Would like to be able to heart this times infinity. I so completely relate to Big Life Moment Letdown and you absolutely nailed it with how girls, in particular, are taught to organize our lives and measure our worth by these (so often inevitably disappointing) milestones. Also Sam/Harry/Grassy is adorable. (But I so get it.)
I brought a dog to my marriage - Tera, named for Bridge to Terabithia. A 110 pound mixed breed who was perfection. She died suddenly 7 days before my oldest was born. Our vet was the first to say her spirit passed to my son. We have had 3 dogs since, and they have all been who we needed at the time.
My now husband and I adopted a dog two weeks after we started dating, he lived with him first, but he was definitely OUR dog. We fell in love with each other while falling in love with him. We had him for 10 years before I became pregnant. Two weeks before my due date, he got sick. My in-laws took him for an emergency blood transfusion WHILE I was in labor. My doggy and my baby were on this Earth together for 5 days. The sorrow and the joy and the postpartum, it was absurd. Naturally, my now 3.5 year old son is obsessed with dogs and sweetly often asks why we can't go get Freddy again. (Oh I wish we could, my love). We are close to getting our son a dog and we're both nervous that the dog will only ever be "not Freddy." This essay was so grounding and reassuring that complicated is the only feeling we'll be feeling. Here's to Paddington and Freddy and their "not" replacements.
My husband had a 13 year old cat when we started dating- his family got Archimedes when he was 16 but when he moved with brothers after college Arc came with him. I moved into the house when Arc was 15 and when I was 10 weeks pregnant with my first he had a health crisis where he lost his vision. I worked from home half the week in 2013 and haven’t been to an office since 2015 so I spent a lot of time home with Arc. We didn’t think he would get to come home but he went on blood pressure meds and ended up living until our oldest was 13 months old, we had been giving him fluids for kidney failure . 5 years later with 6 and almost 4 year old we have talked many times about getting another cat, my 6 yo wants to name her Fern. He asks to see pics of him with Arc, I remember being so impressed he jumped into the crib when he wasn’t getting around well. My husband still doesn’t know if he’s ready but they have an adoption event at our science center The first Saturday in May and we talked about going. Thank you for this essay, so many complicated feelings with pets.
I feel ALL of this ❤️ Social media definitely exacerbates the importance of the big moments and how they should make us feel and change our lives. And somewhat related - I have a momfluencer friend who spent months agonizing over what dog to get because she didn’t WANT a rescue dog but thought her followers would turn on her if she didn’t get a rescue dog but still got a designer dog (who is featured heavily in the feed) and I couldn’t relate to a single second of the the agonizing because we find all of our dogs on Craigslist. Also, I’m reading my advance copy of your book right now and am LOVING it!
We had a tuxedo cat named Ramona who was practically the perfect cat. Her habit of peeing on my clothes in times of great distress was the only thing that kept her from perfection, though I guess I needed the help to keep stray clothes off the floor anyway. She was a tamed feral so it felt like we had rescued her from a brutal life. She died last August at age 15 while having a cardiac event at the vet. It was awful.
After that, I started looking at listings of kittens on Petfinder for a masochistic distraction. Last month, I saw an entry for an older kitten who was found inside a truck engine. She was adorable and we adopted her. Except for her bitey kitten shit, she is pretty perfect. She was born in August, so a tiny part of me likes to think that she is Ramona reincarnated; she immediately found all of Ramona’s favorite hiding spots, so maybe I’m on to something.
Our cat recently escaped for 6 days and in that time my husband and I talked about how we might not ever be able to get another cat. Miles is the Quintessential Cat™️ and we love him. Our 7 month old daughter lights up with glee whenever she sees him. There would never be another Miles. Thankfully, we found him in a neighbor’s backyard, but trying to imagine a future without him was devastating and forced us to reckon with the fleeting time we get with our pets. Big love to you and your family. It’s a complicated experience to navigate!
Definitely identify with Big Life Moments actually turning out to be worse than the mundane ones. I hate the anxiety of planning the BEST New Year’s Eve and then inevitably being disappointed. I am turning 40 this year and am trying to figure out a way to celebrate that won’t make me obsess over whether I have enough/the right kind/close enough friends (why does everyone else have a mom friend group chat and I don’t?) and whether they value me enough to get a babysitter and on and on and on and I will definitely enjoy some other random Saturday night more than that one!
I promise I had Actual Thoughts about your essay, but the picture of your cute puppy blasted them all out of my brain.
It's not just the big milestones, is it, though perhaps the focus on that is what leads us to make mini ones. Once I get that big raise, once both kids are in school, once I get x number of followers... we set these things up as big accomplishments and then they happen and it's more of a "huh, that's it?", a shrug and "what's next?"
