Grief – …on the B.L.

For Ocho

May 7, 2023July 30, 2023 RaeAnna

Cats have never been my animal of choice. I grew up with them; I love them; I am very allergic to them; I need my animals to follow me around the house and never leave me alone; I have never had a cat of my own.

He was the most handsome cat and so loved.

The only tattoo I have solely in honor of another being—at this point—is for a cat. A year ago today, Ocho, one of my closest friend’s cat died suddenly. At just under a year, he was still just a little kitten. Meghan and I had spent a lot of time together over the end of 2021 and the first five months of 2022, so I was well acquainted with Ocho. We were buddies. We played aggressively. To the point of bleeding. His murder mittens got me every time. He’d come running at me with no warning, latching onto my ankles, knowing that I’d pick him up and play with him in a way no one else did. Although, maybe, he just hated me and was trying to ankle bite me right out of the house. I’ve never loved a cat more.

Loving someone who doesn’t belong to you and grieving them is a wild thing. I grew up with cats who’ve been kittens grown into old ladies. I spent years loving and playing with them. It’s not that I didn’t love them, I did, but Ocho was different. Grief is sadder when they die young and out of the blue. He didn’t suffer, but everyone who loved him did.

My relationship with Ocho was so much deeper than even his mom knew. Meghan and I met at a really weird time for both of us, and our lives collapsed into one another. For more than a few reasons, I spent a lot of nights at her house. Her home and she herself became my safe haven, and that has never really gone away. I have never felt peace the way I do with her in her home; she is just that kind of human, and her pets are just like her.

I have a history of night terrors combined with sleep walking. They had never plagued me in adulthood. I thought I’d left them at my parents’ house. I think the combination of coming into myself truly, feeling peace and safety for the first time, starting to deeply heal, and the amount of stress I was under created the perfect storm. The night terrors came back.

I don’t like to think of myself as a dangerous person, but I grew up in violence. It’s hard to leave that behind. On more than a few occasions, I’ve had to choose violence to survive. Unfortunately, under certain circumstances, violence is my body’s natural reaction. My brain moves fast and has always stopped myself before doing what I do not want it to do. None of these had been tested when another person was involved and I was asleep.

For the first time in twelve years, I started having night terrors. In Meghan’s house. Really bad ones. They were memories of moments I actively try to forget, and if you know me, you know I don’t shy away from much.

He gets to be with his dog brother forever.

Meghan is strong and capable and intelligent, but she is also kind and gentle and sensitive, though most don’t see it. Her strength is rooted in a quiet self-assuredness, coming from a foundation of stability and love she’s known her entire life. My strength comes from the complete opposite. Listening to her talk about anything has always filled me with such hope because she’s proof that goodness exists. We are so very similar in so many ways, yet we couldn’t be more dissimilar. When I look at her in her life, I see the possibility of what could have been for me if everything had been different. I’m not jealous; I’m fiercely protective. For some reason, she has deemed me worthy of existing in it with her. All of this to say, I have loved her from the moment I met her, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was shelter her peace and safety and sense of hopeful optimism. It’s not my job. It’s my privilege as her friend. My greatest hope for her is that everyone treats her better than I ever could because the world needs her and people like her, and I don’t want anything jading her heart.

Nothing is scarier than wanting to protect someone from everything, but the only threat to their safety is you. That’s where I was at. I was the danger.

I will never know when they started or ended, but I know the first time I realized what was happening. The night terrors had returned. Except at 30, I had more memories to be scared of than I did at 17.

This story is one of my greatest shames. I would love to never tell it. I will because I love Ocho and his memory deserves it.

One night, I couldn’t tell you which night, but it was deep into the night. Houston had fallen silent. The house creaked in the way old houses do. Nigel was asleep at Meghan’s feet. Ocho slept on the pillow next to her. The winter air blew outside. It was the kind of night perfect for deep sleeping, and all four of us were. Then, I wasn’t.

I woke standing over her with a fist raised and my other clenched at my side. I don’t know what I was going to do if I was going to do anything. But I knew there were two tiny paws kneading my chest and a kitten shaped head rubbing against my chin. I immediately knew. My body seized up. I breathed in and couldn’t let it out. I started shaking as tears dripped from my jaw. I looked at her peacefully not snoring, laying on her back, completely unaware of the danger I had just posed to her. Nigel didn’t even raise his head, but he was looking at me in his soulful way.

