Blog Posts

writing words

7/29/2017

words. words, words, words. it's all we got.
i started this blog because i wanted to remain mindful of my writing. i wanted something that could quantify the words in my thoughts. these pages are a fragment of the words i am thinking and yet i feel i've compiled nothing.
in a few weeks, there is a book signing for something i ghosted. i have a reminder on my calendar for the event. i want to smile at the corpse with a nod, acknowledging that he did something my sporadic passion prevents me from doing. he produced something that folks want to read. - sure it came from my pen and skill, but the unfinished piles of incomprehensible words in my collection of garbage indicates that i cannot -
i started this blog to separate the strides i have in my writing measured against the hurdles i face with my mental illness. in a moment of clarity, i separated the two; knowing if i ever read through an old chaotic journal about how stuck i am in my head, i would not be able to organize the words from my pen. i understand without the one, i don't have the other. both my words and my madness are important.
i spoke with a writer pal on the opposite end of the world. literally and figuratively. she writes something i do not. she shared her struggle to squash a new story idea while she works on finishing the one she's writing. her books appear on actual shelves that do not belong to her. apparently finishing one thing before starting another works for her. i do not share that skill set. i have no less than seven projects going at once and three more in queue on the brain. i am disorganized and undisciplined and a jumbled mess. it's what i do.
it does not work for me. i'm not delusional and i will never argue that this is my success; but it is my habit and i will aggressively support my position.
there was a time, when passion was high, that i would introduce myself as a writer [with a numbers gig]. sadly, i've reverted to capitalizing the numbers with a little voice squeaking, 'and i write toooooo.' and every time i hear myself, i hate me a little more.
i hate that i haven't done as much as i want. i hate that my stories do not contain two words on a final page.
but i digress, i was talking story to this fellow writer and it occurred to me that i have far more finished than i have unfinished. what i don't have is a publishing contract, or an agent to sell a script. i don't have a mass appeal for the public. [or more to the point, i don't have the passion to sell my work to others]
the conversation with this complete opposite made me realize that somehow i'm muddling through the writing. the words are finding their way together even if i'm not noticing their movement. it may seem like it's nothing, but it's almost like a shocking revelation seen at the climax of a horror movie blinked out with strobe lighting getting closer and closer until it takes my breath in a grasp and fades to black.
i am a series of short stories that one day someone with find and compile into greatness.
THE END

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Memory

4/1/2017

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Double feature today! i just wrote something over on Heating a Home on a Hot Plate. but in writing that, of course my brain was a jumble of thoughts. A jumble of words i struggled to remember. Words i was certain were important enough to remember.
   The brain is a funny thing. - Maybe curious is a better word? Maybe undefined is an even better word to describe what i'm thinking.
Remembering. Let me work backwards - in prep for my acquistion of the time machine... ha! - I saw a meme this week reading something about the write may not remember who you are, how you met, or even your name; but she'll remember the color of your shoelaces and the smell on your breath when you guffawed at an inappropriate joke, although the punchline too, escapes her memory.
Yesterday i was asked about some difficult experiences that make me the person i am. I described them in as much detail i thought the recipiant needed to get the picture but curbed the detail to lessen the discomfort one hearing of such atrocities would feel. I saw every detail of the moments. I can smell things in the memory and i can taste - the bitter taste - figurative and literal.
   Two weeks ago i was asked if i remembered someone in the periphery of my childhood. I remember. Vague recollections of smiles and voices.
   Nightmares. Dreams are a means of filing memories. Stuffing them deep into sleep with the freedom to cope without physical limits. And yet, the details of some very bad stuff remain the same. I'm never the victor. I never come out on top. Nightmares of real things that happened in my life. Things that were just awful.
   Maybe this belongs over on my heating page... but i'm struggling with this through words. This is definitley a wriritng thing. The good memories are bullied by the travesties of our past. In my case, it's exhausting. I don't want any more bad memories, but it seems like i can't stop them from becoming a part of me. So i consider why?
Character. The shit - the waste - the stuff no one wants - it's necessary. i'm not a hundred percent sure why, but these are the things that make good character. Not just in writing, but in life.
   My post today on the hot plate was focused on a mindfulness. And i want to move forward with a mindfulness of memories. I want to start relieving the file drawers in my brain of the stuff that should have been discarded a long time ago to make room for all the smiles and aromas in the periphery i should be drawing in more.
   I need my memory to be better. I need my brain to be better. I need to be better. Today i'm going to do my best to remember something that is not going to make me sad later when i think of it.

