So many of us are still reeling from the residual effects of what occurred globally from 2020-2023. We have only just entered 2024. We have only just come out of living through a once in a lifetime (if ever) experience. We have no idea yet, the impact on various ages of children living during that time, in their most formative years.

We knew back in the middle of 2020, that young children with no prior history of anxiety were showing up at the emergency room with panic attacks. The doctor that saw me in my worst panic attack ever, mentioned this.

Some might think that social distancing, unwanted separation, lack of in person connection, coercion, control, psychological and emotional manipulation on a massive scale, face masks, career/job loss, family + friend loss and an unrecognizable world is just simply “over” now.

But it certainly isn’t.

We will see more clearly once the children of this generation become adults.

There was nothing easy about choosing not to vaccinate, being fired, being barred from seeing loved ones, and being stopped from entering stores, venues, yoga studios, gyms and restaurants.
There was nothing easy about choosing to OR being manipulated to vaccinate and ending up horrifically injured, with a dense dark cloud of gaslighting upon you if you said something about it.There was nothing easy about choosing to vaccinate, and being seen as someone who is not “awake” or not “conscious”.

As I sit here this morning, writing while eating my breakfast, having just dropped my precious cat Cleo off at the vet for her first ever haircut to remove matted fur; my face streams with tears. My voice wails with grief. My heart breaks with anger. For this every day occurrence, of taking a pet to the vet, has created a deep opening in me, to feel what my nervous system had not yet felt safe enough to feel, when something similar happened.

When my husband and I moved back to Sydney, Australia from Hawaii, in November of 2020, not a single airline was accepting pet travel. My sweet girl couldn’t come with us. And it was something I wrestled with for months and months in the lead up, almost not coming back when we did.

Some said “who cares, just leave her in Hawaii and get a new cat”

Some said, “she’ll be ok, you can go and she will come when the flights open back up for animals”

Some said, “you should stay, it seems like a sign that it’s not time to go yet. I would never be able to leave my pet behind”

A lot of people had a whole lot of unsolicited opinions at the time. I was just coming out of my era of daily panic attacks. And I couldn’t feel my full truth inside my body. I was in such a state of survival (so many of us were) that access to my intuition felt lost.

Even though I felt lost, confused, unsure and deeply uncomfortable with the situation presenting itself, there was this tiny little sliver inside of me that followed what kept unfolding.

I followed what kept unfolding, moment by moment, one day at a time, one phone call at a time, one decision at a time, one vet visit at a time, one injection at a time, one plane ticket at a time, one piece of paperwork at a time, one bank closure at a time, one hard conversation at a time, one crying phone call at a time, one bath at a time, one walk at a time, one cup of tea - at a time.

As the process kept unfolding from August of 2020 through to November, I just kept taking one step at a time.

Dragging through most moments on the floor with grief, anger, and sadness. But I still moved, one emotion at a time.

And my soul cat Cleo and I, somehow manifested the best possible scenario for her to stay behind and us to fly, until we would be able to reunite.

After much deliberation with many pet sitting options, the first plan was to leave her with a neighbor who one might classify as “the cat man”. A man who had lost his dear soul cat of 20-something years just a few years prior. A man who fed his cat a raw diet and took exquisite care of her. She even had her own cat food fridge. This is why I call him “the cat man”.

We trialed dropping Cleo off at his place, about 6 days before moving, so that she could get settled in, and we could visit her each day as she got grounded there.

About an hour after we left her, I couldn’t do it. My body being separated from hers, was unbearable at the time.

I could not leave her just down the road, knowing that I could still be with her until we moved.

1 hour later, I drove back down the road and picked her up.

The great relief we both felt was palpable.

*Cleo with posing for her pet sitter, November 2020*

Now we were 5 days until move date. No one to look after her, with the last resort being that she would stay with my mum (who also has two cats) and not the ideal environment for my girl.

The clock was ticking now.

What I had been looking and wishing for, was to find someone to move into our apartment for a few months, until she could fly to Sydney (this was when we were told that flights for pets were opening back up in February, so we expected to be reunited then)

I had reached out to many, no one was available for as long as was required.

We had been receiving financial assistance from a community bank to cover the cost of rent, because of my husbands and my loss of income at the time. This meant the apartment could stay ours even if we weren’t there, all through November and December, paid. We just needed to find a person who was willing to live there and look after Queen Cleo.

And by a literal miracle, a few days before moving, a sweet, highly sensitive and loving old family friend just so happened to be available and happy to move in for a few months, to look after her.

My mum then offered to help with the rent for January, so Cleo had the apartment all the way until February 1st. She generously continued to take Cleo to the rest of her vet visits after we left (and there were too many of them) in the lead up to her traveling.

The process was barbaric. Mostly because flights were still scarce and moving a pet to Australia is hard enough without a global pandemic. Australia is the hardest country in the world to import pets.

There were no direct flights in the foreseeable future from Honolulu, Hawaii to Sydney, Australia (as there usually are)

This meant, Cleo had to fly from Kona to Honolulu, Honolulu to Los Angeles, stay over night, and then fly Los Angeles to Melbourne.

Since she had to “transit” through L.A. the condition was that she had to get a few rounds of spaced out rabies vaccines (for which she never needed granted she was born in Australia and lived only in Hawaii, both places have no rabies so need need for a rabies vaccine)

This added an entirely extra ridiculous layer to the already bullshit bureaucratic process of getting a domestic animal into Australia.