Ocho bit my collarbone hard.

I breathed out.

I stepped back and looked down at him. He gave my hand a little bite and lick before he curled up by his mom’s head. Her hand reached for him, and they snuggled in closer. I backed out of her room, turned around, walked into the kitchen, grabbed the garage keys. I walked out the back door, down the stairs, and into the garage. I didn’t even turn on the lights when I shut the door behind me. I laid down in the middle of her garage workshop and sobbed. The full self, feel it in your body, pure grief kind of sob. I had almost hurt the one person in the world I would have gone to the ends of the world to protect. She had the perfect life, and I had arrived to ruin it. I was the thing she should worry about, and I had done nothing to protect her from me. The what ifs flooded my mind. I know what great harm I am capable of conscious by choice. Asleep by guttural reaction? That had never been tested, and I was horrified for her. I was also selfish: fearful she would hate me, and I would lose someone who I’d come to need, and I don’t need people.

Eventually, I stopped sobbing when the first bird sang. I sat up, realizing I’d left a me-shaped sawdust angel in the middle of her garage. I grabbed the broom, sweeping the sawdust into chaos again. I took a shower in the garage shower because I’d taken some sawdust with me, and it would be weird having to explain sawdust in the sheets. I crawled back in bed and stared at the ceiling until my alarm went off and it was time to make coffee.

One of the first things Meghan said to me that morning was my hair looked curlier than it had when I went to bed. The day began like every other day I spent the night. Except Ocho was a bit cuddlier with me than usual. Not a single ankle bite.

I was distant for a few days and found my evenings too busy to spend the night. But when I did see her, I started telling stories about what I have done in moments where I’ve chosen violence. I told her I had bad nightmares and sometimes my PTSD makes it hard for my body and mind to communicate, and that has historically led to unpleasantness. I didn’t sugar coat anything, but I also left out quite a bit. She met stories of some of my worst moments with the same grace and compassion she always has. She told me to just be me and not be afraid for her. She kept telling me she’s very strong and tough, which I already knew, and she could take care of herself, which I already knew. But I never wanted her to have to around me, and I really never wanted her to have to protect herself from me.

Eventually, I spent the night again. The first three times, I didn’t sleep at all. I stared at the ceiling the entire time. The fourth night, Ocho curled up on the pillow touching my shoulder and face, so I drifted off to sleep. I went a week without a night terror. The second time I remember having one, Ocho nibbled my ear until I woke up. He did it every time. He kept his mom safe. He gave me enough security to fall asleep, hopeful that I wouldn’t be a threat. I never have been since. To Meghan or anyone else.

This past winter, the night terrors started colliding with insomnia and tactile hallucinations. Oh, it was a rough few months. I wasn’t sleeping. When I would I’d have horrendous night terrors. When I’d wake from them, I would physically feel whatever traumatic event I’d had to watch in my sleep. I was losing my goddamn mind. Ocho had long been gone, and all the reasons I spent so many nights at Meghan’s were no more. Then one night, the worst night, laying in my own bed, I felt like I was dying in a prison of my own body unable to move or escape what was one of the worst tactile hallucinations of my life. Ocho walked across my chest and curled up on my pillow on my shoulder. He nibbled my ear. He broke me out of my prison, put me back into my body. The tactile hallucinations disappeared all at once, but he got up and I felt him walk away.

The nights I can feel their hands start touching my body and their breath on my skin and the pain bloom like Moonflower planted in my soul, Ocho walks across my chest. Every time, he curls up and nibbles my ear, staying with me until every touch and breath is gone. Then I feel him walk away. The Moonflower wilts in my soul as Ocho takes the darkness my pain needs to bloom with him.

I don’t believe in God or ghosts or an afterlife. I believe my brain is fucked up because of trauma, and it’s doing its best to servive. I also believe Ocho knew what he was doing, and my soul has decided to keep him alive on the nights I still need him.

