Hello, friends. Today’s post is accompanied by a beer my son brewed, called “Pep Talk.” It’s a tasty lager, put out by his employer Bearded Iris Brewery in Nashville.

Do you remember that song, “Love Hurts,” by Nazareth? I was only eleven when it was a hit, but we had a real jukebox in our basement at the time. My dad had fixed the thing so you didn’t have to deposit money, and this song was on repeat. I loved it, even though I didn’t really understand how “Love Hurts” could be true.

Ah, youth.

If anyone ever needed a pep talk, it’s probably me right now. Not to be overly dramatic, but I feel like Matt Damon’s character in “Saving Private Ryan,” when he grabs his startled wife by the arms and tearfully demands, “Tell me. Was I a good man? Did I lead a good life?” It’s as if one act has cancelled out anything decent I ever did before it, and it wasn’t even illegal. Just soul-crushing, is all.

Please don’t flood me with messages telling me that “Oh, Ellen, you must know you are a wonderful person!” Thank you, but it won’t help, because right now I don’t believe it. I’m only writing about this awfulness so I can process the emotions somehow.

Eight days ago I asked my hubby to take our tuxedo cat, Shadow, back to the place we got her twenty-two months before. Specifically, the humane society twenty-five minutes away. Even just reading that makes me sad. I’m supposed to be the person ADOPTING animals from the place, not returning them to those cages of fright. I’m supposed to be the person helping them, not causing distress, and it’s breaking me in ways I didn’t even know existed. The difference between this and euthanizing is that at the very least, you know your pet is free of suffering when you make that final decision. In this case, it’s my decision that’s causing the suffering. Almost nothing is more upsetting to me than being a painful conduit for an innocent being. Even if it is the “right thing,” or whatever.

I mean, I guess it’s not surprising. In high school the guidance counselor asked me what my interests were, to help clue him in to my future endeavors. I shrugged and said something like, “Uh, I like writing and animals.” He undoubtedly looked at my substandard grades (EXCEPT for English, band, art, and home-ec), and probably thought, “What the fuck do I do with this kid?” And promptly enrolled me in an AGRICULTURE class, with eight smelly boys in overalls and cowboy boots caked with cowpies. I learned nothing, and got in trouble for skipping out on the field trip to the “kill facility.”

Also, there is the fact that the word “paws” is in my blog name, if that tells you anything. What it tells me is that I’m a fraud, and I’m saying all of this to convince you and myself I’m not.

So, sweet Shadow (and she really was. She loved people, playing with hair bands, and talking up a storm) was plagued with chronic anxiety, usually traced to separation fears, which resulted in chronic spraying. It wasn’t every day, but enough to be a real problem, as you might guess. “Spraying” is not just urine. It’s loaded with chemicals to give it a pungent odor, and trust me, it’s gross. And this proclivity was noted in her previous adoption papers as well, which I really was not given to read until AFTER we chose her. My bad. I wonder all the time at what trauma she experienced to produce this reaction, pre-adoption, but then again, sometimes we just don’t know what brain quirks might be contributing. Suffice it to say she was fully vetted, she was otherwise healthy, we tried everything, and still it went on.

It went on because we could not meet her needs, and I adopted her to meet MY needs. That’s the selfish bottom line. I hated being pet-less, hated coming home to no furry greeter, and because I couldn’t look ahead to how often I might be gone to go visit a new grandbaby or be camping, I’m right back to where I began. Empty spaces staring at me, even if those empty spaces do reek of her nauseating pee scents. I spent hundreds on products, pills, vet appointments and cleaners, but none of it mattered because I could not give her the one thing she wanted: our 24/7 presence.

Worse, she, too, is back to where she began. Scared, alone, confused as to how her life was upended, and how her humans let her down yet again. She doesn’t conceive that I “saved” her for almost two years. She just wants her heating pad back. And likely me, too, since she got her re-christened name from following me around constantly.

Having said all this and cried on and off for a week straight, I know re-homing her had to be done. Someone else out there is better equipped to give her what she deserves. Or if not new people, she’d be a great “office kitty,” or mascot, if you will. I outlined that argument in a full-on one page letter to the humane society, begging them to place her with care or keep her with them. I have no idea whether my words were even read, so I have to let go. I need to let go of the vision I had of people who surrender pets as uncaring and irresponsible, or else I have to include myself in there too. Guess I can add it to the list below of things I didn’t think I was.

Still. Even if I had managed to tape pee pads on every crevice of the house, (which I basically did), it wouldn’t have changed the fact she was trying to tell us she wasn’t happy. She was communicating and we were not listening; we just kept trying to “stop” the behavior.

So here we are. Three traits I always thought of myself as possessing, traits central to who I am, are now feeling obliterated: unselfishness, animal lover, good at listening. Boom, gone…just like her.

I know, as grown adults know, this too shall pass, that we did our best, that we loved her, that I need to forgive myself, and eventually it’ll get easier. Until then, my friends, cuddle your furbabies for me and blow some healing fairy dust my way…and hopefully the next Pep Talk brought to you via Bearded Iris will be exactly that…