The dog stays

So. A cryptic series of emails between Mr. A and me yesterday caused me to believe he didn't actually want a puppy at all ... which caused me to freak out and decide she had to go back, for the sake of my sanity ... which caused him to freak out and say he couldn't believe I was getting rid of the dog ... blah blah blah. It was probably the worst fight we've ever had, and in the end it turned out it was all over a misunderstanding. We both want the dog.

It's really the only way this could ever work for me. I would never, ever, ever in a million billion years get a dog if I wasn't 100% sure he wanted one too. I just don't need that kind of stress in my life. These tv shows where the husband keeps showing up with a new 200 lb. mastiff every year or so, to the dismay of his wife and little daughter ... Or baby-hungry women who get pregnant on purpose even though they know the man doesn't want a baby -- I just don't get that at all. I'm nowhere near secure/stupid enough to take on that kind of responsibility with an ambivalent or hostile partner. It would be easier and feel safer just to do it alone.

ANYway. Today I'm feeling a lot more of the joy and excitement I've been wanting to feel about having Bea in the family. She's more like a dog than Tater, who's actually kind of more like a person -- have you ever known a dog like that? You can see it in the way he looks at you, like a person trying to understand someone speaking a foreign language. He's intensely sensitive and motivated to connect with humans. Bea seems to be more independent and she's definitely more into other dogs than Tater is -- she wants to follow him around everywhere and do whatever he does, whereas Tater mostly only wanted to sit in my lap and interact with people. In two weeks she'll be able to go to puppy socialization class, and later in the summer she can start puppy school. I think she's going to enjoy both of those activities a lot more than Tater ever did.

The house training is going OK. She's still a little too young to have a lot of control so I'm taking her out to run around in the yard every couple of hours -- necessary for her, good for me, not so good for my statistics class. I don't think I mentioned I found out I actually have a bit more time to finish than I had thought, but I still need to wrap it up in the next few weeks. It's definitely do-able. But it's been hard to concentrate. I'm hoping to get a lot more done this weekend after it stops pouring rain, and we get a puppy run built that I can put her in while I'm working. There really isn't any place yet in the house or yard where she can wander around safely on her own, so right now she has to be either in her crate or under my direct supervision. Burning off energy by running and playing with me (since Tater isn't really interested) -- this is what allows her to be relaxed in her crate, so I really can't skimp on that part.

I'm also seriously considering puppy daycare, at least occasionally for awhile. Or maybe we'll make some new friends in class and can meet them to play sometimes. She already likes other dogs, and I want her to grow up feeling comfortable with them so we can go do dog things together without worrying about whether there will actually be other dogs there.

I can't wait to take her swimming! The creek, the river, the beach -- she seems to love water and it's such great exercise for a big dog. We'll get her a puppy pool for the summer and see how that goes.

One thing I've noticed is that she doesn't seem as snuggly and cuddly as Tater. I have mixed feelings about that. I do love to snuggle with dogs. But I don't expect Tater would be very happy about sharing the attention. Right now it isn't much of an issue, because if we're inside she's mostly in her crate. But eventually she'll be housetrained, and big enough to jump onto the couch and the bed. Glad there's plenty of time to figure out how we're going to deal with that when it comes up.

Did I mention how soft her fur is? You can't even believe how soft.

My brain is so full I could go on and on ... but I'm too tired, and I have too much to do. Just wanted to report that my ambivalence has resolved itself. Everything is A-OK.

Her pupness

My alternate title for this post was going to be "More than I can chew?" I'll get to that shortly.

So, we got the puppy. We named her Beatrice (Bea). What can I say? She's very cute, but that wasn't why we chose her; in a nutshell, I've been feeling like I need to start getting another dog trained, and I don't want to wait too long to do it. Tater isn't going to be thrilled about any new dog we introduce into the house but every expert and dog person I've talked to has said he's likely to have the fewest issues with a young female pup.

The part I was downplaying to myself until we got her home was the part where a young pup creates more issues for us. For me, specifically. It's not that there's anything wrong with her -- I think she has the potential to be a really nice dog. She's sweet and confident but not pushy, medium energy, smart, not skittish or fearful at all. Tater was pretty shy as a puppy, which at the time sort of endeared him to me, but his anxieties have been hard to deal with at times; for the next dog we wanted one who can actually go do things with us away from the house sometimes. But despite the difficulties, one thing I will say about Tater is that he was extremely easy as a puppy. Maybe too easy. To the point of seeming pretty much effortless. I have a feeling this one is going to be more of a challenge, and now that we've had her home for a couple of days I'm wondering if we're really up for it.

