Heart Broken.

I talk to a dead cat every day.

January 2021, our cat Penelope had kittens. All of them died except one. I became fond of the little kitten but we had no intentions of keeping her. I was going to find her a new home. (We already had too many cats.)

After she was born I was hospitalized, y’all remember that. When I got home she had a boo-boo on the top of her head. Her mom, Penelope, && Penelopes sister, Benson, got into a fight over her and booped her head. We named her Dotty.

After a bit that spot turned black – not a bad black, she basically ended up with a dot on her head that was black. As she aged a lot of her white darkened. She ended up looking Siamese.

Her and I bonded. We got very close. I fell in love with her when she was a baby. Completely head over heels. She got older, bigger, darker. She slept with me, && would want me to hold her like a baby rocking her as she slept. I called her Babykins. She was my baby.

Two weeks ago she never came home. I waited three days before I really started to freak out. By Friday I needed her home. So I went out looking for her. Walking around our small town I knew she wouldn’t go far. I even asked a Facebook Community page for help.

I found her. 💔

I know people always tell me that they don’t see their animals as animals but as children. I never understood that. Until her. She was special to me. She made me happy. &&& I know she loved me just as much as I loved her. (Even if I did read someone say that animals don’t love us that they only seem like it because they depended on us for food.)

She was down the road. Wet. Dirty. Which was things she hated more than anything. I wish I had went looking for her Wednesday, but I don’t think it would have mattered.

We have a set of aggressive dogs on our street. Mind you, I wasn’t there && at first I thought she was hit by a car. But this past Saturday we found another one of our cats, mauled to death in our back yard. I’m about 100% sure that Babykins was killed by the dogs.

When I found her. A piece of me broke in half. I feel like I’m missing something. A small part of me. A part of my happiness disappeared with her. I picked her limp body up and carried her home with no feelings in my legs. Couldn’t see through the tears. My lungs felt empty. I couldn’t breathe.

I sat on my front porch, alone, crying holding her like I did when she was alive. Close to my chest, rocking her back and forth, crying.

I went to work the next day. I shouldn’t have. For 12.5 hours I sat at my desk and cried. I wasn’t in the correct mindset to be there. I got nothing accomplished. But I went because I had no choice.

Milo, the other cat we found, was our baby. We got him April 2018, and he was solid white && deaf. He was a rescue that we got as a kitten. We raised him. He raised the other cats. We weren’t here for his but I’m pretty sure that Lucci, another one of our cats saw it. He witnessed Milos death. I think this because he has bite marks on his back and side.

Milo had no chance && I fear that Lucci tried to help but couldn’t. Lucci is now traumatized. Any noise he hears he jumps. Stares at the doors. Won’t go outside. You can tell he is sad.

I talk to Babykins every day I walk by her spot. We buried her next to the porch. We put Milo on the other side. They are both there and I see their spots every day.

I really miss them.

Songs.

Worlds.

Trying to break into worlds is hard.

No, this isn’t about me trying to find a way into another galaxy or proving that there is life in space. What I’m stating, is facts, that when you try to break into worlds it’s hard.

The writing community is huge. A lot of book worms, writers, authors, agents, editors, etc. && trying to get welcomed into it is like trying to sit at the popular table in high school. Sadly, I was never invited.

I have never been good at popularity contests && I wasn’t part of the “in crowd” && thinking that the writing community makes me feel like that is a harsh reality. I honestly know it’s not a popularity contest… but I feel like that. I also feel if you don’t have the money to spend you’ll never be published.

I figured the best way for an unknown is to publish it myself. Which is totally fine – I don’t mind doing the hard work. But I really wanted a professional editor to read through it, find the errors but unless I can poop out nearly $3,000 that will never happen. &&& I know they are worth the money, I just don’t have it to spend.

Then I think ‘okay, let’s skip the professional editing.’ Knowing that it’s self published, “most” readers will look over a lot of them. I will just edit the crap out of it.

Next hurdle. To self-publish, you need extra money. Thousands. I found a company that helps self publish but as I began reading I realized that not only do they request thousands of dollars they also keep 80¢ on every dollar for themselves so I would only get 20¢ of every dollar sold. Whereas, if I do it all myself and use Amazon, I get 70% of the royalties.

But then I think about going with my other passion but breaking into the food world is just as hard – if not harder. I guess when they say “you need money to make money” they weren’t kidding. But sadly, here I am with no money.

I did upload a couple chapters of the book. I figured if it gets enough notice that either that company will want to publish it or it shows that if I was to save the money, step-by-step it, that people would be interested in purchasing the book.

Here We Go!

November 2012 – First got the idea of Frost
November 2012 – Began writing.-The first few months was probably the easiest. The words just came to me. Flew out without having to think about it. Came across Chapter Three && the words just stopped. For some weird reason, every odd chapter was hard to write.
January 25, 2015 – I finished writing the full story.
January 26, 2015 – Began editing the story.
January 27, 2015 – Began the LONG fight with the story that lasted seven years.
January 25, 2022 – Finished – completely – the first round of edits. Yes, you read that correctly, I have finished editing the book. Do I think it’s great? No, I still think it needs a lot of work. But this is right direction.

My next plan is to print it out, start to finish, && read it. Make sure it flows, make notes throughout it. Make sure I didn’t take something out that I referenced before. It began with one idea && became something completely different as I finished writing it. But I think most writers say that about their stories.

