I drew this myself on the one year anniversary of my cat passing. I was still pretty inexperienced drawing back then.

Kit was the center of my world. She was the thing I loved most, and drew most of my emotional stability from. There aren't words for how badly I broke when I lost her. Healing from that was difficult, and nearly three years later I still have panic attacks and crying fits over it. Healing was exceptionally difficult when I had a partner lie to me and manipulate that grief to abuse and control me, but after discovering that I've made massive progress in my emotional recovery.

My partner's cat, who I've known for 5 years and have spent a lot of time around the past 9 months especially, seems to have reached the final stretch of his old age.

It hurts. A lot. It's resurfacing the trauma I faced with Kit, and it's a whole new pet to mourn as well.

...I have a healthy support system, I have the strength to survive this ordeal better than before.

Evil people exist, and bad things happen. I struggle a lot with accepting that, and burn myself trying to 'fix' things that I need to come to terms with. "Evil people exist, and bad things happen." has become a bit of a mantra for me this past year, reminding myself that life's not fair and that I have to find peace in accepting that.

I'm working on that.

But right now it really hurts, and it's hard to breathe.


~
Character: Amaiya
Artist: Me