oh, fuck, it's trash day

Thank Goddess it isn't also a Maids Day.  I have another week before I have to face that again.

OK, took out the trash & recycling in 12 minutes, all by myself.  T offered to help.

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I looked up some info on cats, and although our cats are at least a couple months older than Dax was, in human terms they are still in their 50s, they should have a ways to go yet, as they live safe and gentle lives entirely indoors.  They could well live into my retirement years, but I could take care of them myself in a new dwelling if it came to that, they are much more independent than Dax was.  I would delay an international relocation while they are still alive, however.  Aren't there issues with moving cats to a new country?  Especially at the advanced ages they would be at by then.

I also reviewed the information on my kidney cysts, to remind myself that the dull pains I feel in my kidneys from time to time are normal with this condition and not a sign that I'm dying from cancer next week.  Yes, I had another panic attack last night, while cooking dinner.  T talked me through it.

As for T and the rest of you, I'll try not to imagine that just because Dax died suddenly from cancer that all the rest of you will too.

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Although T's trip to B's tomorrow night is a coin flip, depending on how either of us feels about it tomorrow, T & B surprised me by discussing an Away Trip for this weekend.  Given that I'm currently having daily panic attacks, I'm somewhat anxious about being alone for an entire weekend.  We agreed to wait until Wednesday to discuss it further.

Intellectually, I think it would be criminal for me to stand in the way of a Weekend Getaway for the two of them after they've been physically distant from each other for so long, but I wasn't having daily panic attacks, I was, up until Friday, looking forward to my next Time to Self.

I may need to speak with some of my closest friends on the phone more often until these panic attacks settle down.  If I lived by myself right now, I'd be seeking overnight stays with other people, or emergency psychiatric help.  But it seems having T physically present is enough for now.  I'm not going to require that he remain physically present -- I will find other coping mechanisms, damn it.

Anyway, I'm not currently panicking.

I will prepare for a gentle 3-mile run and see how much work I can get done today.  I need to close out Dax's account with the pet health insurance company -- file the final claims and stop the monthly premium.  I need to do laundry and dishes, clean the cat litter, water the plants, all the normal chores except for those related to Dax.  I have been permanently relieved of Dax duty.  But I may continue to take afternoon walks to the playground without him for a while.  As a way of remembering him.  I did that on Saturday as I spoke with K on the phone.

And I'll try to meditate daily.

And soon, very soon, I'll have my 90% badge and can start to expand my social bubble beyond T & B.  Carefully at first.  I'm having a difficult time imagining myself going to a multi-household group gathering as yet, even if all guests claim to be fully vaccinated, although I've been invited to one next month.  Ideally I'd like to start smaller.  Like a snuggle date with one other person.  We'll see.

I could not wash his body,

instead today I tossed out the oldest of his three beds, and then washed the liners for the other two, along with his blankets.  I'm cleaning up after him.  It's the last of my Dax duties, cleaning up after him one final time.

It's giving me something constructive to do, in between all these work calls this afternoon.

I don't think I'm gonna get to settling the final bills yet today, maybe tomorrow.

Keeping busy as therapy today?

I split my day between work emails, work calls, and chores around the house, as I often do, but today I did so with intensity.  My laundry had backed up while Dax was sick, so had the dishes, and I threw on top the task of cleaning Dax's things -- his two remaining beds are now refurbished as cat beds with freshly laundered liners and blankets.  I've removed the doggie "hammock" from the back seat of my car.  I also had a lot of work calls.  Meanwhile T was playing a video game -- it's his day off -- and getting his M2 shot -- so we weren't interacting as much as we had over the previous three days.

Oh, I also ran 3 miles.

So far no panic attack today.  If I don't get one tonight I'll clear T to go to B's tomorrow, but he will need to see how bad his M2 side effects are.

Regardless of what T does tomorrow, I might go to the condo for the night and then work from the condo on Wednesday morning.  We'll see.  May take Friday off for a three-day weekend to myself.

I'm starting to think having the weekend to myself at the house would be a good thing.  I could finally dump and refill the hot tub water, that task is way overdue.  But I could also spend one of those weekend nights at the condo -- again -- I no longer have to be at the house when T is away (ditto for him when I'm away).  One night with the cats dumping & refilling the tub, listening to the loud & excellent stereo; one night by myself at the condo with the better setup for playing with toys while watching multiple screens of porn.  My last weekend to self before my personal Quarantine begins to open up.

