“How we care for what depends on us is often the most honest reflection of how we are caring for ourselves.” –Unknown

My Interpretation: Care is rarely abstract. It shows up in small, repeatable actions. When those actions disappear, it is usually not the task that changed – it is the person.

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Let me paint the scene:

Alpha-Hole has not been fed in two days.

 

Which is how I know I have not been okay for at least three.

---

It is never the first thing to go.

It is just the first thing that shows it.

 

When I am steady, he is alive.

Fed. Warm. Predictable.

 

There is a rhythm to it –

water, flour, time, attention.

 

Nothing complicated.

Just consistency.

 

He rises the way I do when things feel… right.

Slow, quiet, but certain.

 

The house smells different on those days.

Like something is being built instead of just maintained.

 

I bake more.

I move differently.

There is a softness to everything – even the way I exist inside my own body.

---

& then… there are the other days.

 

The ones where everything still gets done, technically.

But nothing is being tended to.

 

He sits on the counter, untouched.

A thin layer of separation forming at the top.

 

Not dramatic.

Not urgent.

Just… neglected.

 

It is subtle enough that you could ignore it if you wanted to.

 

I usually do.

 

Because the truth is –

I do not always recognize when I am slipping.

 

There is no alarm system for it.

No loud moment where everything falls apart.

 

It is quieter than that.

 

It looks like putting things off.

Like moving through the day without actually being in it.

Like choosing the bare minimum version of care & calling it enough.

---

& Alpha-Hole does not care why.

 

He does not ask questions.

He does not adjust expectations.

 

He just responds.

 

To presence.

Or the lack of it.

 

There is something almost insulting about how honest that is.

 

No overthinking.

No emotional buffering.

 

Just a direct reflection of what he is given.

 

Or what he is not.

 

I could come up with a hundred reasons.

 

Being tired.

Being overwhelmed.

Having too much on my plate.

 

All of them valid.

All of them real.

 

None of them change the outcome.

 

He still sits there.

Waiting.

Shifting.

Becoming something slightly less alive than he was before.

 

& that is the part that is hard to ignore.

 

Not because it is dramatic –

but because it is accurate.

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The first thing to suffer is not the loud, visible parts of my life.

 

It is the quiet things.

 

The ones that rely on me showing up gently.

Consistently.

Without force.

 

Care does not disappear all at once.

 

It thins out.

 

It becomes inconsistent.

Then optional.

Then forgotten.

 

& by the time I notice it –

it has already been gone for a while.

 

I do not always know when I am disappearing.

 

But Alpha-Hole does.

 

Xoxo ♡