Fire Engine Red

Red, the color of anger. And indeed I am angry at myself for letting others influence decisions I know to be right. A decision most of my readers would not like. Because most of my readers are nothing like me.

Today's blog is about how I let my cat, Dusk, down. I've been very ill for quiet some time. I know death is near with how low I am in this mental health hole. I'm so ill I can't take care of the pet I saved from my father's neglect and abuse anymore. So sick, I've let irresponsible people move into my home and make her happy space, unhappy. And even bring flea's into her life, again. And I'm angry at myself because of my financial situation that I can not live alone and give her the best life she deserves. She hates other animals, and isn't too fond of other people. So two new roommates and another dirty cat? She's pissed. All the time.

I told my roommate Andrew what I did last night and how upset I was with myself. I had an appointment for her euthanasia and instead gave her away to someone who I feel is a poor fit. Someone I struggle on/off with liking because of years of experience with. I talked to several people about my plans to decrease the stress and responsibility in my life. I've even applied for public housing to get myself away from having roommates and the immense stress they cause me from not paying their bills on time and other things that are not meant for this blog today. Really, I am actively trying to get away from anything that holds me to this planet. So I had to get rid of Dusk ensure that my suicide would not replace her semi happy life with the one before I took her from my dad's.So my heart has been heavy and confused.

I KNOW people will think I'm disgusting for believing the right decision was to put her down. And that's your opinion. You may even be happy to hear she is still alive, but with one of my ex's Ray. Which was the best option in the moment, but still not a good one.

To explain to you why I feel this way will take some time. But I understand how complicated thinking differently is. How it leaves you with few friends, and how I do not think like the rest of the world thinks apparently.

Ray and my other friends think that Dusk are better off alive, with someone else who loves her. I think that sounds like a lovely idea. But I don't know anyone like that. I don't know anyone who can give her the life she deserves. A clean house, with no children and no other pets. But how many single adults that love pets, doesn't already have a pet? you know? These sound like simple request but most people I've met are not clean humans. Years of house cleaning, babysitting, and doing church service in dozens and dozens of homes of all backgrounds and incomes, has taught me humans are disgusting. Ray is no exception. He lives in a motel that has actively had bed bugs (on and off) the past few years in his room. He has even sprinkled bug poison all over his room as extra precaution that they don't return. Something Dusk is walking all over as you read this.

$6, for 8 gallons of gas buddy. Ray smokes so much cigarettes that he would rack up hella gas points. Which he would give me me for visiting him because his schedule didn't allow for him to make many trips to me.

And that's not the only sign of his filthe. He is a heavy cigarette smoker. Almost two packs a day. And he smokes inside his small hotel room where he lives. Trapping anyone in there with toxic air. For as long as I've known him, he has never been a clean person. He struggles with his own depression and concerns. Perhaps his dirty apartment is just his lack of self care? Or perhaps it's just apart of who he is. None the less, I do not think he should be a pet owner either. But that is where Dusk now lives. *sighs* I know I've made a mistake but I can't think of any other options for her now.

I'm sure most people reading this believe I shouldn't be a pet owner either. And I assure you I'm on your side. I do not like animals like other people do. I simply don't. I do not have the same love and compassion that others seem to have. When Dusk died I would have never gotten another pet again. I took Dusk because I thought it was within my ability to at least give her a better last few years of life and it would be unfair to leave her behind when I had the means to help and she had imprinted on me. And so far I have mostly given her that better life. She is fed everyday without neglect. She isn't locked in window-less rooms for days on end. And she isn't picked up by her tail and thrown down several flights of stairs when she does something he didn't like. Indeed I have greatly improved her life from when she lived at my dad's.

But she is 15 and mostly healthy. She isn't dying any time soon, even if my suicide is near. And I'd hate to not have a plan for her before my suicide.

I talked to several people about my plans of getting her euthanized. Everyone said "Kirsten don't kill your cat." And these people, who couldn't offer to take her, gave their forced and unwanted opinions on the matter.

My cat is 15, formerly abused and neglected. She hates children and many other people, just because she wants to. She doesn't treat me that way anymore, but when I first moved into my dad's it took her over 18 months for her to allow me to touch her. She wouldn't come within feet of me until I started forcing my presences onto her. I started feeding her daily. Brushing her (when she could tolerate it) buying her toys trying to find her one she liked. Her favorite are the simple cat-knip-mice. She brings me them as gifts on my bed everyday, and everyday I'd throw them back into the living room for her to find and repeat. She allows me to clip her nails nails so she doesn't get stuck to the carpet or other fabrics she may "kneed". I took her to the vet when my dad bombed the house for fleas/bugs and locked her in the house with those toxic chemicals for hours. She vomited and coughed for weeks after that. He could have killed her. I was in the hospital when this happen. Unable to protect her, I couldn't do anything about it, nor did I know that it happen until later.