I feel terrible for not being all joyous and excited about our new girl! Part of me is, of course. She's a new puppy, for godsake! It doesn't get much more joyous than that. I keep waking up every morning all super-adrenalized, though. Not in a good way. I'm so nervous I've hardly eaten since Sunday. The dog forums call this "puppy blues" -- similar to the baby blues or post-partum depression women get when they start settling into the idea that this baby is really here to stay. The feeling of "OMG, what the hell have I done?!" The worry that I'll somehow ruin this sweet trusting little blank slate of a dog, and end up with a jumping, digging, barking brat of an animal that nobody can stand to be around. The sleep deprivation and exhaustion from taking her out to pee every 3 hours around the clock (although it seems to be working -- no accidents in the house so far). The constant scanning of the environment for potential hazards, even though at this stage of life she's still in her crate most of the time.

The greatest of those potential hazards is Tater. So far he mostly just pretends to ignore her, though he sniffs her sometimes and lets her follow him and run circles around him in the yard. He's gruffed at her several times when she got out of hand, which is to be expected. He seems much more wary of her in the house than outside, and also much more likely to act jealous inside, especially when toys are involved. Basically, I have to keep them separate in the house, which I knew I would have to do ... I just didn't think about it until now, that we've never really restricted his access to any part of the house before. I need to find a way to make it a positive experience for him. For example, if I have to put him in the bedroom for awhile with the door closed so I can exercise Bea without him jumping in to take her toys away and make me play with him instead of her. Maybe give him an extra-special treat only when he goes in there? I don't know! I've never raised a puppy in a house with a jealous older dog before.

A lot of this will resolve itself after she's had her second set of immunizations in two weeks, because then I'll be able to exercise her by running her on the road and vineyard paths. Getting her good and tired three or four times a day is going to be a huge help. Even as small as she is, it's hard to run her hard enough to really tire her out when we're not supposed to leave the yard.

I'm also worried about Mr. A. He has a huge fear of dog fights, and gets very tense -- beyond tense -- whenever he sees any sign of tension between dogs. They can tell when he's upset, which makes them upset, which makes him even more upset ... We'll need to figure out how to get a handle on that. He was totally on board the day we got her, at least. After we found her online on Saturday he went out for his usual game night and came back with a new puppy bed. It's possible he really does want her too, and is going through his own adjustment to the idea. God knows he's had some pretty major life changes to get used to over the last few months ... So maybe this isn't the best time to add one more thing. Or, maybe it's the best time to do it. I don't know! I'm just really trying to live by my hopes instead of by my fears -- to say "yes" to life!

However. At this exact moment I'm feeling about half and half on this thing. If he came home and said he'd changed his mind, I'd be OK with sending her back. There, I said it. Maybe it makes me a terrible person but I'm more sick-to-my-stomach anxious over this than I've been in many, many months, and if he's not going to be into it, then now is not the time. I can't deal with anxiety issues, dog issues and Mr. A issues all at the same time. On the other hand, if he really wants to do this, I think it could be great.

As usual when I'm nervous my thoughts are all zooming around worst case scenarios, even though I know it only makes me feel worse to think that way. It's also possible for good things to happen, right? Getting a new puppy is supposed to be fun! Still, it's OK to acknowledge mixed feelings about it too, isn't it? Yes, puppies are fun, but they're also little babies that need to be taken care of and trained and watched out for constantly, and that's a huge commitment, and it isn't something you should do only halfway. I seriously don't know how I ever would have handled having an actual human baby. That's something I'm grateful I had the sense to forego; I'm just not cut out for it.

Every time I hear that piercing little bark my stomach just about twists itself into a knot.

Then when she quiets down I start believing again that it's all going to be OK.

I would love to learn how to relax more about stuff like this, and enjoy life more and worry about things less. This is something I think you learn by doing, and I am trying, but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast. Since the beginning of this year I've been making more of an effort than I ever have before to stretch my boundaries, try new things, be more of a "go for it" type of person. I've seen the kind of life I end up with by being cautious and passive, and I want more than I've been getting. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I'm feeling totally out of my depth a lot of the time -- because I am out of my depth.

Maybe a better title for this post would have been "Sink or Swim." Or "Leap of Faith." Or "Courage of My Convictions." Or "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained." Or "Scared Shitless, and Still Shitting."

