the sickness part) and ye ol’ lizard brain in my head reacting negatively to changes in environment and it worked out.

I guess at this point I don’t even mind the unpleasantness I can prepare for, it’s the unexpected unpleasantness that’ll get ya, you know?

Anyway. All is well that ends well and I was starting to feel better a week after the carpet went in when Asher woke me up at 5:30am by dropping a LIVE BIRD on my face. I sleep with my mouth open. I think I know where he was aiming.

He caught the bird on the floor, scattering feathers ALL over the new carpet. I chucked him bodily out the back door (assuming the bird is dead at this point)… he ran right back in the cat-door in 0.3 seconds and let the bird go in the living room. The bird was not dead and possessed a truly incredible and endless supply of spare feathers. I am running after it when Asher catches it again and and I grab him by the scruff, open the front door this time, and pry his stupid jaws open and the wren (I can now see) just flies away like nothing happened. All of this was sans glasses, fyi.

Look how stupidly please with himself he was all day after that.

I hate to complain but I really, really do think I’m due for a motherfucking break at some point here.

Anyway.

A couple of days after THAT I go to the fair and it’s not as sad as it was last year without Lucas- as we loved the fair and went every year. It is still sad, mind you. But we went with friends so the youngest had someone to play with and I had friends (their moms) to talk to while the kids were on rides. “Takes a village” type of thing coming in clutch.

It’s dusty, hot, loud and jam packed with people and I still like it though usually I dislike any other combination of those things.

We all made it through that one too.

The older girls were there with friends, and we saw them off and on and then the 16 year old joined us for the last hour and it was just the 3 of us- the youngest’s friends and their moms left earlier than we did. (The oldest had gone earlier than we did and left earlier than we did.) And so it was just me waiting there for a couple of rides at the end of the night. That was okay this year though. We got some caramel apples and a funnel cake to bring home on our way out of the fair grounds.

It very much was my new mantra: It’ll never be okay. But we will be alright.

And we were.

What else can I share?

Writing nights are back to going well. I wrote 9 pages one night, 4 another, and 2 last night. It was a tight 2 though, I assure you.

Turns out I now prioritize good sleep and feeling great over a beer after gardening. This shit may ruin my life.

In place of beer some nights I have one of these, and they’re okay. Most of the adaptogen and such drinks are bullshit but this one legitimately has something in it in a super pleasant and subtle way and is 25 calories… big fan.

And finally, in a year almost completely devoid of butterflies we finally have some monarchs moving through and some swallowtails have shown up. And I have now bought over $20 in parsley plants to keep the huge crop of black swallowtail caterpillars sated as there were way too many on the bronze fennel for those two plants to sustain all of them. A worthy sacrifice of $20 and two nicely established bronze fennels, in my opinion.