Trying to keep my spirits up. Mainly by not thinking about it. Because every time I think of their little innocent eyes I get very sad.

Trying to find a balance. Between completely repressing the feelings and completely letting them get me down. Trying to find the middleway.

It’s not helping that I am feeling sick. I have been feeling more or less sick all week and now over the weekend my throat has started hurting. But not full-blown hurting. Which makes me worry that it might get worse. Or maybe I’ll be lucky and it will pass without going into the completely hurtly phase. I hate the feeling of a hurting throat. When every swallow makes you cringe. I hope I can avoid that.

Must thank you all for your comments. As always you have been very supportive. And it truly does mean a lot to me that I know I’m not alone with this. And it also means a very lot to me that some of you are sharing your own memories of your pets. I appreciate that greatly. I am happy that I can share my stories with you and I am happy that you choose to share yours too. Having connections to other people like that is still something new for me, still something I am learning. I may not always be good at it, but as I said it means a lot to me that I get to try.

And rest assured that I am happy that I got to know 3B and Springbok. And Mandela and Nougat and Natal. It hurts right now to think about them, but they have given me great joy as well. And if I had the choice then I’d take the pain and joy over the nothingness of being alone. It’s not a bad thing to get emotionally attached. As long as you find the balance. In the future I hope to have more social contact, with humans too. And then I hope I won’t get hit quite so hard as this. But I would never want to not feel sad when I lose someone or something I care about. That would be very sad indeed.

Sometimes I feel a little like a robot. Or an alien. Or a neanderthal dethawed. Trying to piece together a puzzle. Learn how to be human and interact with others. Learn how to deal with feelings and emotion. Balancing the scales. Trying to get more normal without losing the uniqueness that I do want to keep. It can be quite hard and confusing, because most of the people you meet take these things for granted. They don’t look at you and see that you are maybe incomplete or struggling. They think you’re shy, not social phobic. They see a grown man (more or less) and they think that you are emotionally grown too. I spent so long isolated in my room and it really started around the time when everyone else left their rooms and grew their own lives, formed their own personalities. Sometimes I still feel like a confused teenager. Sometimes I still act like one, probably.

That is my excuse for teen angst, anyway.

Life, it does go on. Inevitably so.

I’m not feeling too happy at the moment, as you can maybe imagine. In fact my therapist called earlier today to make an appointment and she said “you sound like you’re sad right now”. I guess that’s why she’s a therapist. She asked me if there was anything I needed to talk about over the phone, but I didn’t feel like doing that. Got an appointment on Tuesday though.

I was taken by surprise yesterday. I had been told that 3B and Springbok would have to leave on Friday, today. So it came as something of a shock when they were dragged to Kurt’s van at the end of Thursday. I guess there was a change of plans. And suddenly there was no time left. After they were put in the back of his van, Kurt went to do some stuff before he left. I staid and looked through the window, looked at 3B and Springbok. All I could think was “sorry”. Over and over. What kind of monster am I that I let them be taken away? How horrible am I that I didn’t do something more, just anything, to prevent it. I know that’s not a very productive line of thought. But it was all I could think as they looked back out at me. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Forgive me. The window was covered by a thick layer of dust and dirt. I wiped it away and rested my forehead on it and just looked at them. Then Kurt came back. He let me say a last goodbye and take that last picture and then he drove off.

I kept a brave face for most of it. Figured it would be selfish to make a scene. It didn’t really hit home until late at night. Going to bed. Alone with my thoughts. And then I started crying. Picturing them there, looking out at me. And I started thinking of Mathilde. And I felt very miserable. And cried myself to sleep. So much for my supermacho image.

The kids’ space has already been taken up.

Two super-sweet lambs. I am going to enjoy getting to know them. The black one is particularly gorgeous. They are lovely, but they don’t cheer me up just yet. I am still in mourning. Somehow it wouldn’t feel right to be happy right now.

It was Pernille who told me that they would be leaving. That was Wednesday. She said that when you’ve been working with these things for so many years then you learn not to get too attached to the animals that won’t stay. That’s not a lesson I have learnt yet. I don’t think I can anyway. I remember talking to Skye about breeding dogs for a living, and wondering if I could even bear to sell any off. I am too selfish to let things go. I always put my own needs before other’s.

But enough of that. I will be okay. And I am glad that 3B and Springbok had a wonderful life at the playground. They had a lot of freedom, they were loved and well taken care of. They even had their own uncle Plume to jump on whenever they wanted. That’s not so bad after all. I am glad that I got to share them with you guys too. I know they will not be forgotten.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way they looked back at me, through the window. Not understanding what was happening. Hopefully in time the good memories will stay and those last minutes will fade.