I have given myself a goal. The goal of finishing this completely before the end of this year. Although, I think I say this every year, I mean it a little more now. The last year has been weird, hard, and stupid – && I know that I may not have forever and if I keep putting it off, my forever is going to be something I don’t enjoy as much as I should. I preach to people all the time to do the stuff in life that makes them happy. So why am I not listening to myself when it comes to my own happiness? I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing for the rest of my life. I want to write. I want that to be my living. &&& I will NEVER know for sure if I have what it takes if I never finish the book.

So here I am. My life is fine – but it would be so much better if I could put as my job title “Author”. Be able to say that my life is writing. Writing is my life.

But then again, I have decided to do a lot of things that scare me. That I’m afraid to do. && no, it’s not one of those “I’m going to die so I’m going to do everything on my bucket list.” I am not planning my death. I’m not ready to die. I’m just going to do && try to do the things that I have wanted to but afraid to try. Maybe I’ll go bungee jumping? Go down a water slide? Learn to swim?

I’ve been struggling lately with my sugar numbers. They’ve been high – not last year high, but high. 300’s. All the time. Morning. Afternoon. Night. My phone was been waking me up beeping because it hits 300 between 2AM & 7AM. Then it’ll go down to about 250 && stay there all day. I have been waiting to go see my endocrinologist about it && see what she says, however, when my appointment came up I found out they dropped my insurance – yay. So I was unable to do that. Instead I made an appointment with my primary && had the conversation. After discussing medicine & such she mentioned that it’s probably because I have been taking one of my shots. Why? Because I ran out of it – then tried to get it refilled. The endocrinologist I was seeing doesn’t, for any reason, answer their phone. So I was unable to get it refilled. So my primary refilled it – three months worth – &&& I began taking it again. I’m back on it for two weeks. The last two days I haven’t hit 300. It has been ranging between 150 – 200. Still high, but it’s a lot better than it was.

Weight loss. That’s my goal. I don’t know if I will be able to do it myself. Back of my mind has been weight loss surgery. I feel like that’s me giving up. But at the same time, I also think, it might benefit me. I will have a higher chance of not being diabetic, have high blood pressure && I may, just may get my heart function back.

My check up this month with my primary – she said I had a little fluid build up again. Nothing scary. She didn’t hospitalize me. She said my numbers are better. I take a water pill – I’m allotted two of them a day – I have only been taking one. This last few days I have been taking two. I can’t have the build up – a heart attack is not in my plans.

Once in a dream…

When I was younger I had a dream. It seems silly to me now, but as a child, it’s what I aspired to. I dreamed about what it would be like to stand in front of a crowd, chanting my name, holding lighters up wanting more.

I wanted to be a rock star!

I didn’t want to do it for the money or even the fame. If I wanted that, my choice would have been to be an actor – I just wanted to sing – to be on a stage.

That’s half the reason I chose to be in band – the other half, because I love music. Being in band (I played clarinet) gave me the opportunity to be on a stage multiple times a year. But it wasn’t enough, so in middle school I signed up for the talent show. First year I sang a Britney Spears song, yes, seriously, I was in middle school in the early 2000’s. The second time I sang an ‘Nsync song. (It may be the other way around – I’ve slept a lot since then.)

I may have lost both years but it was by far the best moments of my life. (That’s sad, right?) I probably would have kept entering it but thanks to a group of guys and their screamo, they stopped holding it. They eventually started again, but it was after I dropped out. (That’s for another day.)

As I have gotten older the feeling has calmed however the feeling still appears. My job has an event center which of course has a large stage. Sometimes we’ll have classes and I’ll space out staring at the stage – daydreaming.

The feeling has exploded but not exactly for the stage. I may still get that fuzzy feeling for the stage, but now I get that feeling for the printed word.

I was told once, “If you’re meant to do something you’ll always be thinking about it. When you go to sleep, wake up, and in between.” When I was younger it was singing, performing; anything dealing with the stage – that I thought about all the time. As I’ve aged my thoughts have changed and it’s always thinking about writing.

When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about it. That’s, I think, why I get so frustrated when I get “writers block”. It’s also why I get so angry at myself when I think about ‘Frost’.

I know I question whether I’m supposed to be a writer or not a lot, but it’s not because I don’t want to, but rather – shouldn’t it be easier? Is it normal for someone to take over six years to write a book? I mean, technically, I ‘finished’ it back in 2015. Since then I Have been attempting to edit it – all I seem to do is change things. I basically rewrite it, become aggravated, stop writing for months just to pick it back up – starting over at chapter one, to begin rewriting it again. I swear I have rewrote ‘Frost’ at least thirty times.

I’m never happy with it. I even know that I’ll always be my biggest critic – so why do I do this to myself?

I have this plan! My plan! A great plan! Since I am my biggest critic, and I will probably never like my writing, I decided that after it’s finished – COMPLETELY – I would offer three people the chance to read it and tell me what they think. People I know won’t sugar coat it, or lie because they don’t want to hurt my feelings. I know it’ll be rough, most first books are – I am not going to be the next Jane Austen (I find her work hard to read). I just want to find my voice, my way – be the best Barbara Hightower I can. That’s all I can achieve. I can’t try to be another writer – just me. Because I know, if I am not, I’ll always be disappointed in myself and that’ll be a crappy life.

But first – I must finish ‘Frost’ – which I say a lot. For most, that’s a simple request, but for me – Queen of Procrastination – not so much.

I figured I would end this with a poem –

Silence! I scream loud!
A void, I feel deep, expands,
Forming frustration.

Until next time!
Peace. Love. && Fried Chicken.

PROOF! That I am in fact, editing Frost. Was able to get two chapters done yesterday.