27 in t-minus (what does that even mean?) 6 days

I may have hidden my year of birth on Facebook, but we all know the truth: I'm turning twenty-seven next week.  This doesn't make me particularly happy, as I'll finally be in my late twenties.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to be there.  Yet I will be.  I remember in the fifth grade, my teacher, Miss Jenson, told us that she was twenty-eight, and I had thought that was so old.  Well, now she'll be about forty-five, wherever she may be.  In The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan, the evil future-step-mom Meredith says she's twenty six.  Again, I had thought that was so old.  I am now older than that.  Ugh.

ANYWAY.  Regardless of all that, I'm actually excited for my birthday.  I didn't have a great one last year, due to falling and hurting myself at the waterfall where Jay proposed, almost getting pummeled by a semi-truck, and finding out my favorite store in the mall was gone forever.  But this year!  What am I doing this year, you may ask?  I'm working!

BUT AFTER THAT.

Two days after my birthday, on August 31, Jay and I will be driving down to Atlanta (again) for a comic con (again).  However, this time it will be the con I have always wanted to go to but thought I couldn't afford: Dragon Con.  I hadn't realized that one could buy single day passes for $50 instead of a pass for all five days for $150.  While Lauren and Kat were here in June, I had been rather upset, as one of my favorite actors, Craig Parker (who played Haldir in The Lord of the Rings) is scheduled to be there, and I knew I couldn't afford the $300 for Jay and me to go see him.

When I realized a while later, however, that one could buy single day passes, I was ecstatic.  So we got the passes, and I quickly learned some of my other favorite people are scheduled to be there: Victor Garber (Titanic, Legally Blonde, Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Annie), Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob), and Tara Strong (Timmy Turner from Fairly OddParents, Dil Pickles from Rugrats, Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony).  I was disappointed that my favorite actor ever, Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter, Captain Hook in 2003's Peter Pan, Captain Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery, Colonel Tavington in The Patriot), wouldn't be there, as he was the previous year.  But still, I was excited!

Then.

I woke up one morning to a notification on Facebook that Jay had tagged me in a post.  It was Dragon Con announcing that Jason Isaacs was now scheduled to attend Dragon Con.

I cried.  Seriously.  I legit cried.

I have dreamt of meeting Jason Isaacs for years, and years, and years.  I have done my absolute best to see as much of his filmography as possible, including going to see Elektra in theatres just because he was in the first five minutes, even though I'd already seen those five minutes online when they released it as a teaser.

Words cannot express how excited I am.  I've been saving up as much money as I can, and when people ask what I want for my birthday, all I can say is money for Dragon Con (still ain't cheap, even though I just got a one-day pass).  I'll probably miss a lot of the festivities of the con by waiting in line for Jason-related stuff, and I'll likely not get to see everyone else on my list, but I don't care.  It's Jason.  My favorite actor ever.

I'm.

so.

stoked.

Continuing.

I've spent five months not knowing how to write another blog entry.  I've tried and failed multiple times, but nothing has felt right.  It's five months ago today that my brother died, which seems hard to believe, because that feels like both no time at all and an eternity.  But we keep going.  We're not moving on, but we're continuing, which is all we can really do.  And it's what Michael would want us to do.

Lots has happened in the past four months since my last entry.  We adopted two new guinea pigs, Marigold and Elvira, who come with their own set of maintenance since they're what breeders call "silkies," which means they have super long hair that needs to be brushed and trimmed regularly.  They're about the same age as Eleanor and Lucy (three), and they certainly have their own personalities.  They're definitely less timid than the other two, and aren't afraid to make their displeasure known if they want vegetables and you fail to provide them in a timely manner.  It was stressful for the first few days that we had them, not knowing if the four of them would be able to get along, but now it's as if they've always been together.  Thank God, because we don't have the space for two separate cages.