Would like to be able to heart this times infinity. I so completely relate to Big Life Moment Letdown and you absolutely nailed it with how girls, in particular, are taught to organize our lives and measure our worth by these (so often inevitably disappointing) milestones. Also Sam/Harry/Grassy is adorable. (But I so get it.)
I brought a dog to my marriage - Tera, named for Bridge to Terabithia. A 110 pound mixed breed who was perfection. She died suddenly 7 days before my oldest was born. Our vet was the first to say her spirit passed to my son. We have had 3 dogs since, and they have all been who we needed at the time.
My now husband and I adopted a dog two weeks after we started dating, he lived with him first, but he was definitely OUR dog. We fell in love with each other while falling in love with him. We had him for 10 years before I became pregnant. Two weeks before my due date, he got sick. My in-laws took him for an emergency blood transfusion WHILE I was in labor. My doggy and my baby were on this Earth together for 5 days. The sorrow and the joy and the postpartum, it was absurd. Naturally, my now 3.5 year old son is obsessed with dogs and sweetly often asks why we can't go get Freddy again. (Oh I wish we could, my love). We are close to getting our son a dog and we're both nervous that the dog will only ever be "not Freddy." This essay was so grounding and reassuring that complicated is the only feeling we'll be feeling. Here's to Paddington and Freddy and their "not" replacements.
My husband had a 13 year old cat when we started dating- his family got Archimedes when he was 16 but when he moved with brothers after college Arc came with him. I moved into the house when Arc was 15 and when I was 10 weeks pregnant with my first he had a health crisis where he lost his vision. I worked from home half the week in 2013 and haven’t been to an office since 2015 so I spent a lot of time home with Arc. We didn’t think he would get to come home but he went on blood pressure meds and ended up living until our oldest was 13 months old, we had been giving him fluids for kidney failure . 5 years later with 6 and almost 4 year old we have talked many times about getting another cat, my 6 yo wants to name her Fern. He asks to see pics of him with Arc, I remember being so impressed he jumped into the crib when he wasn’t getting around well. My husband still doesn’t know if he’s ready but they have an adoption event at our science center The first Saturday in May and we talked about going. Thank you for this essay, so many complicated feelings with pets.
I feel ALL of this ❤️ Social media definitely exacerbates the importance of the big moments and how they should make us feel and change our lives. And somewhat related - I have a momfluencer friend who spent months agonizing over what dog to get because she didn’t WANT a rescue dog but thought her followers would turn on her if she didn’t get a rescue dog but still got a designer dog (who is featured heavily in the feed) and I couldn’t relate to a single second of the the agonizing because we find all of our dogs on Craigslist. Also, I’m reading my advance copy of your book right now and am LOVING it!
This was so moving to read. The BIG FEELINGS (and muted feelings) were described so well.
We had a tuxedo cat named Ramona who was practically the perfect cat. Her habit of peeing on my clothes in times of great distress was the only thing that kept her from perfection, though I guess I needed the help to keep stray clothes off the floor anyway. She was a tamed feral so it felt like we had rescued her from a brutal life. She died last August at age 15 while having a cardiac event at the vet. It was awful.
After that, I started looking at listings of kittens on Petfinder for a masochistic distraction. Last month, I saw an entry for an older kitten who was found inside a truck engine. She was adorable and we adopted her. Except for her bitey kitten shit, she is pretty perfect. She was born in August, so a tiny part of me likes to think that she is Ramona reincarnated; she immediately found all of Ramona’s favorite hiding spots, so maybe I’m on to something.
P.S. Lauren Berlant is great!
Our cat recently escaped for 6 days and in that time my husband and I talked about how we might not ever be able to get another cat. Miles is the Quintessential Cat™️ and we love him. Our 7 month old daughter lights up with glee whenever she sees him. There would never be another Miles. Thankfully, we found him in a neighbor’s backyard, but trying to imagine a future without him was devastating and forced us to reckon with the fleeting time we get with our pets. Big love to you and your family. It’s a complicated experience to navigate!
Definitely identify with Big Life Moments actually turning out to be worse than the mundane ones. I hate the anxiety of planning the BEST New Year’s Eve and then inevitably being disappointed. I am turning 40 this year and am trying to figure out a way to celebrate that won’t make me obsess over whether I have enough/the right kind/close enough friends (why does everyone else have a mom friend group chat and I don’t?) and whether they value me enough to get a babysitter and on and on and on and I will definitely enjoy some other random Saturday night more than that one!
I promise I had Actual Thoughts about your essay, but the picture of your cute puppy blasted them all out of my brain.
It's not just the big milestones, is it, though perhaps the focus on that is what leads us to make mini ones. Once I get that big raise, once both kids are in school, once I get x number of followers... we set these things up as big accomplishments and then they happen and it's more of a "huh, that's it?", a shrug and "what's next?"