The past few days, T and I have been getting along very well, supporting each other as best as we can while feeling and expressing our own grief.    And we both appreciate all the ways our families and friends have sent us their sympathies.  It feels impossible that I would adjust to Dax being gone, but I know it is something we all have to do, several times in our lives, as our loved ones pass away, move away, break up with us, or change into different people.  Life is not built to remain static forever.  And someday I'll be the one who passes away.

Monday -- no panic attack -- on Day 3 without Dax

T and I have both continued to cry today, from time to time.  I even cried a couple times while I was running this morning, even though Dax has not been able to run with me for about a year now?  But generally today felt like more of a relief.  I was able to focus on work and chores all day, until I ran out of steam at 5:45pm.

We ordered dinner.  Earlier in the day I'd either eaten or thrown out all the leftovers from the takeout meals we'd ordered over the weekend.  If somehow we're both here tomorrow night I'll cook again, but I expect one or both of us will be spending the night elsewhere.  T's arm is hurting from M2 already, it doesn't take long.

No panic attack today for Bug, and now it is close enough to bedtime, I don't think one is going to happen today, so I'm not having "daily" panic attacks.  I had two days of panic attacks.  T talked me through them.  [I guess he's had a lot of practice with B.]  And now I can take pink pills again for sleeping.  I don't take them every night, usually I sleep drug-free, but tonight I will use the pink pills to enforce 8 hours of deep sleep.

I looked so sad on today's Zoom calls.  All the crying has done a number on my eyes and my eyelids.  I'm not hookup-ready like this, LOL.  But I locked my cock back up this afternoon.  It had been unlocked for many days, since the last time I chafed, and then I didn't put it back on, because I wasn't horny at all, last week was stressful even before Friday.  But I'm locked again for now.  It shouldn't be long before I see Sir Ben and start seeing other fellas also, and then my chastity won't be a solitaire game anymore.

After dinner I went out to the hot tub for a bit, while T attended another meditation sangha thing online.  It's beautiful in the backyard right now.  Not yet humid, not many mosquitos yet, but the trees are filling in.  T has redecorated the patio with new lights and prayer flags (he is forever installing new lights in the backyard!), and I moved the tropical plants back outside from the sunroom.  I listened to an audiobook about grief by a therapist.  It helps to know that what I'm feeling is a universal reaction to loss.  Horribly normal.  Stupid universe.

I'm starting to get sleepy now even without any pink pills.  And I smell like chlorine.  And my sheets smell like bleach, I just washed them, and I bleach the hell out of 'em to get the Astrid hairs and stains out of them.  She and I are both on my bed now, as I type this.  I'm lying mostly upright on a shaped pillow pile, to avoid my GERD symptoms, until two hours have passed since dinner.  She's resting near the foot of the bed, although typically during the night she edges closer and closer until by 3am or so she's up by the pillows and curling herself into my shoulder, purring.  She's my wife, I keep saying.  The only mammal I've ever slept with on a nightly basis.  K and I are pretty good at sleeping in the same bed, but that's not every night, and that's usually aided by alcohol, I don't know the last time he and I spent a work night together.

But tonight is aided by alcohol -- T and I shared a bottle of wine with dinner.  I got to drink most of it when he bailed to join his Buddhist group.  So I'm probably 4 drinks in, plus dehydrated from the hot tub.

Getting sleepy.  Need to brush teeth.  May not need pink pills after all.

I miss Dax, but as I said to T at some point in the past few days -- with every grief I've experienced, I've eventually realized that I didn't spend every moment of every day with that person anyway.  There's work, there's sleep, there's time to self, there's other people, there's all kinds of shit.  Even though Dax and I were spending a lot of time in the same big fat living room over the past 13 months ... he spent a lot of that time sleeping, and I was either working or doing chores or on the Internet.  I've thought similar things about K -- that even when he was here in DC I spent most of my life paying attention to other people/things, as did he.  When we are together, I focus intently upon him, but most of the time we aren't together.  Similar for Dax.  Most of the time, I'm just trying to make sure my needs are getting met, one way or another.  That's what we're all doing.

Wow, falling asleep now, with this laptop open on my lap, post unfinished, OK Bug post this and brush teeth and sleep.