In early March, I went down to Georgia to celebrate my little sister Mary's eleventh (holy crap) birthday.  We had a super fun time at Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park, and then at an actual outdoor park.  If there's one single positive thing that has come from losing Michael, it's the realization that I need to spend time with my family more, which has led to me promising to try to go down to Georgia for everyone's birthdays.  I was off to a good start, but I wasn't able to go down for Jackson's and Momma's birthdays since Jay got sick suddenly, but I already have plans to go back down again this summer.

Something super exciting happened in early April: Bruno Pelletier came to Columbus, Ohio for his second performance in the U.S.  (The first was back in 2009 in Los Angeles which I was, obviously, unable to attend.)  Naturally, I was super stoked since Columbus is only six hours from me, as opposed to the usual twenty by car.  In order to break up the trip, I drove up to Kentucky to spend a couple nights with my mom and sister and then drive the four hours to Columbus.  It meant a longer trip, but it didn't seem as bad with a couple nights of sleep in between.  It was the first time I had ever driven myself to one of Bruno's shows, as every other time I was either driven by someone else, or I took public transportation.  It was almost like coming full circle, spending some time with my mom, sister, and aunts before seeing Bruno the next day, hearkening back to 2008 and 2009 when I lived there before school and obsessed over Bruno's music 24/7, desperate to see him perform.  And then there I was, ten years later, getting ready to see him in the U.S., already having seen him perform a whopping ten times in concern, plus other interactions outside of his shows.  Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

A little while later, I bought a new car: a 2018 Honda CR-V.  Maybe it's a "mom car," but I don't care.  It's cute and its name is Marshmallow.  It's also the first new car I've ever had, as B.B., my Chevrolet Aveo5 was a 2009 and Lokia, my Kia Soul ! was a 2015.  Of course, it's already got over 3,000 miles on it because I've driven it down to Georgia once and I drive at least 190 miles a week, but that's beside the point.

Also in April, I finished the novel I've been working on for four years, The Edge of the Ocean.  It still needs a lot of editing, but the fact that I've written twenty chapters and almost 100,000 words over a period of four years is still pretty awesome.

On April 22, Michael would have turned 27.  Jay and I went down to Georgia for the day to spend time with my family.  We started out by getting lunch with Sarah, Jesse, and Sarah's husband, TJ, before Sarah and I went and got tattoos together in honor of Michael.  After that, we met up with our parents, and Jackson and Mary to paint ceramic things since Michael was an artist.

Kat and I have also made plans to go see Josh Groban and Idina Menzel in Nashville this October.  I am SO excited, as I've never seen Josh before, nor Idina.  Kat and Lauren saw Josh back in 2011, just before I moved out to Missouri, and now it's finally my turn!  EEEEE!!

In about a week-and-a-half, Lauren and Kat are going to come stay with me for a few days, a spur-of-the-moment decision due to Lauren having a bunch of extra vacation days that she'll lose if she doesn't use them before the end of June.  So, of course, I'm happy to help with that!

A friend of mine, Jordan, whom I met during my brief stay in Georgia when I was sixteen, is getting married at the end of June, and I'll be driving down to attend!  Around this time, my mom and sister will also be moving in with Jay and me while they hunt for apartments in the Shelbyville area.  Yay for free guinea pig-sitters!

The Atlanta Comic-Con is happening in July, and Jay and I will be attending as part of an early birthday present for me.  We shall be meeting Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter films), Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, and Jim Cummings (the voice of every character you can ever think of, such as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Pete the cat).

In August, Emily and I are going to drive up to visit our family in Michigan for a few days.  Aaaand in early November, Lauren, Kat, and I are going to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter together!  SQUEE!  (Yes, I have wanderlust; I am unable to stay home for more than a few months at a time.)

That's about it for now.  I'm sure there will be more.  Keep noodling.

Michael.

