Monday, July 9, 2012

Brother, New Haircut, Kittens, and A Chinchilla or None

Jeez I've been away too long. 

So when my mom was not much older than me she was dating this guy named Bill. Bill was abusive. They had my older sister Molly when my mom was eighteen and still in high school, so my mom gave her up for adoption. Then she had my brother out of a rape. Bill told her that if my brother came home from the hospital, he wouldn't live to see his first birthday. So my mom gave him up, too. 
The Monday before my last post (so sometime in July), we got a call from the adoption agency that my brother wanted contact. His name is Matt. He lives in South Dakota. He got married last weekend. He was a wrestler and a football player, and actually got a scholarship to Notre Dame for football but then blew out his knee and lost it so he never went to college. However, he makes alright for himself as a farmer. His favorite color is green. He likes wolves, cheetahs, and honeybadgers. He has huskies. He's already had to play big brother to me and did an excellent job. 

I cut my hair this weekend for several reasons. The one I tell everyone is that it was for Locks of Love. When I was in elementary school, my friend's sister (who was also my friend) got cancer and went through chemo. She didn't choose to wear a wig after losing her hair, but it still gave me a close-up look at cancer. I can better imagine what it would be like for someone to go through cancer and chemo and have the added stress of thinking they're ugly because they're bald and can't afford a wig. Also, some of the wigs go to trichotillomania sufferers, and I've had my own battles with that. So I've gotten into the habit of cutting it short everytime it gets long enough to donate. 
However, I cut it short a bit early this time. The reason for this is my abuser last summer offhandedly mentioned that he was glad I had long hair because he hated short hair on girls. So now my hair's about ear-length. It was actually like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders when I looked in the mirror and realized I am less attractive to him now. 

The kittens continue to be adorable. 
They're old enough to give up for adoption now, but (thankfully, in my opinion) we haven't found any yet. We've been keeping them in a pen in my room, but they can climb out now. They all have their own little personalities. Smokey's the most feisty. She takes on Vader on a regular basis. Monty's kind of a scaredy cat. He won't climb very high or jump off of the bed or go down the stairs. Oliver's the exact opposite. He likes walking on top of the pen, and was the first to discover the stairs (and nearly give me a heart-attack as he tried to go through the balcony where there would've been a three foot drop). And Thunder's kind of in the middle. He likes pouncing on stuff, especially his sibling's tails. 

I've been wanting a chinchilla since Bryar introduced me to the fact that they could be pets my freshman year. It's always been a pipe dream, though, because they're more expensive than the five dollar gerbils we usually get. As in usually between $150 and $500. However, we went to Pet Kare on the last Friday of June and found a female chinchilla for $75. Since we breed rats for them, they gave her to us for $65. 
This morning I was in the office by her cage when I heard her making this weird cooing noise. I went to check on her and found her curled up in the bedding out of her house and shaking. When I reached in and touched her, she didn't respond. I called my mom, who left work early and drove me to the pet store. By the time our friend there was able to look at her, she'd died.
This is hitting me harder than any of the other pet deaths (and trust me, over the last year and a half there have been a lot) except my first degu and my first rabbit. The degu was because I had him from December until April and we had bonded like I bonded to no other animal at the time; the rabbit because she had developed epilepsy and broke her leg in a seizure and I fed her mushed up food and cared for her for four days before she finally died. I guess it's because I wanted her for so long. And she was special. Bryar always told me to get a young male so I could bond to him and that females were super territorial. And then here comes this adult female who wanted nothing more than to be held. And I named her Annie. After Alice, that's my favorite name. I was saving it for something special. And now she's gone... 
I'm fighting hard not to slip back into depression, but it's really hard right now...

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