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Starting Over

2/7/2017

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I cannot believe it has been two months since i have updated this thing. i don't even want to think how far behind i am in writing jobs and writing for me.
   Lots to share i think. I know i refrained from writing within the week after i cut most of the hair from my head. I was walking around, a big ball of anger responding to inquiries that i had a 'crazy' episode or that it's easier to get dressed in the morning and my absolute favorite, the implication that i could not squash my homosexulaity down any longer.
First and foremost, although my hair provides an annoyance and frequently i want to shave my head, it is not because i lost my reason. My life is an episode of crazy, with varying degrees that have nothing to do with my hair; although, i have an ex who would beg to differ with that opinion. Next, and again, if the length of my hair had anything to do with making it easier to face the world, in or out of pants, i would totally keep my hair at the optimal length - for the very use of easing my days- sadly the length of my hair has nothing to do with the difficulty i feel while i breathe in and out around people. Sign me up for the super powered hair, giving me the strength to face the world head on - pun unintended, but noticed... so i'll mention it. And finally, this bit about sexuality linked to hair. This is such a huge thing i could write essays on the matter. A haircut does not make one gay, and unless i'm intimate with someone, i find the inquiry terribly vulgar.. That's all i'm going to say on the matter here.
   So how do i respond, and what am i getting at? What i say - because people can easier understand the astetic reason for this reset: I need to get comfortable with the grey and just had to get it all off my head to start over. What i want to say - that would take hours over coffee or beer to explain: I felt stuck. What I've worked out in my brain about this hair stuff:
   In eighth grade i was pretty sick one day and couldn't go wherever it was everyone was going. I looked in the mirror and saw the ugliness in my face. The ugly crept through from inside and i was angry that i couldn't be normal. I cried. I could not verbalize the feelings or the thinking - both internally or externally. I took scissors and cut my hair shorter than it had been - i was just going to say ever, but then i remembered that time in sixth grade where i had an uneven head because of a slumber party shenanigan. :)
But in eighth grade, i went to school, after this weekend of sheers, and people complimented me. I, with my inability to draw in nice things, responded to each compliment with a growl and the words, "shut up."
Before, then, now, and i'm assuming forever, there is a modicum of care how i look - of course there is. But i have never, nor ever will be, obsessed with how i look. I much prefer how i feel. And my hair was making me feel bleck. So, I cut it off. Nothing more. Except in responding to this most recent round of comments I realized that it is so much more! It's everything. I have this silver and grey hair under all the layers of colors. I am struggling to embrace the grey. But i'm warming up to it. It's a little shorter than I'd like, but so is everything else in my life. And as I stand looking in the mirror, smooshing the goop to keep the cowlicks under control for the day, I look at my face. I look at the brightness that is coming through my face these days--
   For anyone who doesn't know, I've been diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis and have had a few episodes of acute pancreatitis with some surgeries. It's painful, it's exhausting and it's restricting my diet - which is killing my spirit. I needed to reset my habits. I needed to reset my routine. In order for my body to survive, I needed to stop treating it like it was an extra in caligulia's life and care for it like the extraordinary machine i know it can be.
   But my mind...? My spirit...? I made this commitment to writing and it feeds my soul. I made commitments with writing - for myself and others - that i'm not keeping. And my brain is starting to feel as pained as my body was. I am struggling to find a balance. When my body is malnourished, my brain doesn't work well. When my brain is not nourished, my body fails in ways that would take hours to explain.
   I'm trying. I'm struggling. ... the last doctor i went to calmed my concerns that i'm not getting better with the words, "you live with yourself everyday. recovery is slow. think about how you were when...."
   So I have commited to a literary fair in September. I have a few thigns to do to ready myself for the event. I am going to do this - and i'm going to kick ass at it!
   I'm still terrified on a daily basis of the reflection i see in the mirror daily. But if i have to, I'll just cut off all the layers of extra and start over again - as long as i have it in me.

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a writer [does what she does until she] writes...

