Breaking

It’s gotten to the point that I dread coming home.  It’s not that I want to stay at work, or bury myself in homework to the point that I forget there’s a home to go to.  It’s not that I don’t miss my wife, my comfy bed, pajamas and a marvel series on netflix to lull myself to sanity.  It’s not that I don’t want to cook a good meal, enjoy a good laugh or perhaps pour myself a drink.  It’s because I don’t want to see you suffer.  I don’t want to come home and wonder if it’s the last time you’re going to curl up next to me on the bed and purr like an underwater canary before the pain becomes too much for either of us to bear.  It’s that I don’t want to come home in the off chance that you gave up fighting sometime during the day while I was at work typing endless instructions for people who will neither read or understand them.  It’s that I don’t want to deal with the inevitable heartbreak of having to let you go – especially if I have to make the proactive decision to take you in, in order to be taken away from me.

This is the part of pet companionship that sucks.  The good times and memories and purrs and snuggles more than make up for it, it’s true.  But this sense of dread, this sense of guilt, this empathy and recognition that you will not, in reality, be around forever is cutting me to the bone.  You’re my longest relationship, you know.  I’ve known you from the time you were small, and I’ve watched you grow.  I’ve watched you play – you still like to try and kill the bed monster that you have to know is really my foot as soon as it disappears under the comforter.  I think you know what’s coming.  I see you looking at me sometimes, or the way you lay on my sweats as though you’re trying to soak up as much of me as possible prior to letting go.  It’s breaking my heart.

But know this.  You are loved.  I may be your human, and you’ve chosen me as the one to recognize, but you’re also my sweet old girl.  I know you.  I see you, and I will never forget you.  I hope that the life I gave you was sufficient to make you happy.  And I’m sorry.