The new year didn’t begin at all like how I thought it would. I had intended to write my traditional last post of the year “highlighting” everything that happened throughout 2017, just like I always do. Because even though time passes, and we get older, and things change, we never really expect things to really change. Maybe we’ll start college in another state, or we’ll get a new job, or we’ll move to a new country, or we’ll get married. I had an amazing year. I got a great new job and I married the man I love. But then things can change in the blink of an eye, leaving you stunned and wondering what it was like to feel happy in the first place.

On Friday, December 29, 2017, my older brother, Michael Hamill, died. He was 26, like me. Finding out that I lost my brother is a memory that is going to be burned into my mind for the rest of my life. I was at work. I picked up the phone and heard my father heave a long sigh. And time seemed to slow, because I just knew that by the end of that sigh, nothing would be the same again. But I never imagined that it would be because I had lost my brother. Two days later, my oldest sister, Dawn, and I were down in Georgia. The funeral wasn’t until the following Saturday, but we wanted to be there and do whatever we could, even though we knew there wasn’t much. Wednesday, January 3 was my husband’s twenty-fifth birthday. It was also the day I saw my brother’s body for the first time.

At work the next two days, I might have seemed fine to the casual observer. I smiled a bit, and laughed a little, but the second I was left alone, all I could think about was Michael. I could feel his presence all around me, and the loss of him was crushing, like there was a big weight on my chest that I couldn’t remove. On the fifth, exactly a week after he died, I could only get through half the day. A picture of him on Instagram sent me spiraling. Just a picture

The next day, my father’s birthday, was my brother’s funeral. It was held at the Mormon church my family attended. Theo and I drove down together, followed by Dawn, and met up with our grandparents, who had flown down from Michigan. I had never been to a funeral before. I had been to a couple memorials, both held at Mormon churches, but never one with a viewing, and certainly never one for a family member; I had been unable to attend either my great-grandmother’s funeral when I was little, nor my uncle’s memorial in 2012.

At the funeral, we celebrated my brother’s life. We remembered him and we loved him. It was easily one of the most difficult days of my life, sitting in the front pew, directly in front of his casket, with my other siblings, my parents, and my grandparents. I listened to my grandmother give his eulogy and my mother speak about Michael, her firstborn child. I signed my name on a board, along with everyone else. I plucked a rose from his casket. I touched his hand, told him I loved him, and said goodbye.

It’s been almost three weeks since he died and two weeks since the funeral, and the crushing weight his absence has left hasn’t dissipated in the slightest. I miss him. I keep forgetting he’s not here anymore. I’m surrounded by people who look at me with pity for a moment, but then quickly change the subject, as if they’re afraid I’ll burst into tears on their shoulder. People ask probing questions under the guise of concern, but what really just seems like morbid curiosity. I stress about the amount of work I’ve missed. Life is continuing for everyone else but him. We plan our futures, plan the addition of two new guinea pigs, but he’s always there in the back of my mind. Always. I’m laughing at some joke Theo said, but then I’m passing Michael’s picture hanging in the hallway, and I stop, my eyes drawn immediately to his face. And the pain returns, burning even more than before.

There are nine of us siblings. Dawn, David, Emily, Michael, Ashlee, Sarah, Jesse, Jackson, and Mary. Nine. There was never supposed to be a world in which one of us didn’t exist. Or, at least, not for a very, very long time. But now one of us is gone and the rest of us have to try to find a way to move on without him. There will always be nine, but it’ll never be the same again.

Michael, I love you. I know I didn’t tell you that enough. I know we didn’t talk enough. There aren’t any pictures of just us two. I love you, and I miss you, and I want so badly to wake up and find out that this has all been a nightmare. I’m trying to keep on living my life, but it’s hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I know I’ll see you again, but it’s hard to know that it’ll be a long time before that happens. You were such an amazing, kind, loving person. I feel so lucky to count you as my brother.

Michael Paul Hamill. April 22, 1991 - December 29, 2017.

Weddings, honeymoons, Evanescence, a new job, Montréal, and hockey, oh my!

Okay, so it's been two months since I last updated, but if you'd like to know what I've been doing since my twenty-sixth birthday, you need only read the title of this entry.