12/4/2016

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Yesterday my plans did not work out and I found myself on tangents all day. The writer in me may say, in a moment of pretention and a wink of my eye, I was researching. But in reality, I was just on these tangents.
I like the notion of being on a fork in the road. I do not use this expression because i once read a book titled the same and it described that fork perfectly. That decision you make leading to a path that still provides movement forward. I don't have forks. (i think i'd like to have a fork??) *sigh* I have tangents. I have these paths, that on occassion, lead me from the circuitous ball of madness in which i live until my growing concern for the undone or the unraveled, leads me back to whatever is in my constant circle.
I told people I was a writer yestereday. And, I almost beleived it. They certainly did. This morning, I wanted to announce, I will be writing today! (I know, stop saying it and do it!) But in making coffee and opening the blinds and choosing music by which my fingers will move over the keys, I thought about the impotance of having the tangents yesterday. I thought how these innocuous tasks of my day really prepared my head to be in the state of creation today. I am grateful that my legs (and my middle if i can be so literal) allowed me movement within my circle to spin until i found the doorways to the tangent. And I am grateful for the tangent. I am appreciative of all the tangents I encounter.
I woke with personal hygenic needs (toilet paper, tampons, paper towels, trash bags, etc.) and wrapped up in a thick flyers hoodie (that i wear so often there are stains on the cuffs i cannot wash out) to trek out in the chill of the morning air to take a bus that was a little late to the Target. Benign? Well, I thought I would walk toward the Dunkin' and if the bus had not arrived by the time I reached that mid-way point, I would get a coffee. I thought further that I was meeting a friend for brunch and maybe should not push the exertion thing. Settle for the bus and get a coffee at the Target. If I was keeping track of gratitudes again, I would say having a bus at my corner, a dunkin' midway to the grocery stores and a starbucks in my neighborhood Target defintely makes the list. Still benign - maybe? I stood amongst two families I've encountered several times in the neighborhood, also waiting for the bus. One consisted of an older woman and a young girl and boy. Grandmother to the two? Mother? I don't know the relationship. What I do know is the girl stands quiet while the boy stands worried that the bus is late before it's even scheduled to arrive and while the woman complains about the weather. She complained in the summer time when the sun was bright, in the gloom of the rain, and definitely yesterday when she was bundled up in knits of varying weights and colors providing insight into the chaos and spin in which she lives. The second family lives on my street. Mother, father, two girls comprise the crew. They were on their way to WalMart I assumed, as I had eencountered them many weekend mornings. The dad is loud. The mom is embarrassed about his volumious exchanges with his daughters. The daughters play. As they stand for the bus, they swing on the railing to the [Papi] store. They play a game of 'what if' while the dad tells them to be quiet while he makes a lot of noise telling the mom how he wants new pajama pants and she explains that no one needs to know of his needs outside their home. These are people. These are characters if one sees them in that particular light. These are the quirks that make up the benign and yet the quirks that make IT complete.
  Waiting for coffee, waiting in line, listening to two people discuss the value versus comfort of toilet tissue - all these moments become stories in my brain.
  So, I missed brunch and couldn't find my writing group. But after eavesdropping on a group of out-of-towners who were relying on others to explain the words I thought were abundantly clear, i stumbled upon a couple of guys who were just delightful. A Star Wars fan (of the same particular age as I - providing a memory of the originals on the big screen as well as excitment for the upcoming volume in the domed imax theatre) and his partner who was not so much of that age and seemed embarrassed that he was old enough only to be exposed to the rise and fall of Darth Vader on DVD. I realized while I spoke to these two that all the little quirks I notice explain more than what people think of themselves - what people tell others about themselves - how they cringe when their partner exposes them to a complete stranger. I laugh and take mental note - I literally think, I have to remember this - it is important! and then it is forgotten, because I am engaged, not recording for a later disgorge.    I left them feeling i had done nothing with my day - certainly not produced any words of value as I have beaten myself up for not doing on the days I'm well enough to sit up straight and have the laptop open. And so i did the thing i do when i'm feeling a little broken inside from getting beaten up - i retreated into the darkness to watch someone else's story instead of being a part of my own. I saw a perfectly terrible film. It could be the worst one to date I've seen on the big screen and quite frankly it was exquisite. It was writen and lighted and directed and acted in such a way that complimented every other aspect of the film. This is not the stuff of an Oscar winner. This is not the stuff of memory. It was a quirk finding life.
  I'm home this morning and i have my laptop open. I made a giant cup of strong coffee and chose a stack of cds to listen to while my fingers methodically hit the keys to push characters into words and ideas (if not ideals). I have a monster dog whose belly aches from eating things that she should not have eaten when she was alone yesterday and i have intention to write. I hope today is not a day where the words assemble into sentences and not just fall in disharmony.
  Yesterday i told people i was a writer when they asked who i was. It was the writer who looked upon them. It was the writer who categorized their personalities and predicted their next move. It was the writer who left them taking note of their importance.
  I wrote a play in a weekend - full ninety four page play with stage direction, set design and background notes about characters. There was a time when I wrote ten-thousand word short stories in a weekend. At this point in my life, i write close to five hundred words and feel spent. i feel i have nothing interesting left - even when i am inspired. It's this weird writer's block/chaos of creativity that weighs on me. I feel like a fraud when i say that I am a writer. I feel like someone is going to determine that i've been on a break so long from words I should be saying, I used to be - and then in the realization that I haven't produced anything of true value to anyone but me, i think i maybe should use the words, i want to be -
Today I am a writer. I will write without goal but with purposee. I will be mindful of the ending as I sift through the moments making up the middle. Yesterday I researched and tomorrow I'll be in the tangents again, but today, I am a writer.

