Should I feel Guilty?

I needed to take a break from actively looking for Chai.  I was burning out and feeling really down.  Besides, I really needed to focus on my deadlines at work as a major release is scheduled for end of July and I also need to get all of the test equipment budgeted, reviewed, negotiated with the vendors, and purchased in the next several weeks.  It is a crazy hectic time at work.  I also have a major release coming up.  Weeks leading up to the release is quite a nightmare.

However, that does not mean that I have given up on Chai.  I still call out to her almost every day in the evening, hoping that she is somewhere nearby and hearing my voice.  Hoping that she would eventually come home on her own.  The cat trap has been set but nothing has triggered it for the last couple of weeks, up on the deck, right outside the cat flap that she used to go out and never come home on that fateful March 21 of this year.  I think she is still out there, surviving somehow.  I feel it.

I just need to take some time off from active postering, handing out flyers, setting up feeding stations, etc.  I need to recharge and renew my energy for more active searching to come later on.  Looking at the videos from the feeding stations, not seeing any glimpses of Chai on video was really making me feel depressed.  The pain of losing her somewhere out there, the constant anxiety over not knowing what has become of her, whether she is dead, alive, injured, etc. has taken a toll on me.  Emotionally, I feel battered, bedraggled.  Physically, I am exhausted.  My heart is always racing.

I need to find the balance between actively searching for Chai (and researching ways to promote the awareness in my community that Chai is still missing and that I need their help locating her) and being a responsible mother of two young boys, wife, home maker, gardener, and the breadwinner.  If I let the fact that Chai is missing eat me alive, it will destroy the fabric that holds my life together.  Not just my life, but my entire family's life.  I need to strike that balance without losing hope for Chai's safe return...