1. The main thing (I suppose), is that I got married!  On September 30, 2017 in Wartrace, Tennessee, Jay and I said "I do" before our friends and family.  Most of my paternal family was able to come down from Michigan, as did my dad and most of my siblings up from Georgia, as well as my mom, sister, and aunt, and my second family in Missouri.  It was an amazing day, and none of it would have been possible without my amazing parents-in-law, Ted and Pam.  They're practically perfect in every way.  It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and it was a crackin' good time.  It was also nice just to spend time with my friends and family who live super far away.

2. A week after the wedding, Jay and I left for our honeymoon!  It was amazing.  Times ten.  We spent the first day driving down to Orlando, and then the next three days were at DISNEY WORLD!  Sigh.  I miss it.  Then, after a day at New Smyrna Beach on the east coast, we were off to Universal Studios.  Though we explored the Jurassic Park portion (duh), the main reason for going was, of course, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  And while we loved it, I don't think it quite measured up to the epicness that is Disney World.  But it was still awesome!

3. About a week-and-a-half after we got back from the honeymoon, we headed up to Nashville to see Evanescence!  I hadn't seen them since 2012 (I say "them," but Amy Lee is the only member who was in the band during that concert in St. Louis who is still with them), so it was awesome to see them again.  It was completely different from their usual tour in that they were accompanied by a symphony from Nashville.  A lot of people don't like the new album, but I love it!

4. A little while later, I got a job!  I now work as a service cashier at the Honda dealership in Murfreesboro.  There's more to it than just using a register to cash people out, and I rather enjoy it.  The best part is the people I work with - they're all nuts.

5. Back in April (I think), when I still worked in hell--I mean, my previous place of employment--I purchased concert and plane tickets for one of Bruno Pelletier's shows near Montréal.  Karen drove up from NJ and she met me at the airport.  I spent literally 25 hours in Québec, but it was unforgettable.  We interviewed Bruno before the show for the American fanclub, had super close seats in the front row, and then I was picked to choose one of the last songs of the evening from a super cool box.  It was incredible.

6. Aaaand on November 22, Jay and I headed back to Nashville, this time for my very first hockey game!  I've always loved hockey (it's in my blood), but this was the first time I'd ever been able to see a game live.  It was the Nashville Predators vs. the Montréal Canadiens, my favorite team.  The Habs (the Canadiens' nickname) lost, but it was still really close and super fun.  Now the Habs are playing the Detroit Red Wings (my family team and my second-favorite team) tonight, so I'ma try to watch it!

Aaaand, that's literally about it.  I have a job, which is a huge load off my mind, Christmas is coming, and tomorrow is my mommy's birthday!  Yay!

Round up to 30

Look at me actually remembering to post a blog entry before the end of the month.  Okay, stop looking, I'm shy.

August has been interesting to say the least.  It's the best month of the world, namely because it's my birthday month and also the birthday month of Lauren and Kat, who are eleven and ten days older than me respectively.  (I still think it's the coolest thing in the world that the three of us are so close in age.)  It started off with me neck-deep in a Harry Potter obsession.  (Obviously, it never goes away, but I go through cycles of being obsessed with different things, usually Harry Potter and Titanic.)  I blame Lauren.  Lauren has been drowning in Harry Potter, more so than usual, for months and months and months, and then she grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with her.

The weird thing is that I really can't focus on one "fandom" at a time (though I don't consider Titanic to be a fandom).  I've finally been writing again, but I can't write both my Harry Potter fanfiction and my historical novel (with a smidge of the movie Titanic fanfiction) at the same time.  I know, I've tried.  Hard.  I was wading through my novel, The Edge of the Ocean, and writing quite regularly when Harry Potter reared its beautiful head and pulled me back into the wizarding world.  As per usual, though, it started to fade away, replaced with, you guessed it, Titanic.  So here I am.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On August 7, I drove about seven-or-eight hours northwest to Missouri.  It was the first time I had been back in a year, though I had seen Lauren and Kat this past March when they came to see me here in Tennessee.  The plan was originally a half-joke by Kat, who asked if we wanted to go see Halestorm at the MO State Fair again, as we did three years ago.  I don't think she was expecting Lauren and I to reply with a resounding, "Hell yeah!"  Originally, I had planned to take Friday off of work and drive up Thursday night after I got off, but because I am currently an unemployed bum, I was able to go earlier in the week to spend more time with Kat and mooch off of her at her apartment.

