Purpose.

Am I good?

Humans are such flawed creatures, and aren't I human? I work every day to master myself, to become better than who I am and who I have been, but still. I lose my temper. I speak too quickly. I can't keep up with cleaning, I forget things. I let things slide. I hold onto grudges and anger that I wish I could release.

I built myself this life - I am building this life - so I can be good. I want to be happy while making the world a better place. Some small green spot on the scorched landscape. I worry about the things I leave behind when I die, already. I worry about where the earth is going.

I want a cool green life with sun and hay and strong arms.

I am going in the right direction, but it is far away yet. I have to make choices, and to keep some normalcy, I do not always choose right, and I worry, am I good?

I lay awake until 5 a.m. with a dying kitten, my second in a week. Two small bodies in the freezer. No one else will take them, no one will usher them into death. I feel morbid and sick, this urge to do so. To try everything I can because I know otherwise I will be haunted, and, when that fails, I can provide only comfort. They leave their bodies and I can finally sleep.

Does it make me good?

I look around at my life, a liminal life, preparing to bring me from one version of myself to the next, and I know I chose this so I can do good. But am I doing enough? Are the small acts going to carry me through until I can add more and more?

I chose to leave my job, to buy a house, to start anew, because I was tired of not doing enough good in the world. Dorian was gone, I had no one to be responsible for, no way to take pride in someone else's goodness until I could have my own. I was no longer trying to patch up my life so it could join another's without infecting it. And without that drive, it seemed pointless.

So here I sit, and I watch 80's sitcoms on my laptop at low volume all night, holding dying animals, and wondering if that creature feels any comfort in what I do or if I am simply stubbornly keeping its small body alive for my own selfish need. I wonder if the things I have done have been enough, so far. The hospice and the hopeless cases. A tiny chip at the compassion I want to pour into the world (quietly, lightly, in the secret dark where no one can see how fragile I am).

People say, thank you, and they say, you are strong and caring, and I think, but am I? and how can I be more? and still I am so glad that they say so and wish I did not need to be.