I’ll never forget the email from the pet travel agent that came through in January that said, “unfortunately, flights are no longer a go in February, the soonest a flight will be available to even be BOOKED for Cleo, is now July.” This didn’t mean she would be here in July. This meant they couldn’t book anything UNTIL July. So the actual flight date was up in the air.

I felt like my heart stopped and I had an anxiety attack.

What that anxiety attack showed me at the time, was just how much emotional space this darling cat of mine had been holding for me. I was baiting my breath for months, waiting for her return.

The level of emotional support she had offered since I got her at 24 years old, all the way through my darkest nights of anxiety, she was my anchor.

She was my sweet gem of daily support. Support I always knew I had, but became loudly awakened to just how significant, once we were separated.

After this news came through, another miracle happened for her. I am well and truly convinced that this is simply how powerful she is haha.

The cat man who was once going to take her in, had gotten a girlfriend over the past few months. His landlord where he was living didn’t want another person in the rental with him. And suddenly our apartment, just up the road, looked like the next best option for him and his new partner, so that they could live together.

He moved in on February 1st, took over the rent, and Cleo continued to be the Queen of the castle. He tended to her with his gentle loving cat care. Our landlord wondered and remarked on why this cat seemed to be so special. He was an 80 year old man who quite frankly probably thought I was obsessively controlling and ridiculous.

But there she was, taken care of in our apartment, with a new “servant” to look after her. The cat man lived there with her all the way until it was time to get her on the plane, and home to us.

And finally, in September of 2021, she got on multiple planes, traveled far and wide, and landed safely in a pet quarantine facility in Melbourne. I worked with a pet psychic through the entirety of this period, communicating with Cleo and connecting to her. I didn’t sleep well from the moment she got on the plane. 10 days later, she was driven from Melbourne to Sydney, we picked her up at the landing depot, and I cried tears that had been waiting to be cried for months.

So you see, I didn’t cry deep wailing cries from leaving her at the vet down the road to get a haircut.

I cried those deep tears, because of the day that I chose to leave her behind in Hawaii. This very small separation triggered that big old one.

*The first time I got to hold her after 11 months apart.*

I will never forget, the very morning that we moved, she hopped up on the bed purring as she does, rolling around and gesturing for her morning pets. I didn’t want to get out of bed.

That very morning, as the sun rose and as each moment passed, I moved slower and slower. Delaying us hopefully so much that we would miss our flight.

That very morning, when I looked through the screen window to say my final goodbye, she looked up at me with those beautiful green eyes, with an attitude AND a sense of trust, that I won’t ever forget. She had her back to me. She was sitting outside and didn’t want to come back in for one last cuddle.

But as soon as we rolled all of our suitcases to the car and got in, I looked behind me and she was there. She had followed us out to the car, with a sense of curiosity for where we were going. It was as though she knew, it would be long. She knew, she wouldn’t see us for some time, so she took one final look.

As we were driven to the airport by our dear neighbors and friends, I balled my eyes out. It was partly to do with leaving Hawaii and the dream I anticipated would pan out there.

But it mostly had to do with leaving her behind. I felt like I was abandoning her. Which reminded me of all the ways I felt abandoned as a child.

By the time we arrived in San Francisco to get our connecting flight to Sydney, I was secretly and silently hoping that the flight would end up getting canceled.

I was hoping something would happen, so I could go back to her.

It was one of those times in life where I wasn’t really sure if moving to Sydney was the right choice. I couldn’t truly feel it. We were in a state of survival. I had been on temporary disability insurance with panic disorder. My husband had no work due to the resorts in Hawaii shutting down.

We were moving so he could work in his old trade back in Sydney.

And the truth is, the move was always coming.

We had been in Hawaii for 3 years when the pandemic hit and I had never felt fully settled. I never truly felt like it was where we were supposed to be.

I was trying to fit into an old dream. A dream I didn’t want anymore. A dream that wasn’t as green on the other side, as I thought it would have been.

All the pandemic really did, was show us the truth. And sober me. And force us to make a big move at a really uncertain and unsteady time personally and globally.

We were separated from Cleo for close to 11 months. It was only supposed to be 3. It was long. It was painful. And I missed her every day.

It’s one thing to grieve a pet that is no longer physically alive. It’s another thing to grieve a separation that shouldn’t be happening. That wouldn’t be happening, if the world hadn’t been in the position it was.

*Cleo cuddled between me and my husband*

Maybe this can serve as a reminder for all of us.

We are still transitioning out of a really hard, scary, uncomfortable, and challenging time.

And we “were not in that time together” as the propaganda would have you believe at the time. A lot of us were alone within our experience. A lot of us were grieving alone, being anxious alone, feeling trapped alone, and feeling really lost, alone. Not everyone had the same financial background. Not everyone had time-off work, nor could they afford such a reality. Not everyone was forced to stay home. Not everyone had the luxury of parents who could offer “home learning”. It was a mess.

And lastly, as we know, as has been said by many leading trauma healing experts. Trauma is not what happens to us, it’s what happens inside of us, as a result of what happened to us.

Let this remind you that there is no comparison. There is no competition. There is no award.

What ever happened to you during 2020-2023 is real and it is valid. I see you, even if no one else will.

MY CAT GOT A HAIRCUT AND I GOT A HEALING

ARE YOU READY TO BLOOM?