Ocho was such an asshole. I have scars on my ankles from where he bit me. He gave Meghan and I so many heart attacks when he’d find newer and cleverer ways to escape the prison we call a house. I hate bugs, and yet I’ve crawled under her house so many times to pull him out. I would wake up to him biting me in the middle of my back at night to play with him. But he gave the best snuggles. He was always full of vim and vigor, triggering laughing fits. He just knew. Every time. He knew when I needed him. He knew when his mom needed him. He was perfect, and I miss him every day.

I tattooed his name in the place he just loved to bite as a reminder of all that he had done for me. I had no idea what he would go on to do. He saved his mom from me. He has saved me from me so many more times.

Books, Fiction

A Flawed Diamond: The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman

March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 RaeAnna

Being a woman in the world can be exhausting, but it’s nice to see the reality and complexity of our existence reflected in literature like *The Learning Curve* by Mandy Berman. | Jumpsuit | Sandals | Earrings |

Worth a Read Eh
Length 400
Quick Review An exploration of womanhood, friendship, sexuality, loss, and greater meanings of loyalty and sisterhood.

In theory, I like The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman. In reality, I found it relatable but boring. The plot and characters failed to capture my attention even though it incorporates many of the elements I want and search for in a strong female driven narrative. A flawed diamond, beautiful but not worth it upon further inspection.

Told from the perspective of three women, The Learning Curve follows the lives’ and internal struggles’ of Fiona, a grieving senior at Buchanan College, Liv, the girl-next door and senior at Buchanan College, and Simone, a mother, academic, and long-distant wife of a lecherous teacher at Buchanan College. These women lead drastically different lives, yet they intertwine and impact one another in expected and unexpected ways.

Two aspects of the novel stand out to me. Characters and the rape.

Often, authors choose for their characters to act in petty, childish, or irresponsible ways, which is rarely reflected in my own interactions with people. That being said, I have been witnessing a higher frequency of childish and catty behavior in my personal relationships, so maybe authors are doing a better job of portraying reality than I had previously imagined. Berman creates characters with sophisticated emotional interiors and allows those characters to interact with each other in mature and communicative ways. They don’t lack for differences in opinions, views, and communication styles, but the plot is not driven by immature women playing into the misogynistic stereotypes we’re so often given.

Rape is one of those topics people skirt. Authors employ it in a variety of ways. More often than I’d like, rape is portrayed poorly and even offensively. Sometimes, authors get it right. The Learning Curve does excellent work creating a rape situation that is often overlooked in literature and is rarely talked about in life. Fiona struggles with grief—after losing her younger sister—by drinking and escaping reality with various sexual partners. One night, she drinks and goes home with a guy. What starts consensually turns into rape. Berman calls consent into question. Is it given once? Can it be taken away? Is it ongoing? What should be a part of sexual education and in the quotidian conversation about sex and consent is rarely in the conversation at all. Berman illustrates rape in a way that many authors would not choose because it’s gray, it’s tricky, and it’s emotionally charged. How many girls have found themselves in Fiona’s position? How many don’t call it what it is: rape? How many chalk it up to a bad night and pretend it never happened, while they deal with the trauma for years to come?

One of the most poignant moments in this inherently feminist novel is when Berman calls out English for it’s sexist nature. English is not a gender neutral language. Throughout the history and evolution of English, the “neutral” has always been “he” or of the male gendered pronouns and nouns. A lot of this has to do with the fact women have not been able to hold property, inherit, vote, have jobs or careers, be leaders, and don’t forget women have been considered property to be held by men. It’s more than a linguistic oops; it is a reflection and amalgamation of our society, culture, and history. Men are the de facto and women are hidden. Berman broaches a discussion of this sexist and exclusionary facet of English and how it is used without realization by men and women every day.

The book is riddled with grammatical errors of varying sizes. I can’t tell if the grammatical errors are narrative and character motivated… But I found it distracting. I would like to know where the copy editor was, what they were drinking, or a transcript of the conversations they endured.

The Learning Curve really is an exceptionally well thought out book. I just can’t bring myself to love it emotionally, even though I do on a technical level. Though exceptionally thought out, I found it largely lackluster and forgettable the moment I put it down. Even in the middle of reading, I had to remind myself what was happening. I really wish I could say I loved it, but it fell flat for me. I definitely suggest it on so many levels because Berman calls attention to truly important topics and themes in women’s lives.