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Dead or Story...

9/11/2016

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It's no secret that I've been out of sorts for a bit - maybe my whole life in fact. For a year though I've been in quite a bit of pain. I actually aligned the physical pain with an aleviation of emotional suck. I guess it occurs that I just had the fortitude to notice they physical after the emotional subsided.
What happened? Well, first I didn't die as I was told could have been the outcome; so as it is, i have an amusing story to tell. And to interject, it will be my Nanowrimo project this November.
I was in pain. Every movement, every bit of food and drink i put in my mouth resulted in horrific pain. The kind of pain that felt like a corset was being tightened by a dominatrix someone paid to ensure my organs were squished up. All my bits and pieces worked and in fact, blood and urine kept reading that functionality was normal. But by every standard, I certainly wasn't.
My diet devolved into chicken wings and beer once a day and on the occassion I consumed anything with nutritional value, my body was a mass of overactive nerve endings. I was essentially a crying mess. In this process, I discovered crying only made my face wet. It did not alleviate any of the pain. A neighbor called the medics and i was taken to a hospital where absurdity ensued. Transfered to another hospital where i'm pretty sure i was admitted to the psychiatric ward, but provided a bed to rest and two IV's in my arm. My liquid diet was no longer one laden with an alcoholic numb. Morphine helped at first, but i was content with lying in an electric bed with the pain, beleiveing if i had an episode with the alien setting up shop inside me and consuming my organs one by one, the doctors would send in orderlies to sweep up the mess and sew up my belly.
No food or drink at all. That's okay. I did not eat comfortably for a year. I literally had nothing but a soft pretzel for three days before and my body was clearly not happy with its consumption.

So, what is all this about? Well, it took me to get to the point I couldn't move - that immobility i have so often - before i asked for help with the problem. The problem had a relatively simple solution; although in essence, it was change EVERYTHING i was doing. Simple. Regroup. Evaluate why i've been just getting by and not thriving. My whole life i've struggled to get from sunrise to sunset and then to sunrise again. I don't know how to live where everything works as it should. I knew numb. And when i felt, I numbed. And when the numb wore off, I cired and sought to numb again. And the only thing i think i achieved was intensifying the stupid feelings in between the numb.
So this story that occurs - Life happens in between all the things we're trying to get done. The actual doing part of living. We figure out what makes us shine in strength and what dulls us to the point of anonymity. I suppose my body kicked my ass, yelling at me to stop being dull. And there are a select few who will protest that one thing i'm not is dull. But truely, i am. I am nothing but a tool through which a story is told.
I could have died. And with each episode of extreme hardship and near death experience, I do refocus on bringing something bigger than myself to this world. For me, all i have is my ability to group together words. I not dead, so i have another story to tell.
I finished revising Sevy recently and just this morning i sent it to print once again. I'm going to digress back to Matson and the Clowns. (Matson exhausts me. The clowns are much easier although frightening.)
Above all else, if you've gotten to this sentene, you're sticking with me to see how the story ends. It's gonna end in dead of course. All true stories do. But, I appreciate your continued interest, regardless of how dull i become.

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Stealing Light

7/23/2016

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The neighbors took my light bulb again.
___________________________

A lot has been going on and perhaps i needed something to trigger the thought strong enough to get a blog entry started? i've always tried to see purpose in my steps and as a result i feel i'm mindful of purpose to ensure i vouchsafe, giving and taking as i should.
But i digress to this light. The lantern at my front steps that was broken when I moved in was the first thing fixed. In a broken home with many fissures and fixtures in need of repair, the light at the door works.
To the discomfort of my neighbors, I like the light being on. There is a street lamp overhead and maybe they feel i'm

showing off with an unnecessary light for no purpose other than to bring me comfort in the darkness. At any rate, it puzzles me why this little 40 watt bulb should bother anyone. But, in the time i've lived in this crappy row, i've been asked to turn it off countless times and even had the bulb stolen more than twice.
In order to complete this theivery, one must unscrew the top of the lantern, unscrew the lightbulb, retun the top and screw it back in. It seems a lot of work, although the alternative would be smashing the glass and housing to pieces, which was the condition when i moved in. So, in that respect, i prefer the absurdity of disconnection.
So thorughout my day, i was thinking about the light. It would seem that someone wants my light out.