And here I am again, going to and from the hospital leaving my roommates, I'm not sure I should trust, with my cat.

So how could giving her to the ASPCA be better? You're banking on a good human being having no kids/no other pets adopting my 15 year old angry cat? I'm glad you are so hopeful, but I am not. Dusk is borderline aggressive when I'm not around. Besides if she wasn't adopted quickly, they would put her down anyways, accept instead of living her last weeks/months in an environment she is use to and is (mostly) happy in, she would eat strange food she doesn't like, stuck around other cats in a tiny box with a window, sleeping inches away from the box she shits in with everyone trying to touch her through the bars. All why not understanding why I gave her away... All before she inevitably is put down. Why not skipped that and give her comfort; be there for her during the end?

"So post an ad on Facebook, find someone!" I can't tell you how much I don't even trust any of my friends on Facebook. Because as I said, everyone who loves animals already HAS animals. And not all my animal-owning-friends are good pet parents either. But I apply "not my monkey, not my zoo." to their in-home problems. I absolutely will not dump a previously abused and neglect cat into their homes just because people say it's "better" than euthanasia. So many people don't treat animals right and keep them FOR LIFE. Cats can live up until 20 years old, sometimes longer. Dusk has sadly lives 15 years with my family, mostly under duress. It was a really hard decision for me to make to put her before my suicide. I could have offed myself already, and her likely would have ended back up at my dad's.

"So it's Kirsten's way or the highway, again?" Sure, but if you felt so strongly about doing something right, wouldn't you do it? I convinced myself it is best option to put her down. She isn't a cute kitten anymore, I'm trying to save her from what I see is inevitable unhappiness. Until Ray offered to take her. He doesn't have any pets. And with tears in my eyes on the way to put Dusk down, minutes before I was pulling in, I called Ray, hopping he would answer. On the 2nd call, he did. And I took her to Winchester.

I fought tears of rage in the Dollar Tree and Walmart picking up new pet supplies because it's the day before thanksgiving and everyone and their god damn, mom, uncle and cousins were out. Being around that many people now in a space like that makes my mood sink deeper. Ray treated me to chik-fil-a and then we went home, to Dusks new home. He agreed to watch her, for now, or possibly forever, depending on how she liked it or not, he'd find her a new home. That also gives me anxiety.

This gave me some options... to maybe get better, healthier, to take her back sometime in the future? As unlikely as that is to me it technically was still an option. Even if it wasn't a good one.

*talks to self* "Fuck. I don't understand why I care about this cat this when I want to die so bad. Surrender her to the ASPCA and make sure society likes you before you off yourself."

And than Ray and I talk about how I'm doing in more detail. Ray isn't all bad despite me thinking he shouldn't be caring for my cat. Perhaps I should be grateful anyone offered to "save" me from my decision. But this is so hard for me. I genuinely think I made the wrong decision yesterday. I can't see me calling my vet again asking for a reschedule going very well. As we discussed already, there are worse decisions and I don't think Ray would intentionally hurt her, even if his smoking habit hurts everyone in breathing distance around him.

While talking about my current struggles Ray brought up my blog, and he mentioned how he never got an honorary blog post, saying, "I must have not been all that bad if I didn't end up on your blog yet." And for the second time since we have been back in touch as friends he told me, "You never even loved me anyways." perhaps a reason, in his mind, I hadn't wrote about my relationship with in detail. Even though he says he is mostly happy he hasn't been in featured in one, and that... "he likes his privacy". I don't know if he actually believes that I "never loved him" or if it is merely a repeated and triggered chain of thoughts. If you become a good enough listener and people watcher you can learn things about people. Pick up ticks, manerisms, etc. So is this his insecurity? Does he say this to demean how I view him as I person?("You never loved me, why do I matter") Is he looking for validation? Does he think I only write blogs about people I loved? Maybe he is saying it because he is looking for a reaction? I have plenty of curiosities.

I honestly think that he doesn't say it on purpose, despite it's importance. But being told twice "you never even loved me, or mourned for me after the break up." is odd to me, because I loved and mourned our relationship a lot. Perhaps he has convinced himself that because we all show love in different ways that it wasn't love at all. "That was Mormon twisted love, it's not the same..." he said when I insisted I did. But conversations with Ray go that way. When we disagree on something and it's no longer light an funny- it often ends in circles of degrading and superiority.

Anything that triggers someone, often ends any productive discussion. And him saying I never loved him, was a lie I wasn't okay with hearing. I try to say things with purpose and not with mindlessness, I never know how someone will react though. Intentful or otherwise this is where the love/hate relationship with Ray comes into play.

