That Unwanted Feeling

Yeah, mandatory grief post time.

In all fairness, I wrote a thousand (or... like 2) page follow up to the pup (old, arthritic & full of tumors dog) dying. I rambled. I vented. It served its purpose and doesn't really need to see the light of day.

The world (net) is full of self-help or introspective guides to grief and mourning. Even in regards to pets. I don't really have anything profound to add to those.

So about a week on, the rest of us are all still here. And everything else in our world is as normal as it ever is. But some (obvious) piece isn't quite right. My sense of grief has been less sobbing and more disconnected.

I feel blah, squared. Cubed, even. It has become more apparent as this week progressed. I'm crabby. I'm not sleeping horrible, but I'm not sleeping great either. One night I dream of a little boy holding a roly poly puppy in his arms, another night I wake from a nightmare. I tend to be a vivid dreamer good or bad.

Girl dog is just this side of being spoiled at the moment. An extra treat or two here, extra playing and scratchies there. She's not looking for him, but she's confused when she still smells his scent on something. Between play and treats, she's a little more sleepy and quiet.

Now, I still think he's going to need to go outside in the middle of the night. Just last night on the verge of sleep, I jolted up, thinking I heard the sound of his coming into my room to let me know he needed something. I looked to the unmoved door and realized nothing was going on. When I collect the girl dog to go out, I almost call out for him to join us. It's the habits, the little moments, that hit you after a loss.

Now I look at the girl dog, her own face graying, her age somewhere between 7 and 10, and am grateful we ended up with two dogs. I don't know how people do this who only have one dog at a time.

And at some point in the future, I'm sure we'll be back to 2 dogs. But I'm nursing a wounded heart at the moment and know better than to rush it. The right dog always seems to find us, 3 dogs and counting. If it's tomorrow or 6 months from now, it'll happen.

For now I'm sitting with where I'm at. I'm not wallowing. I'm not bringing it up to the grocery store cashier.

I am getting back to writing (fiction) again after April's hiatus. I'm getting back to reading. One of these days I'm going to get back to my language studies.