Memorable Quotes
“Fiona wondered what it might be like for your ideas to be so valuable that other people would pay to read them, or would show up on a Thursday night, when they could be drinking or having sex or sleeping instead, to hear them.”
“These days she wondered how people raised more than one child. Just one was a second full-time job.”
“She was learning that attraction didn’t discriminate—that often, in fact, it bloomed in the most perverse of circumstances.”
““Complicated”: an adult code word for I don’t want to talk about it.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4392299″]

Title: The Learning Curve
Author: Mandy Berman
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 978039958948

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Due Date-Versary

April 4, 2020March 23, 2022 RaeAnna

If my body had done what it was supposed to five years ago, I would be throwing a quarantine birthday party for my five year-old son or daughter right now.

Instead, I’m cuddling my new babies. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings | Chair |

Having children has never ever been a part of my life plan. Being a mother is not something I have ever craved. It has been something I’ve avoided like the plague. When I am sexually active, I obsessively avoid getting pregnant by using birth control and condoms. I’ve even gotten Plan B when condoms break because NOPE. I have enough money set aside to take care of problems if need be. I’m that kind of person.

I was that kind of person when I found out I was thirteen weeks pregnant in early fall of 2014. Miracles happen, I guess. It was too late to do anything about being pregnant. I was pregnant. I was going to be a mom. I was very much alone in my soon-to-be-parenting party. It hit me like a truck. I started planning and dreaming and getting excited because that was the only option, so I embraced it. Then, I had a miscarriage. I was mostly devastated. Relief came several weeks later as the tears slowed and the dreams faded.

As the years go by, the feelings are less poignant; the hurt is less sharp; the dreams are hazier. I still get sad. Sometimes, I even cry when I watch kids movies. Every once in a while, I think about what my life would look like had my body not failed at one of its main biologically female tasks. As ready as I was financially, in my career, and at that point in my life, I had never planned on being a mom. Five years later, my feelings have not changed: I’m sad and relieved. Those feelings can go together. You can be sorrowfully content with a miscarriage. You don’t have to have just one feeling. You are allowed to feel all the feelings whatever they are, no matter how at odds they may be with one another. It does not make you less of a woman. It does not make you less of a mother. It does not make you less of anything. It makes you a complex human, who is coping with a really difficult physical, mental, and medical situation.

Miscarriages are rarely talked about. That is starting to change as women speak about women’s issues more and more openly. Thank you to all the women on social media who are deciding to be vulnerable and honest about the crap we go through. When miscarriages are talked about, it’s usually about how overwhelmingly sad and painful they are. They are. I’m not going to lie to you about that. It’s true. It sucks. It’s sad. It’s the worst. There can also be some real positives coming out of miscarriages. They’re not apparent at first, but over the months and years as your mind and body heal, things start to look and feel better.

The majority of miscarriages happen because, for whatever reason, the body knows the baby shouldn’t come into the world for one biological reason or another. You can do everything right starting months before conception and still have a miscarriage. (Granted that was not me. Accident baby. Although, I didn’t really do much wrong.) Miscarriages happen. They happen for almost always good reasons. All babies are perfect, but not all babies are meant for this world.

Loving the babies I have on this sad day. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings |

Positives of miscarriages differ from person to person. One thing I can say for everyone, the life we have in this moment is not at all the life we would have had had that baby come into the world. For some of us, that’s a bad thing. For some of us, that’s a good thing. For some of us, it’s just a thing. I have an incredible life. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would, under no circumstance, have this life with a five year old.

I would not…

have the boyfriend I have now.
had the freedom to quit my corporate job, the stable paycheck, the benefits.
be a freelance writer and blogger.
be able to sit on the couch and do nothing for hours on end.
live in Houston.
travel as much or the way I do.
have Beau in my life.
have been able to pick Tess up off the side of the road.
have the time, energy, or money to take care of thirteen puppies.
have found or reconnected with my truest passions in life.
be chasing my wild, crazy, unrealistic dreams.
have the friends I do.
walk around pantless all the time.
read as much as I do.
stay up late doing whatever the fuck I want to whenever the fuck I want to.
have the body I do.
have a savings account with money in it specifically for travel (which happens often) and/or buying things I decide I need right now (which never happens, but it’s nice to know it’s there).
be me the way I am right now.