Mostly we hung around Hannibal, but while she was working on Wednesday I drove up to Kirksville; I can't seem to resist my second-favorite town in the world and the place where my life changed: Truman.  I miss Truman a lot, especially with school starting for everyone else but me.  It was nice to walk around the campus and see the town, but of course, it wasn't the same.  I did get to meet up with my favorite professor and boss, Ron, who showed me around Baldwin, the old disease-filled building that was finally renovated.  I can't help but be a bit bitter that I lived in Baldwin and inhaled its mold and cockroaches, and the year after I graduate, they close it down, and by the next year, it's open and super fancy.  The new language labs are amazing and the peer teaching areas make me want to cry.  Ron was showing me the new labs (I worked in the old ones for two-and-a-half years and often spent my time there in between classes) and I saw a sign I had made and stuck to the printer, probably three years ago.  It made me far too happy to see that it was still there.  Later, as we were walking around McClain, we stopped by the bulletin board for the French department and there were several pictures of me in it, whether from Pi Delta Phi or the French immersion weekend.

I commented, "I know it's silly, but it's nice to see that there is still some small remnant of me here."

Ron replied, "Ashlee, as long as I'm working here, there will always be a remnant of you here."

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Seriously, that means the world to me.

Anyway, moving on.

Lauren arrived in Hannibal on Thursday evening.  How the town did not explode with the three of us in one place again is beyond me.  Friday was Halestorm day!  We went to see Lauren's dad and stepmom before driving the two-and-a-half hours to Sedalia for the concert.  This time, we knew what to expect and didn't arrive nearly as early as we did three years ago.  Last time, we ended up wandering around the fair for hours for nothing to do.  This time, we arrived with enough time to get some food, walk around once, and then go take our seats, which was perfect.

Speaking of our seats, we were in the second row!  It was absolutely incredible.  And though the first time had been amazing, this time was a thousand times better.  This time, there was no chainlink fence in front of us (the stadium is a dirt track) and we were so close to Lzzy and Joe, the lead guitarist.  Gooood, it was incredible.  Definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to, hands down.

On Saturday, we continued our tradition (though it had been three years since we had done it) of going up to St. Louis to celebrate our birthdays!  Lauren's mom and stepdad were kind enough to drive us (and our friend, Liz, who is living in Armenia and whom Kat and I hadn't seen in three years since she graduated from Truman) up to St. Louis and take us to lunch.  After our usual meal at the Cheesecake Factory, we wandered around the mall, and in general had a jolly good time.

The original plan had been for Lauren and I both to head home on Sunday morning, buuut we didn't, so we decided to leave on Monday.  We spent some more time with her dad and stepmom before meeting up with Kat after she got off work that night.  On Monday, we went our separate ways.

When I got to Tennessee, everyone's full focus was on the upcoming solar eclipse, for which we were extremely close to the path of totality.  But we were out of luck in terms of getting glasses.  However, Jay (my fiancé; his whole family calls him "Jay" and because I met him after he started going by "Theo," I was the only one to call him at family gatherings, so I have decided to stop that) managed to snag a couple of pairs from work.  Score!

Or is it?

The day before the eclipse, my mom called and asked if she could borrow my glasses.  Let me tell you, I was a mite confused, as she didn't mention the eclipse, so I just assumed she wanted to borrow my actual glasses, which is weird.  But no, she was jokingly asking about the eclipse glasses because she and Emily had none and Emily's really into astronomy and wanted to see it.

