This weekend, my mother bribed me to go shopping with her.
Because we’re in the squirreling-things-away-for-winter phase of our lives (ahem, the uncomfortable grown up phase) I purposefully avoid the mall, even for window shopping; I don’t want to want anything. Wanting will lead to justifying, justifying to buying and buying to serious bouts of remorse when it’s wedding time and oh, ha ha, we don’t have enough in savings to cover food. Or flowers. Or the wedding license. Because when the wanting/justifying/buying process starts, I have real problems controlling its momentum.
See also: why I have credit card debt.*
Even when it comes to needing things, I tow the “make do or do without” line. Mom knows this – maybe not how frail my resolve actually is, but that I’m making a very sincere attempt at denying my inner consumer. And so when she needed some help picking out new clothes, she offered to buy me a little something, too. Sweet, right? Yeah, except that my mother bribed me to go shopping and I STILL had a really difficult time wanting something. Mom kept prodding, “Do you want this? How about that?” and I kept dodging. “Eh, that’s okay. I don’t really need it.”
God, I’m such a good little pioneer. If it doesn’t fit in my hand cart, it gets left behind.
It wasn’t until the end of our spree, when Mom was getting outfitted with some shiny metallic ballet flats, that her “Would you like some, too?” finally sparked something in my cold, dead shopping heart. “Yes. Yes I would.” Bright silver ballet flats! Guilt free! With no purpose other than to be pretty and make me happy! And boy, do they. Neither the weather nor my outfit really make them appropriate footwear for today, but has that stopped me from wearing them? No, siree.
Have I even noticed that they rub just the tiniest bit on the backs of my heels? Well, maybe. But I’m getting to be a real pro at suppressing. Just like the pioneers!
* By the way, with regard to credit card debt: If all goes according to my spreadsheet, I should pretty much be done with all that this time next year. Done! Eee! I can hardly imagine what that will feel like. I’m having a party. You’re all invited.
You guys, I’m such a hack at this stuff. I figured I could get away with half-assed fixes and interweb MacGyverism but it turns out, notsomuch. Anyway, please feel free to let me know if you run into any problems with navigation or searching or anything (searching not available yet on the blog; waiting for archives) and please update your RSS subscription as I believe that’s changed in the last week as well.
I’ve been awake since about 3:30 this morning, finally giving up on the whole, “if I fall asleep now I can get x hours/minutes of sleep” horse puckey at a quarter to five and then drank a whole bunch of coffee. That’s going to play out well, I think.
We’re picking up Sariic’s ashes this afternoon. Part of me hopes that once we have them, we’ll also have some element of closure. The rest of me knows that’s not likely. Time will help, I know, and so, I wait. I wait to stop picturing him lying there on that metal table, still so incongruously warm. I wait for the Boy to start being comfortable in our home – the apartment, he says, that doesn’t feel like a home anymore. It’s lost its feeling of purpose without his dog there. I know I’m not supposed to take his grieving personally, but I do. I’m there. I’m your family.
Home is a larger issue, though, and most definitely not a new one. I’m content to be there; he cannot seem to stand it. It makes me unhappy, he knows. But how unhappy, he can’t possibly. Or. Or, I don’t know. Or he’d do something. I don’t like feeling as though I live alone. I recognize that some of his avoidance over the last few months has been related to the hurt of watching his dog fall to pieces. But not all of it. And so, hoping to reach a some understanding or a compromise on this incompatibility, I suggested that we figure out what’s at the root of it and fix it – before it’s unfixable. But in true sitcom fashion, my heartfelt attempt at resolution was met with nothing more than a “yep,” and a yawn. And then we went to bed.
Oh, ha ha, I broke the site navigation. So, I’m sorry if everything is screwy in IE or, you know, screwy in general. I’m on it! There are so many nice things about WordPress that I hate to be a complainer but… sometimes, I just want to go in and edit the raw code like a big kid and they sure don’t make it easy.
Anyway. In the interim, I present my niece, Penny, telling you what the elephant says. She’s a year old and her impression beats mine any day. Plus, the drool really kills me.
I’d hoped to have even more fresh content up at This Fish Features today, but I’m still not quite feeling like myself. But still, new article! New category! So, hop on over to get the first taste of Fancy Pants – beauty tips from real women with real budgets, and quick fixes to dry, itchy winter skin.
P.S. Thank you all for being so incredibly kind. Your own stories of losing your furry friends have helped more than you know.
I’d been sitting on the lowest step of the apartment building staircase, waiting for the Dork Lord to return from his early morning errand, when they happened by. The man was speaking Spanish to his nervous looking dog, wondering, no doubt, if my own leashed beast was friendly.
“Dile hola,” I said, relaxing the leash so equally-nervous Sariic could get nose-to-nose with the quivering Chihuahua. Say hello.
“You speak Spanish! How nice,” the man said and gesturing to my dog. “He’s a German Shepherd, yes?”
Not knowing how to express his breed mix in Spanish, I answered “Si,”.
“¿Cuántos años tiene?” How old is he?
“Thirteen and a half.”
“Viejecito!” Old man, he said, reaching out to rub the soft, white fur around Sariic’s nose. “How much longer can he live?“
I stopped. Swallowed. Checked myself before answering. My insides felt cold and numb.
“Hoy.” Today.
The change in his expression as he understood my full meaning sent me to tears.
“Pobrecita. Ah, pobrecita.” You poor thing.
I apologized for crying and he waved it off. We talked for a few minutes longer before he took his leave, patting the dog once more and wishing him well.
Two hours later, it was done.
“I just killed my dog,” the Boy said, his voice full of despair. What bits of my heart that were left intact after what I’d just witnessed broke completely apart.
“No,” his mom said, reaching out for his arm. “You didn’t. You gave him peace.”
As much as I wanted it to, it didn’t feel that way to me. I’m not entirely sure that I will ever make my own peace with it – or even if I am supposed to. Not that it wasn’t the just and humane thing to do. His body, the vet told us, could not do what he needed it to do. He had grown confused, deaf and exhausted, unable to manage the stairs or even eat his breakfast. The decline was difficult to watch. Yet ending it was the most excruciating experience of my life. Unprepared for how quickly the injection would take effect, I felt my entire self erupt in panic when the vet pronounced him gone. No! The hand I’d placed on his chest no longer rose and fell. All was still. I clung to the Boy and buried my face in the fur of Sariic’s cheek. My brain said, “right” and my heart screamed, “wrong.”
I cannot remember a time in my life when I was filled with more grief and remorse than I have been the last couple of days. My own grief is surpassed tenfold by my love’s. His hurt is palpable and I am powerless to help. He feels alone and regretful, burdened by a devastating certainty that he gave up on his friend – the empty spaces and quiet of coming home are particularly poignant reminders.
I wallow in my own guilt, for having had such a difficult time with the inconveniences of the last eighteen months. For being impatient and frustrated. But the truth is that I loved him well and, at the end of all this hurt, that’s what I will remember. The night I spent sleeping in his dog bed, the two of us wrapped in my down comforter after a hard night at the emergency animal clinic. Chopping vegetables with him at my feet waiting for an errant carrot or broccoli stem. The thick crease of his eyebrows, a muppet-like face, making a sucker of me time and again. When this mass of sadness lifts, that is what I hope will remain. In the meantime, there is a Sariic-shaped hole in my heart and lump in my throat that I cannot swallow.
Rest in peace, sweet friend. You will always be with us.