I'm watching this little gopher walking back and forth over a pile of rocks out in the yard right now and wondering how it feels about its life. I read somewhere that rodents are naturally anxious all the time -- it's how they stay alive, by intense and constant hyper-vigilance. I can relate to that. It would be nice, in a way, to have no other worry in life but simply staying alive. Eating, sleeping, reproducing -- I'm sure they don't worry about whether they're screwing up their kids with substandard parenting techniques, or bemoan their unfulfilled potential, or wonder how they're going to take care of themselves when they're a hundred years old and no longer able to work.

OK, enough of this. It's a beautiful wet green day, super rare for this time of year, and I think I've succeeded in downloading enough of my stress to be able to get to work. So that's what I'm going to do. And then I'm going to take my dogs out in the yard to play.

Bad news / good news

The bad news is I just got an overpayment notice from the unemployment people. Apparently I forgot to report some income I had back in February – despite my sincerest efforts at accurate record-keeping and reporting – and now I have to write them a check for the amount they paid me, that I wasn't entitled to. Plus, they "may" add a 30% penalty. Not to mention they "may also assess a penalty denying future benefits that I might claim for up to 23 weeks." Which would really suck.

I know it doesn't do any good, but man, I'm so mad at myself about this right now. I don't know how I could have overlooked it, but looking at the check stubs, it appears I did. The worst part is knowing that it doesn't matter that it was an honest mistake – when I call them on Monday to ask them to please not add those penalties, I fully expect them to think I'm a liar and a cheater trying to rip off the system, and to treat me as one. It's so maddening. I didn't do it on purpose! Also, anyone who knows me would know that the anxiety I feel at the very thought of possibly getting caught in a lie is more than enough to keep me in line.

So I'm just going to have to try and let this go, accept whatever they decide, and write the damn check. But for the record, I do want to state: I am not a liar!

On to the good news. We may have found a puppy. There's a litter of golden retriever / black lab mix pups at a rescue up north of Sacramento that we're going to look at tomorrow. I'm nervous and excited. I just found out about them this afternoon, and am feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of having an 8-week-old baby dog to look after on only 24 hours' notice. With Tater it was so natural and easy; I knew his parents, and visited several times a week starting as soon as the pups were born. My friends and I spent that entire summer in puppy mode, so by the time he was old enough to come home with me I was totally in sync with the energy and routine of taking care of a very young dog.

I knew even at the time that it was about as perfect an experience as anyone could hope to have, and I appreciated every minute of it. It would be so great if I could do it that way again this time. There's something kind of weird about walking into a room, spending a few minutes with a dog, and then having to make an on-the-spot decision about whether you're going to invite that dog to be an intimate partner in your life for the next twelve to fifteen years.

Normally I would expect someone from the rescue to be intimately involved with each of the dogs, so you could get a more informed impression of each dog's temperament, energy level and personality. The lady I talked to on the phone today sounded like kind of a dingaling, though. She just kept saying how "sweet" the puppies were – which I didn't find very useful, since pretty much all puppies are sweet. I guess there's really nothing to do but drive up there and see for ourselves.

(Out the window: A small gopher standing at the edge of a garden path, chewing something.)

What I would like to Not do is spend every weekend for the rest of the summer driving all over the state to look at puppies that either aren't there anymore by the time we get there, or that turn out to be not the dog we want. Or, adopting a dog and then finding out that she's totally insane, untrainable, or otherwise incompatible with our family. Or, waiting too long, and ending up with a broken heart and an empty house utterly devoid of dogs.

I think I mentioned recently that Tater will be 12 years old on June 1. When he first came home with me I remember thinking, "This dog will be with me until I'm almost 50." I still really hope that happens, and it could. His health is good and he's happy, energetic for his age, and always up for a walk. Still. There's that saying about eggs and baskets. Going from two dogs to one was hard. Going from one to zero would be unbearable.

It's impossible for me to imagine loving any other dog as much as I love the Taterman. Is this how parents feel when they contemplate having more than one child? Maybe I'll be surprised to find I'm capable of more love than I realized. I hope so. Actually, I suppose I do already believe that's what will happen – it's kind of the whole reason we're getting another dog. Our family feels smaller these days, because it is smaller – by two members in the last year, with more to come – and we need to renew ourselves.

