December 2024
Getting through it, wintering, some little pics, and more.
Image above: a drawing of our cat dave <3
On Getting Through It
Three weeks ago, our family received news that our cat Dave was suffering from multiple terminal illnesses and only had a month or two left to live. Within the week, his condition deteriorated so significantly that we had to say goodbye to him. Although we knew he was getting older (we don’t know how old he was exactly but guess about 15), we had assumed that we had many years left with him and would continue to hold and pet him well into his later years.
When we got the news of his condition, our first response was “what’s next.” Our boy had been through multiple surgeries and dozens of vet visits throughout the years and with each new problem always came a solution. This time, though, it seemed that we had reached the end; that terrifying point of no more solutions. The vet gave us a few medications to try to improve his quality of life and when they all failed, we found ourselves scraping clinician emails, diagnostic tests, and all of Reddit looking for any sort of next step other than the goodbye we refused to accept.
As the days passed, my husband spent hours with our cat while I found myself doing anything but staying in the room with them. I did chores, ran errands, went to work— I thought myself helpful, taking care of necessary tasks so they could spend more time together. One night as I was heading to the grocery store yet again, I remembered a similar situation that had happened during what would become one of my last nights with my mom. She had been having issues with her phone and I had just returned from Best Buy with some new gadget to help her, but whatever I had gotten wasn’t working (I don’t even remember what it was now, so clearly very important). Rather than give up, I doubled down and prepared to head out to the store again to “fix the problem” until my mom begged me to forget about it and sit down with her instead. In that moment I realized that this was all I had been doing during my visits with my mom— running errands, buying things, trying to “fix the problem.” At a certain point, there is no fixing. What do we do then?
For almost any mental health condition, there is a treatment recommendation that involves working through rather than avoiding the tough things that aggravate symptoms. To help treat depression, behavioral activation techniques such as “opposite action” ask patients to do the opposite of what their depression is telling them to do, such as getting out of bed or taking a walk when a person just wants to stay under the covers all day. Though it’s much harder at first to take action (and may even seem nearly impossible), after the initial hurdle is overcome things do often feel better. For anxiety, evidence shows that confronting stressful situations helps resolve anxious emotions, while avoiding them makes the feelings stronger. When dealing with trauma, processing what happened through creating a trauma narrative has been shown to greatly resolve symptoms. Both with my mom and now with my cat, I was avoiding the inevitable and doing anything I could to stop myself from facing the pain rather than accepting the situation as it was and savoring the time that we did still have left.
The night before we had to say goodbye to Dave the cat, Adam put a big slideshow of all the photos we had of him up on our tv. We spent the night talking about all the funny things he does and our favorite moments with him, gave him lots of pets and treats, and in the morning we all said goodbye while he lay on his favorite stuffed animal. It was painful and devastating and I’m so glad we had a great few last days together and that I didn’t spend those days reorganizing the garage. We got through it, and we will continue to get through it.
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Some Little Pictures:
(from top left to bottom right)
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December Playlist
Once again, I bring to you not a playlist but: A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s the only way to do the holidays! I recommend beginning spinning this record in November but really I think it’s appropriate all winter long (and I mean really, all year long). I made this playlist a few years back that also includes some other holiday jams but really you might as well not mess with a classic.
Image above: a cozy drawing I did earlier this year that I think sums up the year pretty well— not necessarily about “Wintering” but reflective, ok?
Recent Work: Wintering
I recently listened to this Life Kit episode on wintering and it felt like the medicine I needed this season. I’ve been really trying to lean into the winter vibes for the past few years but American capitalism/culture really is not good at letting people chill out and hibernate, so it always felt like I was doing the wrong thing by digging a cozy hole and nesting into it. This episode reminded me that it’s ok to burrow for a while and that really our bodies and brains need the time to restore and prepare for another busy year and that saying no to social engagements doesn’t mean you hate your friends.
Here are some of my top wintering activities this year:
Lighting candles
Making lists and vision boards for things I want to do next year
Making soups
Watching all the bad netflix dating shows
Always being under a blanket and/or in a cozy sweater
Enjoying being bundled up on cold rainy dog walks
What are your fav wintering activities/non-activities?
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Some Other Good Things
This unintentional 90s ASMR— ok it’s called “unintentional ASMR” which I agree is true but really just fascinating to watch a person in the 90s film their online shopping journey. I love the comments about how different this woman’s cadence is vs. all the pro streamers today— take me back!!
Audiobooks! Love these while crafting. Anyone have any good reccos? I’m currently listening to “The God Of The Woods” because Spotify kept pushing it on me and “What Are You Going Through” in preparation for the new Pedro Almodovar movie but honestly don’t LOVE either so open to recs!
Knitting! We are so back, baby. I learned how to add a “lifeline” to my knitting before or after a mistake last night and feel like a crafting wizard. My next project will be a balaclava for an upcoming trip to Boston as recommended by my friend Jody— I’ve never made one and thinking of doing this one or this one. Exciting!
I’ve been working on an “invention” called Landline this year that will basically be a fun way to disconnect at home and it turns out the key piece of technology you need to do this already exists and is sold for pretty cheap on amazon. Currently testing it out at home and it’s pretty fun! Let me know if you end up trying it— I need to hear your thoughts
Similarly/oppositely, I finally caved and got an Apple Watch (I wanted a way to call for help if I need it and my phone is dead, since it is always dead :) ) and was able to work through the initial panic of feeling over-connected by the watch to get to a place where it helps me disconnect. Thank you to my friends who treated me like their 90 year old grandmother and helped me fine tune/understand this thing. I do now recommend!
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Thanks for reading – see you next month!