They want what makes me shine to be extinguished.

When i was scout leader, a lesson that i enjoyed teaching involved sharing light. If a candle is shared with another, the room gets brighter. In other words, my brightness does not diminish because i light another wick. In fact, the opposite occurs, illuminating the space with greater brilliance.
To sum up, anyone trying to steal my light, should know that i have more within, like the lightbulb that will be put in at dusk again tonight. They are doing nothing but sharing my brillance with others.

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My office today...

5/28/2016

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what i am, and what i am not...

5/19/2016

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I am not a saleswoman. i want that bit out of the way from jump. i just want to write. And there is a rotund little character on my shoulder crying out, "But in order to be a writer AND eat, one must do the pesky chore of selling." I understand that it is not necessarily the art of selling my work, but it's selling myself. (And i don't even want to take me home, so how can i do that?)

*sigh* or *harrumph*
Where is the onomatopoeia for the sound my dog makes when she's annoyed?

The days I don't write, I am perfectly fine just ignoring that bit about me. But the days I DO! ... I feel ... I just feel! And that's pretty fucking good.
   My commute for a few days has provided time with my thoughts, and if i was a shout out kind of girl, a quick enthusiastic one shoudl be hailed upon my meds that are being consumed in regular intervals as prescribed.
   And there's the math isn't it? ... My time is short because I work at a job that pays for necessities like yogurt and seroquel. But if i just spent some time writing more, i could put efforts into being a writer even on the days when i don't feel worthy of the title. (I only entertained the idea of having raconteur on my business cards for a day or two.) And truly, aside from the selling, I make a pretty good go at writing.
   I write my stuff, freelance, ghost a bit, have more coffeee and struggle with my bills.

(Struggle no more or less with numbers instead of words in my days.)

At the end of the day, if i sleep, i don't stress with the same stress as working at something that is clearly not my passion although it remains my skill.
   I have this thought>> This jumble of melancholic wail over time and effort began because last night, i opened my computer to fill in all the brackets i jumped over during my yesterday commutes, and i was spent. I didnt' have it in me to key another word on the screen. But my mind raced and i had to get the words out before i forgot.
My brain was vomiting out the words and if i didn't sop up the mess right then and sort through the words, another minute would have come along with a wet vac and cleaned the whole mess away. (into a vacuum - i rather like that image of my brain being overstuffed with words that it must purge, with a minute jumping from horatio's timepiece and moving it to a place words have no sound - no story.)
   I wrote a thing about being clean over on my heating a home page... and it sat on my phone in a 'note to myself' over a week. and this entry was actually started two days ago. I'm struggling with finishing things. I'm struggling seeing the end of projects and that punctuation on my sentences. I blame lack of time and lack of brain, sometimes lack of sleep and often lack of eloquence. but i have to finish. if i'm ever going to make the transition from not a writer to a writer, i need to finish.

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Importance

1/3/2016

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The end of 2015 came and I was mindful of this li'l blog. I wanted to write the last thing for 2015 that was like the last bite of food. --That sumptuious morsel reminding of the pleasures some time later.
  The beginning of 2016 is here. And I want to write those bits of words that energize and motivate - reminding me of why I keep this online journal to keep me going for three hundred sixty five more days - and the possibility of sharing some inspiration with the few folks who read the words I string together.
   The fact is, i've been overwhelmed with just getting through my days. I've been moving forward for sure and can see some of my accomplishments. I've been too busy doing to record what i've done. And ceertainly too busy with doing to complain about not getting done. So that's something. And it may not be important to anyone- hell probably not even important enough for me to remember if I haven't got it in me to record it with an entry! But it seems like it is.
   It seems REAL important that i'm actually functioning to the point of exhaustion. I'm not only surviving, I'm thriving. I'm facilitating days for those around me to be functional. I understand the banality of waking and making coffee and sliding a twenty into my daughter's pocket so she can have a plate of sushi after school; but there were days when just those normal things seemed unbearable in my world.
  So I'm here again, three days late with so much gratitude and recovering from the debilitating anxiety attack yesterday evening with a need to share - not just my words, but everything!