He asked me why I broke up with him. "If I really loved him what reasons were there that I broke up with him?" he said. And than continued, "You accept the short commings of those you love or you don't truly love them, no?" Maybe he was saying these things as a defense mechanism to protect himself. Loosing love hurts too much, so never being loved in the first place makes it a little easier? I get that. So I treaded lightly unsure if he wanted to fight or if he was actually sincere why we were incompatible. Obviously the reasons I gave him 5+ years ago weren't enough. I guess he needed closure? I can't say I was in a great space mentally to have such an arduous conversation last night, but I tried.

I told him there were many reasons why I ended our relationship. I started off with letting him know that he is sexist. He didn't like that. But no one with misogynist views ever does liking being called out. Instead of accepting there may be things he could improve in that area, he said "I absolutely am not that way. You wouldn't be friends with me if I was." I smiled and nodded. Cool. Next.

I told him that we did not have a future together financially/ we didn't have similar goals. His reply, "Because I couldn't put you in a nice home? It seems like women always want that from my relationships?" I told him that wasn't at all what I meant, even if he denied wanting to move in together in our past. He may have forgotten all the long conversations we use to have about moving in together, somewhere, anywhere, as I dreamed of his and I's future together. I insisted the home to be smoke free, and he said firmly that he could not live that way. I didn't see it ever working. And so living together in my mind was taken off the board, it could never be. My health was more infinitely more important than his bad habits. And that was my boundary. But instead of sharing that gem of a memory, I told him instead about how we wrote down his income and his expenses together to help him budget. I learned that he sold his suboxone on the side sometimes. Something I was NOT okay with. And that was our very first fight early on in our relationship. Either way, I wanted him to know that the money he made bought him options, better options than I could ever afford for myself. But never opportunities he ever took while we dated for almost two years. I also reminded him he set financial personal goals in our relationship he never accomplished, some he didn't accomplish until this year. (has has wanted dentures for quite some time and I am proud he finally got the smile he deserves!) I am grateful he finally is reaching his goals, and he said he understood some of the reasons he didn't reach them earlier were related to the long process of some previous poor decisions that made his life a bit stationary. (expensive car/high interest rate, recovery of his addictions)

I wasn't done with my list of why I broke up with him but I let him get his rebuttle out, "well aren't you glad we never moved in together because it didn't work out anyways?" *eye rolls*

I than told him the last and final reason I couldn't see a romantic relationship with him continuing. And it reminded me of why I got rid of Sean. I told Ray that "He made me feel unsafe and got in my face several times during the end of our friendship."

His reply? "Yeah you did know how to push my buttons back then."

2021 Kirsten was struck with immense amount of anger. Because we each remember something different about our lives together. But he said he had to nap and asked me to leave. So that was the end of that conversation, I hugged him and left Dusk behind.

During my ride home I replayed the moment that "pushed his buttons." We had been broken up for months, but were still close friends (with benefits). I had been seeing other people but while we were cuddling in his bed he asked if we could have sex, and I told him I wasn't interested. He rolled over and muttered "You can have sex with Mathew but you can't have sex with me. . ." (Mathew was the guy I had a sexual relationship with directly after Ray.) I got out of bed, hurt and in tears that Ray reduced me to a warm body to fuck, and got dressed and began to leave. Why weren't cuddles enough? Why did he think I owed him sex? Since when was Ray someone who got mad for saying no to sex? But that was the first and only time I had denied him before, sooo.... I don't know why but he got inches to my face with his stale cigarette breath full of anger and screamed at me for denying him sex. I couldn't form words and the first fight or flight reaction I had was to threaten to call the police. Even then I knew what I said served no purpose, it just angered him. I left with a slammed door. His words in my ears, my heart in my throat.

I walked down three flights of stairs to the parking lot. Tears cold on my face, I took off the small caps that held the air in his tires on the left side of his vehicle, aware of the parking lot camera on the right side, and put them atop the wheels. I drove home heart racing. I never did anything so pety before. Instant guilt set in to which I texted him about it soon after.

So, He will tell you I tried to kill him with that move and "pushed his buttons." But his tires never even went flat. What he leaves out is how he acted like an incel when I told him no to sex. Rejection and ego do not go well together. Something he blamed on "loving me too much." And to this day he denies any fault in his actions, and hasn't apologized for that behavior. Instead when I tell him he made me feel unsafe he pushes blame onto me with a, "yeah you really knew how to push my buttons." therefore..... he acts in a way to make me feel unsafe?

You sure knew how to make me angry at you.

You sure said the right things for me to scream at you.

How dare you tell me no when you tell other men yes.

"What did you do to make Sean treat you that way"- My dad

And that is how some people have treated me. As if the reason why they treated me poorly is soley my fault. Their emotions and what they do with them is my fault. FALSE.

