I have to admit that the past few years, I have been very protective of my heart. Because I’m terrified of losing someone I love.

Rox has been gone for almost a week now and … I don’t know what to feel. I feel lost, like there’s a gaping hole that’s been carved off me that nothing can fill.

I’m packing my bags to go on a trip again. My reaction to loss has always been to escape. Especially because Rox was a huge part of my definition of home. Being here feels suffocating. She used to boop her nose against my face to wake me up. She’d knock on my door to be let in. I don’t use the expensive rug I bought for my room because she would shed on it so badly, I got tired of having to vacuum it consistently. I have to remember to feed her on time. She’s the first one I groggily greet good morning, and the one I say good night to before going to bed. Every single inch of this house has a memory of Rox. And I’m drowning in them, I’m struggling just to breathe.

But I also don’t want to leave the house. Coming home without her excited sounds of pitter-pattering welcoming me back is a major reminder that she’s gone. Truly gone, never to come back. And I don’t feel ready to let her go.

There was this quote that I read that “everything I’ve had to let go of has claw marks on it”. And the thing is, anyone and anything I’ve loved, I grab on to tightly as if my life depended on it. They have to fight back and hurt me enough to ever make me loosen my grasp, to pry off my bloody fingers one by one. I will not let go unless it’s the kindest thing for you and I. Rox never hurt me, and while I know that no one lives forever, I just never expected to have to let her go just like that. An hour before she passed, I was still sleeping beside her. And suddenly I got woken up because she was gone. In a snap, in a moment. Suddenly she’s gone. We’ll never have what we had again. No boops. No belly rubs. No video calls when I’m away. No buying chicken exclusively for her consumption. Nothing. Just … gone.

In the aftermath of everything, I’m reminded that nothing ever lasts. There is no point in protecting my heart. Everyone and everything you love will eventually die someday. Maybe I just need to let love happen and then, when the time comes, let it go.

But maybe not today. Nor tomorrow. Or anytime in the near future. Right now, every single day feels like being stabbed repeatedly through the chest. Everything’s numbing and painful and I’ve been rotting in bed, still trying to make sense of it all.

Rox. I hope in another lifetime, your soul finds mine again, and in that universe, I have the blessing to be your biological mom.