Y'all know how I often do spontaneous things, like surprise my mom and dad, or leave Montréal a day early to surprise Theo--crap, I mean Jay--, or make a snap decision to travel to Missouri for a concert?  Well, I get it from my mother.  The plan was made for my mom and Emily to drive down from Kentucky to spend a few days here with us for the eclipse since I had both glasses and a means to get us to the actual path of totality, i.e. Murfreesboro.  So they left at about six o'clock my time and arrived about midnight.  It was awesome.

The next day, I lost the eclipse glasses.  Boy, was I upset.  We had intended to drive to the MTSU campus, which was having events and music and all that fun stuff, but we decided to go instead to the Stones River Battlefield, as they were giving away free pairs of eclipse glasses to the first 2,500 people who showed up.  And because we actually wanted to see the eclipse during the partial phases, that's where we went.  We arrived at eight, to make sure we got glasses, but we probably didn't have to.  It was a long, hot day, but by the time the eclipse happened, it was totally worth it.

Since then, I turned 26 on the 29th.  I've decided I'm in my late twenties, which is horrifying, because I can round my age up to 30.  Jay points out that I could have done that last year, too, and that 24, 25, and 26 are my mid-twenties, while 27, 28, and 29 are my late twenties.  He may be right, but it's too late for me to admit it now.

Noswaith dda

Apparently the title means "good evening" in Welsh.  I didn't know that.  I know how to say "good morning" (bore da) and "good afternoon" (prynhawn da), but Duolingo hasn't yet taught me to say "good evening," despite the fact that it is in fact evening.  Oh, well.

I also forgot to write in here for June, aaaand I don't really care.  Moving on.

The big news as of late is that I quit my job for different reasons.  I am currently jobless, which sucks, but I've had a couple of interviews, so hopefully something comes along soon.  If all of your appendages could remained twisted into a pretzel-like fashion, that would be great.  Thanks oodles.

The reason the blog title is in Welsh is because I've decided to finally sit down and learn Welsh.  I've been interested in the language for years and years, but I never really had a method to do so until it arrived on Duolingo.  (No, I didn't have Duolingo to learn French on my own, but there are so few speakers of Welsh that there aren't many other websites to use like there are for French.)  There's not a particular reason for me to learn Welsh - with French it was to understand lyrics, but it developed into a lifelong passion - other than the fact that I love studying languages.  I hate that I only know two - as a lover of languages, that is really not enough.  I've dabbled in Russian, Italian, Esperanto, and ASL, but I really want to make an effort with Welsh.  So, yeah, I'm doing that.

Oh, yeah - other big news.  Theo was in a car accident and his Mustang was totaled.  A sixteen-year-old was driving his new-to-him Chevy truck and not paying attention when he slammed into Theo, who was stopped due to, ironically, an accident further down the road.  The back of the Mustang was actually not toooo horrible, but he was pushed into the back of a Lexus, which completely smushed the front end.  The Lexus was then pushed into the back of a Mercedes.  So this poor sixteen-year-old kid (with no insurance) finally gets a truck and hits a Mustang, a Lexus, and a Mercedes all in one go.  Nice.  Way to multitask.  So while we're both upset about the loss of the Mustang, Theo now has a Ford Fusion.  'Tis quite a nice little car (but obvs not the same).

The weekend after the accident, I drove down to Georgia for my sister, Sarah's, wedding to her long-time fiancé, TJ.  It was magical and romantic, and I'm quite happy for those two crazy kids.  I got to see my grandparents, my dad and stepmom, and my siblings, and it was a wonderful time.  And I get to see them all in September!  Now that Sarah's wedding is over, I feel like my own wedding is looming.  So. much. planning.  Gulp.

That's about it.  I'm tired.  Noodles.

May'd It!

Get it?  Because it's May?  DO YOU GET IT?!

