They are near.

The end of the year. Just a few days left before break and then what?

A Christmas break like no other but the same at the same time.

I usually don’t do much during break whenever I’m in town. I’d usually go to Volcano and do my little writeups and my yearly diatribe for the year.

Some days I’d take Pickles with me on a small road trip or something. To get out of the apartment.

But this year?

The fuck I know. What the fuck can I do?

This year is so different. This year is so broken.

No Pickles.

The fucking pandemic and fucktards anti-maskers.

The fucking apocalypse is outside, and people are worried about Christmas being cancelled.

We’re in a very different time than we were a year ago.

So very different.

But for me, possibly the same.

No museums this year.

No Pickles to keep me company.

No Volcano to write out my thoughts.

Home.

Alone.

With Relish.

Usually around this time of the year, or even at the beginning of the month, I would have gone back through my yearly diatribes to reflect on how much I’ve changed and to remember my year and see what I’ve done and how much I’ve grown.

There’s none of that.

This year….as we all know is an ever-growing dumpster fire of a year.

What’s the point?

What is there to reflect on?

Sure, there was growth and determination, but what else?

I mean, the solitude comes naturally for me. I’m a homebody. This WFH and Safer-at-Home lock down shit is second nature to me.

I don’t like it. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t thrive on it, but I’m able to survive.

It’s no different from how I live my life anyway.

I just don’t have control. I can’t go out and do things when I want to go out and do things.

2021.

Just around the corner.

I can only hope that it’ll be better. I can only hope that there’s light at the end of this dark dark year.

The vaccines are approved and over a million people have been vaccinated with their first shot. More vaccines are on the way.

It’ll be months before it becomes widely available to the public and so far, there are very small number of people who had minor allergic reactions.

Time will tell how safe it is, but I think it’ll be safe.

Reading up and getting a better understanding of the mRNA technology and how the vaccines work I feel more confident that the vaccines will be our savior.

I need this. We need this.

It’s the hope that we need during the shit show of this year and the splitting of our country in the last four years.

The end of democracy. The end of civilization.

The End of America and its ideals.

We are better than this.

There’s no choice in this. We have to.

Relish.

I love her.

I had loved her since I got her, but my love for her have been different from the one I have for Pickles.

Pickles was my first pet and we’ve been through so much.

I’m still broken. My soul dismantled with his loss.

But Relish is here.

I love her more because she’s all I have now.

Maybe she knows what happened and maybe she knows that I need help, but she’s been drastically different since I came back from Pickles’s final ride.

Relish has been chattier in the mornings. She’s looking for affection and pets.

She’s not afraid to just lay on me while I’m chilling on the futon.

She’ll gently walk on me during the night, kneading her little paws on me, then settling down in a nice warm crook and lay there. Sometimes it may be hours or sometime only minutes or until I move because I didn’t know she was there or that I had to pee.

She’s changed and maybe Relish is more in tuned with me now, but I love her for the better that she’s doing this.

I need this.

It’s saving my life now.

I have a responsibility, not just for me, but an actual living being. She’ll always be my charge and she’s keeping me here.

Relish is my life now.

She’s my life now.