With all the hospice work and other death-related stuff I've been doing, this has really come home to me in the last few months – the need to renew. The older I get, the more I seem to see what it looks like at the end of things. Sickness, old age, death – they're all inevitable. If you don't make a point of mixing it up a bit with people who are still just starting out (babies and kids, in other words), it's easy to start feeling kind of fatalistic about things, like why even try when it's obvious it all ends the same way for everyone?!

The trouble is, I don't know many kids around here. I have 18 wonderful nieces and nephews but I only see them a few times a year. The kids I know here, I can count on one hand. One finger, if you want to know the truth. In this whole entire town I have exactly one friend who is a child.

Bizarre, eh?

So – a perfect time to start re-balancing my life in the direction of youth, growth, and puppies. And maybe start thinking about signing up with the mentoring program; it might be nice to know a few more kids, too.

Back from DC

I just got back from the DC area, for my youngest sister's graduation from grad school. The only time I'd ever been there before was about 14 years ago, for a wedding, and there wasn't time for much looking around. This time I was there for six days – long enough to fall madly in love with the place and put it on my list of places to visit as often as I can afford it.

First of all, it is so green there. Compared to Utah, I've always felt like Slownoma is pretty lush and alive, at least in winter. But wow. Virginia. The area we were in is pretty densely developed, but every square inch that isn't covered with buildings is growing something green – trees, bushes, vines, flowers, everywhere. The weather was perfect too, with a little rain every day, or a lot on some days, and warm without being too too hot or humid.

The graduation only took a few hours on Saturday, and the rest of the time we spent visiting galleries, museums and monuments. Maybe because DC is more horizontal than vertical, I didn't find it as visually exhausting as other cities I've visited; everything is pretty spread out and we did a lot of walking, but in general you can see where you're going from a long way off, and it feels very spacious and non-claustrophobic. The design of the city is light and open, with traffic signals off to the sides instead of strung across the streets and fairly uniform height to the buildings, at least down around the mall and the river where we spent most of our time. As for the art – I'm officially inspired. Next trip I'm looking forward to really focusing on a few specific collections.

The monuments were actually pretty moving as well, which I hadn't expected. I've been so disgusted with a lot of what's been happening in the government over the last decade or so that I've gotten used to feeling sort of embarrassed about America. On this trip I started feeling proud of my country again, and that is not a small thing.

(I just looked out the window and there's a little pair of California quails walking across the patio. Very cute, with their spots and plumes.)

So now I'm back and after a day off to adjust to the time change I'm diving back into the rest of my life – studying for my statistics final, hospice work, house work, work for money, and exercise. I took my second stats midterm just before I left for this trip last week and got an 88 – not as good as I would have liked, but better than I thought I did. I think I would have done better if I hadn't run out of time; I don't know why they make you hand-calculate all the data tables, instead of just summarizing the values and letting you plug them into equations and interpret them. Nobody does any of that by hand anymore, and I had not planned on spending an hour of the time I'd allotted myself for the test, adding and multiplying endless columns of numbers on the calculator.

Hospice work continues. I have a patient this afternoon, and two in-service meetings over the next couple of weeks. This is probably a good place to mention that Mr. A's mother passed away last week, on Mother's Day. She'd been in a hospice care unit for a few days but was scheduled to go home the next day; we'd spent several hours cleaning and getting her room ready for her before we went to see her on Sunday afternoon. This is really a topic for a separate post so for now I'll just say that the last time we saw her she seemed infinitely better and more comfortable than she had the time before, and we'd really thought that we might have another week or so with her, now that they'd finally gotten her pain under control. I held her hand while Mr. A and his sister talked about cooking shows, and she told us she loved us, and as we were leaving I turned around to look at her again and she sort of raised her eyebrows and shrugged and smiled faintly, like "Well, whaddaya gonna do?" – which is such a characteristic gesture of hers that it makes me tear up to think of it.

Anyway, she's gone and we miss her and now the real hard part has begun.

I've had several work-for-money projects lately and that is mostly a good thing, although I don't really have the time or the technology to take on a lot of new work right now. I'm trying to decide, before I return this phone call, whether I want to try to develop a website for someone who called because they liked some print work of mine that they saw. It's always good to be asked, and in general my policy is to always say yes to work when it's available. This reminds me of why I'm deciding not to keep doing this kind of work though – I really should upgrade my software if I'm going to be building websites, or even just designing for print, but it's so expensive that I'd have to do way more work than I have time for, just to pay for my equipment costs.