And I'm thinking about this squirrel. That one in the photo. For months now I've taken the train to a job I'm struggling in which to find meaning and acceptance (internal!). All mornings, I stop to get coffee before the train and most mornings I see this little survivor. He (or she?) darts out of the honeysuckle and jumps onto the rim of the trashcan to pull out a brown paper bag, unwrap the crumbs and scoot back to his place in the trees.
   Now, I've never dug through the trash - and if you are reading this and have, I"m not judging in the least - but i've hidden in my own trees, waiting until i'm confident enough for exposure and then gone to care for the necessary and retreat again, whether it's into my home or into my head.
   This squirrel seems important.
   I'm just not sure why and to whom. I don't know the place to which she runs with the bite of bagel, or the whole blueberry muffin she swiped when I laid my bag to the left checking the time.
And on mornings like this, when I just settle into the routine of waking and feeding a dog and having some coffee, i wonder what tiny little morsels of importance I'm displaying and for whom.
   I'm dragging my own bagel crumbs, even if it looks like I'm sweeping them up.

New endeavor for 2016:
I've started an account with Patreon and I even put a button up there on the right hand side of my page to get there. (You can also click here if you're interested.)
I hesitate in asking for money for my writing. It's a weird thing. When i freelanced, one of my clients said, 'you charge less than some and do an excellent job - you could get more money.' But then, I explained, freelancing and ghosting becomes more important than my own work. I need to stay focused on my work. I need it to be important (for me).
Having said all that, Patreon is a crowdsourcing site and it's going to do what i need for it to do. It's going to require me to keep a commitment. I'm going to post a chapter and reward supporters with more chapters as well as other gifts. Some folks are using this to support their lifestyle. I"m not presumptuious enough to think that it's going to be that big; but i want the give and take to be mutual. Folks pay 12$ for a story in a movie theatre - if they stay with me for the very lowest tier of support, I'm committed to giving a story to them. I want 2016 to be a sucess in this venture. I want it to keep me motivated to write - not necessarily with deadlines, but to finish something without manic rewites or depressive insecurity.'
For anyone who had read this much of me today, I thank you with sincerity for sticking with me and look forward to a continued exchange in 2016 - me writing and you reading.

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Purring

10/29/2015

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I slept last night. The rain poured down and I probably should check the back wall to assure the shingles haven't lost any integrity listening to what sounded like a deluge from a fire hose running over my house. My dad used to say he only had restful sleep when it was pouring rain. He said it was because he knew someone else was out working. I remember cringing every time he said it-thinking of how he wished hardship on someone else, never realizing he was grateful for the respite given to him.
The sound of rain concerns me that there is a leak in the plumbing. It is most certainly NOT a soothing sound for me.
But just beyond where I lay my head on a pillow under the comfort of the thickest and biggest blanket I have lay a puppy snoring. A giant, head bigger than mine, still growing into her bear-claw sized paws, puppy.
I woke of course throughout the night and checked on the baby to find her curled up in a ball or stretched out like a queen, breathing heavy and snoring.
And I know this is bizarre. It's a puppy and she's just sleeping. But she had a rough start in life and then had a wonderful family care for her in ways I could never expect, and now her visit seems to have ended - she's back with me.
I want her to be happy. (the dog-just to be clear) I want her to feel safe. I want her to be cared for. I want her to snore when she sleeps knowing there is nothing keeping her at the edge of her dreams.
This morning, she ate a very big bowl of food, lapped some water and then laid her head on my lap while I watched the news and drank coffee. She purred. Or growled. Or whatever guttural noise she made from all the way deep inside letting me know that she was happy without words.
The friend who took the dog for a bit was amazing. (We have shared custody at this point I think). She said she feels shitty about giving her back. I felt shitty about feeling unable to care for the pup when I was starting to rebuild my life. Cried in fact and was worried nightly that the dog would be bad or that I was awful with all roads pointing back to a friendship lost.
But upon reflection, that is truly not the case. I needed a respite from working through the storm. And now, this incredible friend needs a little bit of time and space. I can't express the gratitude I feel for this whole situation. It's more than a beer and a story. It's more than a laugh and a hug....
Not to mention, I have this wonderful little being who just snuggles up and purrs telling me its all good because she is cared for. And in turn, I get to draw in puppy love. <3