I have no idea what my life would look like had Paeton Rae been born. I know I would have a corporate job with good benefits and a salary high enough to pay for everything she/he/their needs and wants and for us to go on a family vacation once a year. I know there would be a bedtime, healthy snacks, play dates, trips to the park, time outs, library trips, tantrums, snuggles, bedtime reading, dance parties, messes, and a lot of other things my life does not have right now. I would have loved that life for what it was, but that was never my dream. I never had to make the decision to not be pregnant, to not be a mom; my body did that for me. I was sad. I am sad. I miss the life I could have had and holding the baby I never got to hold.

But.

I love my life. I see the blessing the sadness of my miscarriage was. I see all the opportunities and possibilities my life still has in store for me that would not have been possible as a single mom to a five year old.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”3969755″]

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Miscarriage

April 5, 2019June 23, 2019 RaeAnna

I’ve tried writing this in several different ways. None of it feels quite right. Then again, nothing feels quite right about having a miscarriage.

Today was my due date four years ago. A due date that never came. I miscarried at thirteen weeks. My heart broke in a million different ways. I don’t really know how to describe that kind of loss. It is its own kind of grief.

I had never wanted to be a mom. It was something I actively avoided. This pregnancy was a surprise and with the wrong man. When I found out, I was almost in my second trimester and very alone. My life changed in a moment. I went from a recent college graduate to a mom. I didn’t want kids, but I wanted that one very much. I was in a place in my life where having a baby was more than feasible. I had a job and was looking into buying a house. Single motherhood was terrifying, but I was in a place where I could have made it work. I was going to make it work. I wanted everything that came with it.

I never bought the house. I didn’t keep the job. I never became a mom. I lost the baby.

When I found out I was pregnant, something happened. I wanted to protect my baby from the world. My baby would grow up knowing how loved and protected it was. I couldn’t protect it from my body; the thing that was supposed to nourish it, grow it, protect it. My body failed me. Failed my baby.

Standing in the shower has always been the place I’ve felt safest to cry. The morning I miscarried, the water washed away the tears and the blood. It couldn’t wash away my guilt or my grief. It took months to shake the guilt. The grief has dulled but has never gone away.

Being a mom is not high on my list of things I ever want to be. Honestly, I don’t want to have kids. I still want the baby I never got to hold. There is an ache. In the short time I knew I was pregnant, I had so many dreams and plans. I saw a new life. That life never happened. In so many ways, having a miscarriage was the best thing for me. The responsibility of motherhood would have kept me from following the dreams I’m just starting to find. Even though my body knew what was best, my heart still hurts.

Had my body not betrayed me, I don’t know where I would be now. I know I would have done everything for my son or daughter. That baby would have been my life. Instead of writing this, I would be finishing up the plans for a birthday party this weekend. A golden birthday party for my four year old little boy or girl. Paeton Ray. I chose a name the day I miscarried. I couldn’t just think of it as my baby, who wasn’t meant to be. I’ve never said that name out loud. This is the first time I’ve written it. Gender neutral. Similar to mine, RaeAnna Kay.

It’s been four years. I don’t cry every time I think about my miscarriage anymore. I’ll even go days without thinking about it. The pain can still creep in at the oddest times. April 4th has been a hard day the past four years. I can’t watch children’s movies without thinking about watching them with my baby. A year and half after my miscarriage I went to Inside Out with four of my guy friends from college. I ended up breaking down in the parking lot. It was impossible to find the words to explain, to make sense of it. It’s grief. Grief doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t always make sense. We live with it. It’s one thing to grieve a person you knew. It is another thing entirely to grieve someone you love so completely but never knew. I’ll always grieve a life I will never live with the baby who changed my heart.

I was laying on the couch this morning. Beau was on my chest with her head snuggled into my neck. She is the one being I love anywhere close to how much I loved my baby. I had never thought about it, but Beau is almost exactly the same age my baby would have been.