As for exercise, I'm finally kind of settling into something of a routine with that. Yoga is happening, and feels good. I'm still walking every day. Not riding my bike as much as I would like, but planning to get back into that this week. And I ran into my old roommate S at the gym the other day and she got me kind of excited about a swimming class that we're going to start together on Monday. It was great to see her – we'd sort of lost track of each other for a few years there, but now that we've found each other again I'm looking forward to renewing our friendship.

Finally, with this trip over and Mr. A's family situation somewhat re-stabilized, at least for the moment, it's time to start getting serious about finding another dog. I've been enjoying our solo time with Tater so much, and raising a young dog is such a lot of work and expense, that I keep finding myself wanting to postpone changing the family .... But every time Mr. A leaves on another business trip I remember why this is not an optional, "nice to have" kind of a thing. Tater is getting too old to do much watch-dogging, and even when he was young he was never as good a guard dog as the Jeeps. It's not like we're all that far out in the country, but we are far enough from our neighbors that I feel better with the kind of security a big, loud, barking dog or two can provide. Especially when it's the middle of the night and it's just me here and I can hear something (or somebody?!) scratching around in the bushes outside – or it's the middle of the day and a truck pulls into the driveway and a guy gets out and starts looking in the windows ....

It seems like getting a decent dog these days is almost as hard as adopting a kid. They want forms and figures, proof of this and that, home visits, pledges to feed only certain kinds of food, a promise to purchase pet insurance, evaluations of existing pets, permission to drop in and check conditions in the home from time to time, blah blah blah. I suppose I can see why all that's necessary, although personally I think we're pretty good dog "parents" and wish we didn't have to spend so much time jumping through hoops. As soon as I take my stats final, this is going to become my top priority.

Approving of myself

This is my new motto for now: Feel great, act great, and approve of myself. I wish I could remember where I found this photo – I didn't take it myself but I appreciate the sentiment.

Things are happening in Mr. A's family that I really have no frame of reference for, and a huge part of me is itching to step in and fix it. I always have a strong opinion about the "right" way to do things – and in this situation it would be a huge relief to me and at least a couple of other people to see some big changes in the way things are happening.

But this is not the Tina Show, and certainly not the Tina To The Rescue Show.

Approving of myself in this situation is not easy. I feel very strongly that something "should" be done, and since I don't see it happening, and I do feel capable of doing what needs to be done myself, I'm feeling pretty guilty about letting things play out as they are. I have to keep reminding myself that this logic is flawed: Just because I'm capable of doing something, doesn't mean it's appropriate for me to do it. This situation does not belong to me. Right now I think my most appropriate and useful role is to support Mr. A as best I can, and make myself available for whatever I am asked to do – not to grab the wheel and start trying to steer the boat.

I've been reading lately about shame and perfectionism as a barrier to connection and feelings of belonging. This woman has done some interesting work on the topic and I'm excited to keep learning; her definition of shame is a good description of what I'm working to overcome in my own thinking – she describes it as "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging." In my case it's not so much that I feel unworthy, but that I think other people will think I am. Whatever – it's really at the root of all my anxiety and social isolation, and I know I'm far from alone in that.

Seeing the results of a long lifetime of that kind of thinking is pretty motivating, I have to say. Truly heartbreaking. I'm excited to be moving along a different path again now. It's been a long winter.

Overdue

I've been holding on to this library book way past its due date, intending to track down the quote I wanted to remember – and now I finally found it.

Going into your fear is like going through a fog. The key is whether you're regarding what you experience as simply something real or instead as monumental entrapment, imprisonment. If you panic further, you breed cowardice. If you don't descend into cowardice, then you just have an experience of fear. You can break through without being a coward at that point. ... If you are able to join fear and uncertainty with genuine confidence, then you will come through to the other side.

He really nails it here, for me: "If you don't descend into cowardice, then you just have an experience of fear." The problem isn't that I feel afraid sometimes, it's more than when I do, I tend to think of it as monumental, important, life-defining. For some reason I've learned to make it into much more than it is, which is just an experience of fear. End of story.

At least, that's how I'm trying to remember to look at it. It does seem much more manageable when I can remember to do that.

Yoga was great, of course. My friends were sweet – the one who met me there, and the one who teaches the class. I'd never been to her class before and it was quite different from others I've done. It felt really energizing to do something new, in a new setting, with new people. Afterward we sat in the steam room for awhile, and then in the whirlpool, and I met a new woman who seems like she could become a friend. I felt so good on the way home I started imagining myself going to a class every day. There's really no reason I couldn't!

