“How are you?”. After pet loss, people are bound to ask. But how often do they really want the answer? When you’ve lost your pet and someone asks, “How are you?”, it is such a loaded question.
Three very normal reactions: You know they don’t really want to know, you don’t have the words to adequately articulate the true answer or you just don’t have the energy to get into it. No matter which of those are your truth, it typically comes out something like, “I’m ok”.
And then the conversation moves forward, away from the real answer. We have very few places to really talk about the true answer to How Are You?
What if you could write a letter to the world? What would the answer really be, if there was space and support to put it out there?
It’s an exercise we could all do. Try it, it might feel really good to get it out.
So, how are you doing?
I might seem like I’m holding it together, but it’s more like this is what auto-pilot looks like. Having to actually function is sometimes a welcome distraction, but not always.
Sometimes I feel like I need to just lay in bed and sob. I realize that’s probably not the most productive but my brain is still absorbing how different life is now.
Everything for me has changed, I know not everyone gets that.
See, my entire daily routine was in some way about my furbaby, from sun up to sun down. Meals, outside time, meds, schedules, time for exercise and enrichment. Whatever I was doing was planned around their needs.
Usually I’d try to start the day by stealing an extra five minutes in bed just to snuggle with them and feel like I could face the day.
And I can’t even explain how hard it is being home in the loudest silence you could imagine. The one being who could always fill up my cup, even when the day was terrible, is no longer there. Not under my desk, not greeting me at the door. My cup feels pretty empty now.
People say the word unconditional a lot but when you really experience the love of a pet, you actually feel the definition of unconditional. It didn’t matter if I was in a mood, tired, anxious, busy. Didn’t matter how I looked, dressed, or how much money I had. They just loved me, wholeheartedly, the exact same. Every day.
It’s hard to think about living life without that.
Now, the days are a blur. I don’t sleep well, I can’t eat, or some days I eat everything in sight. I’m just longing to have them back. And it really sucks that that’s not possible.
I look in the mirror and I kind of don’t even recognize myself. Who am I now? What is my purpose in life? It’s hard to explain but it’s just how I feel.
My child with fur was a complement to everything else in life. Now the rest of it seems blah. Even I seem blah.
Sometimes I catch myself laughing at a show or something online and I feel like, how can I even have an ounce of happiness in a world without them?
And let’s not even talk about going to bed at night. I kind of actually dread nighttime. Watching TV is not the same. Reading is not the same. Sleeping isn’t the same. I light a candle and I sleep with their favorite blanket and I just cry cause even though those things feel nice, it’s not the same as having them here.
A lot of people say, “oh just get another one”, which is pretty annoying. I mean, someday I might think about it, but right now, I’m missing my soulmate. You can’t just replace what we had. There’s no magic cure for what I’m going through.
So how am I? I’m surviving. I’m literally doing the best I can and some days that really isn’t a lot. I hope that as days go forward I’ll start to feel a little lighter and more like myself. But it seems like a really slow process and everyone around me is wanting me to just be the old me again.
But a really big piece of the old me is not here on Earth any more.
Old me and new me need to figure it out and it’s going to take some time.
Give it a shot. Write your letter. It’s not a requirement that anyone actually read it unless you want them to, but putting shape to the words and feelings in your mind can feel therapeutic.
“How Are You” is not an easy question, but you deserve the space to answer it with your heart.
