Subtle melancholy runs deeper. My pets are all very old... Kitty (cat, duh) is 14, Cutie (also cat) is 13, and Pooh (dog) is 11. I know cats and dogs can live to be 20 years old, and I hope with all my heart that mine will... but the problem is, they're already old, and I think they're in pain a lot of the time... Pooh has arthritis and has trouble going up the stairs and getting in the car and stuff. Kitty can't jump well anymore (when she was young, she could jump from the ground to the roof of the house) and I think her hips hurt her. Cutie almost died earlier this year from a urinary infection, and he had to have a major operation to save him. I just don't want any of them to hurt at all... when I was younger, if I'd had one wish, it would have been to fly. But just recently I realised that my wish is for my pets to go back to how they were when they were younger, energetic and not in pain, and live forever, at least as long as I do... and if not that, what I want... is to be able to hurt for them. I don't want them to be in pain. I would rather that I was in pain all the time and knew they felt fine... I just really, really love them a lot. But I had another thought, and it's that just being willing isn't good for much of anything in the real world. Sure, there are lots of stories and movies and what have you where people take on the burdens of others, but you can't do that in real life. It doesn't matter how willing I am to hurt for my pets, because I can't. But that's another problem I have. This might be something everyone does, or it might just be me, but when I really *want* something, I'm not just like "hmm, that would sure be nice," I *want* it so much it hurts. That's especially true of things I want that I won't ever get, like being able to fly or giving eternal happy life to my pets. That little element of impossibility just makes the whole wish feel cold and heavy. And when I think about it a lot, it physically *hurts*. But it just seems like... I mean... if my life were a shoujo manga or a fantasy novel or something... I'd be able to get my wish for my pets. It's kind of selfish, but not really, and it's not like it would disrupt the cosmic balance like wishing for godlike power or saying "I wish there were no more death" or something dumb like that would. I probably sound really stupid about now, so I declare that this is it for the journal entry. By the way, I'm really not depressed right now. Like I said, it's just when I think about it a lot, you know? Bah, that's not convincing. Well, whatever, I'm really going now.
(x-1, x) (-infinity, infinity) (x, x+1)