One thing at a time, however. Right now I'm totally focused on passing my statistics class. I'm so focused on it that I can't even remember if I talked about this already; it seems like it's all I think about or do all day long, and all night as well – all I see when I close my eyes is more numbers and formulas, and when I wake up I have the feeling I've been dreaming about them the whole time I was asleep. I'm not certain I'm going to be able to finish by the end of May and still get 100% on my two remaining exams, so I may end up settling for a passing grade after all – which is all that's required, though I really want to do better than that.

It's been interesting to see how this compromise is affecting me. Making a decision about grad school and diving in the way I did this winter is something I've never really done before, at least not with anything this big. Normally I like to plan everything out waaaay far out in advance so I have plenty of time to get things done absolutely perfectly, without having to rush or sacrifice the quality of my work. It's one of the things that drove me crazy about my last job – it seemed like there was never time to do anything very well, and I was the only person who even cared.

Anyway. My intention here was to stretch myself out of my comfort zone and try doing things differently, and I knew it would be uncomfortable, and it has been, but it's also kind of cool to see what I'm capable of. Maybe I am blasting through this class in less than the ideal amount of time, but the whole point of it is to satisfy a prerequisite to the MSW program, not to memorize, recite and interpret the entire textbook by heart.

I still don't like doing just an adequate job of something when I know I could make it perfect, but in this case I'm going to let it be OK.

Other news. Hmm. The hospice work is starting to happen. I visited my first patient a couple of weeks ago but they passed away a couple of days after our visit so I didn't get a chance to do much. I have a new assignment starting next week and in the meantime attended an in-service training on grief vs. depression that I thought was pretty interesting.

A little closer to home, Mr. A's mother is starting to fade pretty fast as well. We spent a couple of hours there yesterday and the situation is not good, but she's on service with hospice now so I'm hoping that will be some comfort to her. I need to spend some time writing about this whole thing offline; it's been pretty intense for me in several different ways.

This decision to not write about Mr. A's family issues makes me think of that situation that happened with me and my group of friends about a year and a half ago, in which my trying to process my own experience of it in this blog contributed to the person in question deciding that they couldn't talk to me anymore. I've wondered if I might have made a mistake there ... and while I'm still sad about the loss of that friendship, I don't feel like I did anything wrong. So what's different here? I guess the first thing is that the first situation had to do with a serious breach of trust that affected me personally and profoundly, and in this situation, while it's definitely affecting me, I don't feel like I've been wronged in any way. I guess that's it. It's a very sad situation that I'm a witness to, and there isn't a lot I can do to make it better, though I am (we are) doing what we can.

Actually, I'm not sure I'm being totally honest here. I could have chosen to write about that other situation offline too – why didn't I? Partly it was because I know that only a handful of people read this blog (seriously, I get the stats!), and all of them either already knew all about what had happened, or don't know me personally at all. So I didn't feel like I was revealing anything sensitive. Looking back on it though I think I was also trying to regain a little bit of my own power in the situation, by talking about it because I wanted to talk about it, even though I knew the other person didn't want me to. Was I passive-aggressively trying to hurt him?

I sat here for several minutes trying to answer that question and I keep coming back to "no." I knew he would probably hate it that I wrote anything at all, but that isn't the reason I did it. Still, if I had it to do over again I think I would have taken that one offline too. It wasn't malicious or extreme but it wasn't really very sensitive or kind, either. Or necessary.

Yeah, the therapy function of this blog is becoming pretty evident again of late.

In any case – getting back to the matters at hand – I'm getting some practice here in what it's like to be with someone who is actively dying, and it's making me very grateful for everything I've learned (and continue to learn) about staying calm, staying present, and accepting life as it comes without judgment or drama.

One other thing I don't think I've mentioned is that my parents have gone on a mission for their church. They left last week and will be gone six months. I'm proud of them and excited that they get to have this experience. I'm also feeling lonely for them, knowing they're even farther away now than they usually are. My mom emailed me that on their first day there they found several other couples and friends they've known for years and decades. That seems to be a pretty common experience in Mormonism (maybe other organizations too) – arriving in a place you've never seen before and being instantly assimilated into a deeply connected community life. There's a lot I don't miss about being part of the Mormon church but that one aspect just makes me want to weep from the loss of it. I've lived here 15 years and still don't feel as connected here as my parents do after just one day in their new town.

Something to strive for.