Anyway.  The day before June starts, I remembered that I hadn't posted an entry for this month yet.  Oops.  I had actually been planning on making a video entry, but I got lazy.  So there's that.  At the moment, I am home from work, as I have been feeling crummy (to put it mildly) for about a week.  And so, in desperate need of some recuperation, me voilà.

The biggest thing that happened in May was the adoption of our two guinea pigs, Eleanor Pigby and Lucy Diamond.  We actually got them on May 1, so their first "monthaversary" is tomorrow.  We rather love them.  At the moment, they're on the other side of the room behind me, chutting happily (it's a sort of squeaking noise that happy piggies make), munching on hay and running around their cage.  (Speaking of which, I need to change the bedding for that today.  Sigh.)

Getting a guinea pig is something that has been on my mind for a few years now.  I used to want a hamster when I was little, but found out that they had a tendency to bite (hard), and we always had cats when I was growing up, so getting a rodent was never really an option.  Lauren, one half of my bestest friends, had had several throughout her life, and constantly insisted to me how amazing they were, but my response was always along the lines of “Okay, honey.”  I didn’t actually meet a guinea pig until a few years ago, a lovely Abyssinian (really long hair) chap by the name of Scooter at her dad and step-mom’s farm.  I fell in love with him and immediately gained the desire for a guinea pig of my own.  While I was in Montréal, I actually entertained the idea of getting one (when I was still intending on staying for the rest of my life), but then I did some research and found out that they needed a lot more space than what they’re given at pet stores (or even the cages that are sold there), and that they really do a lot better with at least one other guinea pig since they’re very social critters, unless you can be there with it almost constantly.  So gave up on the idea, but when I moved in with Theo, he agreed to entertain the idea.

Now, there may be some among you (whoever “you” are) who wonder: what about our cat?  In September, not long after I moved in, we adopted a cat from the local shelter and named her Sylvanas.  Three weeks later, I announced that we had returned her with little explanation other than insisting that it was a personal decision and nothing that she had done.  Someone even commented that I shouldn’t have adopted a cat if I hadn’t been planning on keeping her.  Over the months, I had thought about writing about what happened, but resisted.  Now that we have two more pets, though, I figured it was time.  Let me start by saying this: Sylvanas was an amazing kitty.  She was extremely affectionate, and though she had been a stray, she warmed up to us very quickly, and insisted upon snuggling, purring, and kneading our legs the moment we sat down.  We adored her and we still miss her, and not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty about what happened.  I wish she was here, however, I don’t regret giving her up.

I’ve thought about going into great detail about what happened; I even wrote it all out.  Eventually, though, I changed my mind, mainly because I don’t owe anyone anything.  It’s just that the comment that that one person made has always stayed on my mind.  The thing is, though, is that we always planned on keeping her.  It wasn’t as if we went to the shelter with the idea, “Hey, let’s adopt a cat, and if we like it, we’ll keep it!”  No, we fully intended to keep Sylvanas for the rest of her life.  So why didn’t we?  It was because of nothing she did; as I said before, she was an extremely sweet, loving cat.  We didn’t keep her because my anxiety, which had been lying dormant since returning from Montréal, flared up with a vengeance, and every day I was reduced to panic and anxiety attacks.  It was the first time in my life that I decided to put my mental health first instead of shoving it under the rug, and I did it because I knew Sylvanas deserved better.  I wanted her to be happy and loved with a family who could give her the amount of time and attention she needed and deserved.  So we did what we thought was best.  And all I can do is hope that she was adopted by a family who gives her the love and attention she deserves?

Does this make me a bad person?  I don’t think so, though I do still feel guilty about what happened.  As my anxiety has lessened, we decided we were ready for guinea pigs.  And so far, so good!  We love them.  They’re a bit shy, but I can relate, so it all works out.

In other news, Theo and I drove up to Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend to give my mom B.B., my little yellow car, as I now have my Kia Soul.  Theo got to meet my Aunt Carol for the first time, and we all got to hang out, and it was just dandy.