And those are unhealthy and unsafe examples of our struggling relationship. Red flags. I know this now. I didn't understand that than, I even believed that I was the reason my friends and family treated me poorly. Years of therapy has pulled me through that mindset.

But Ray doesn't want to remember all of that. . . . He calls me his crazy ex who tried to kill him. (with flat tires?)

My point is that I remember almost everything terrible thing he recalls I did to him. In the same fine detail he does but for some reason he leaves out the rest of the story. I'm sure that is how memory is for most people, right? They remember what hurt them and not how they hurt others?

Another memory he likes to use against me was during our (long) break up he was holding me in bed while I was crying. I was thinking about how much I loved Ray and how much he loved me, but also how much I knew it was wrong and unhealthy. So I said what was on my mind. I cut through the silence with a, "I wish you were someone else." Hoping it would spark a deeper conversations. I did wish he was the right someone else. (I was monogamous than...) I wish we were laying with the people we were suppose to be with, but we weren't. Ray and I's relationship was poetic like that.

I knew my words would drop heavy. They were suppose to. I wanted him to know why I was crying. But instead of him trying to understand why I felt the way I did, he will tell you I was imagining someone else, anyone else but him holding me. And that isn't so. I wanted things to work in that relationship. It just wasn't meant to. I was growing away from the thoughts and views that allowed my relationship with Ray to exist in the first place.

Less than a year after our break up I left the Mormon cult, it was the biggest and best decision I have ever made that has changed the trajectory of my life. My whole self, body/mind/soul was pulverized and reborn with that decision. Maybe Ray neglects to see the different person I am today for it and is stuck in the past where his mind left me with those grudges.

I feel Ray and I's relationship was one large misunderstanding after another. There are likely things that I am not seeing from his side either, because he isn't ready to process the root of the emotions he felt, and of course, "He likes his privacy."

He may even jokingly tell you about the time I returned his andys mints he left at my house.

Birthday gift. With Mary Kay and candy and a hand written card

What he will tell you is that I returned it to him as his birthday gift. The kicker? There was only one left in the box, I ate the rest of them! lol What he wont tell you is that he got a birthday gift from me, thoughtfully chosen and wrapped just for him. But he either forgets or just chooses to leaves that part of the story out, every time. The andys mints were always a joke, but I sometimes think he only wants to remember things that hurt him, even if it was only a small joke. Almost as if he was looking for something to be wrong, something bad to remember me by. So again I ask for forgiveness, if this hurt you so badly, I'm sorry Ray. I don't understand how I ruined the thoughtful gift with the funny one.

And so when he says things like "Did she ever tell you she wished you were someone else? She did that to me." Or "She tried to kill me." Or "She gave me MY box of empty chocolate mints for my birthday gift." There is always more to those stories....

I don't think taking the air caps off someone's tires or telling someone they wish they were someone else while being held are "cozy" "feel-good" events. I do not deny their unpleasant nature. But neither is getting aggressively angry when someone denies you sex. Or leaving out parts of the story to make yourself a victim. We need the whole story, the whole truth and all the emotions that come with them to heal. And when we play with things from the past, memories like to play games and people forget... Gaslighting can happen. I'm all too famillar. All I know is I have worked really hard to become a different and a better person over the years.

I have owned up and apologized for my behavior, including taking the caps off his tires. Those actions were not his fault, those were mine, even if I became angry after how he treated me. My emotions and what I choose to do with them after I was hurt are only mine. I own them. I did not get the same reaction when I told Ray how I felt. It's possible not much has changed for him since I knew him intimately years ago. Same job, same home, same bad habits, same thinking patterns and belief systems. He still writes music, he still loves to read and play video games. And he still hates Facebook...

Me getting my hopes up

Him shutting them down. Over and over again.

Ray and I's relationship burned hot. And like things that burn hot, it can burn out quickly when there isn't anymore to feed it. Two very different people who loved to love passionately. And we choose to love each other in those moments. The deep emotions we shared for each other, at the same time, is what set our relationship apart from the sexual exploration I did with other people in my life after Ray. It took me almost three years to find love again, with Sean, and it wasn't anything like what I felt with Ray. So of course I loved Ray. I loved in a way that I haven't loved anyone else again since, whether he accepts that or not. I understand now though he must still feel betrayal, even if only on occasion, for me severing that connection in search for something else. Why else would he ask me why I broke up with him while I was giving him my cat to take care of?

In truth, as I like to keep it, I see a lot of myself in Dusk. I see someone abused and neglected trying to find happiness in surroundings that don't best fit my needs. I understand that people do not think it is my choice to decide when to end my pets life. I don't value most of these peoples opinions even when I'm healthy anyways. And that's what it comes down to. I'm not healthy, and so *maybe* I need to trust other people who are, while I feel like this. And that's why I chose Ray.