Tuesday, January 25, 2011

another step forward

Friday was another snow day, worked only twice last week. My friend Lynda called, a group was getting together for a few drinks at McNally's was I up for it? No I hadn't showered, wasn't dressed just didn't feel it. Bullshit, she says, pick me up in a half hour and hung up. I got dressed and picked her up. It was fun, I got out of the house and I didn't feel sorry for myself for a few hours. The first time I've been out socially for months.

I sit with the TV on at night just waiting for it to get late enough so I can go to bed. I escape in sleep, not lonely, not sad, no tears, just nothingness. I can cry over nothing...a song, a thought, or not. I was thinking about what I should get at the store for next weeks lunches and the tears start falling. I was folding clothes and I start. Poor Fred he gets so disturbed when I cry...it's almost like he knows why and he puts his head on my lap and looks at me with sad eyes. Like now, he is looking at me watching my every move. He is never more than a few feet away, what would I do without him? His ever presence is a comfort to me.

I have booked the trip to Disney we have been putting off for the past year. Rachel, Ann, Laureen and I will be heading to the sunshine state in March...Rachel's spring break. Clayton will care for the cat, Fred is going to the vet for boarding. I worry about him, he spent two years in the shelter before we adopted him, it was his age I'm sure, he is such a nice dog. We have reservations in the "better" runs, indoor, outdoor, daily walks and interactions with the other dogs. I have been thinking on scheduling grooming but just being there may be stressful enough for him.

Freddie is having a hard time now that I'm working again. The vet said his anxiety has returned because he's "afraid" I wont come back. I really don't want to have to medicate my dog because of separation anxiety, but if he's going to go crazy when I'm gone I may have to. He wants to spend his day upstairs I guess he feels comfortable there but he is peeing when he's left alone from anxiety. So I will keep him in the kitchen and hope he gets over being alone....

Maybe both of us will get used to it, though somehow I think Freddie will master his issues before I do mine.

2 comments:

  1. I'm sorry for your loss, Robin. Thanks for commenting on my article "Advice for my Granddaughter." It came in "no reply," but if you want to drop me a note my e-mail is tartanmarine@gmail.com. (I get about 300 a day!). ~Bob Hall

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  2. This is a poem, by Massachusetts native, Mary Oliver . . . it brings comfort to me:

    "Heavy," by Mary Oliver

    That time
    I thought I could not
    go any closer to grief
    without dying

    I went closer,
    and I did not die.
    Surely God
    had his hand in this,

    as well as friends.
    Still, I was bent,
    and my laughter,
    as the poet said,

    was nowhere to be found.
    Then said my friend Daniel,
    (brave even among lions),
    "It is not the weight you carry

    but how you carry it -
    books, bricks, grief -
    it's all in the way
    you embrace it, balance it, carry it

    when you cannot, and would not,
    put it down."
    So I went practicing.
    Have you noticed?

    Have you heard
    the laughter
    that comes, now and again,
    out of my startled mouth?

    How I linger
    to admire, admire, admire
    the things of this world
    that are kind, and maybe

    also troubled -
    roses in the wind,
    the sea geese on the steep waves,
    a love
    to which there is no reply?

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