I do not know what to say this morning. I am tired after being up with the dog all night. She is throwing up and can’t stop. I have called the emergency vet hospitals and they aren’t taking any new patients at the moment. I don’t think any of the local vets are going to be open today given it is a holiday. I feel so badly for her but can’t seem to do anything that will help her. All I can do is wait. I am not a good waiter...
I love this dog. She is my constant companion and I am full of fear that it is cancer or something awful. Being up with her all night while she suffered was terrible. My heart and mind hurt. I feel drain, wrung out and exhausted and it isn’t even 6 am yet.
I will get her to a vet today somehow even if I have to drive to Santa Barbara or some place else. I am going to do what is best for her, cost be damned. But I am afraid. I feel overwhelmed. This is the place where I need a shoulder, but have only my own.
My mom and dad will be there for me as will my kids. But it is times like these where I long for someone who can support me when I don’t feel strong. It isn’t often, I feel weak. But I do today and there is nothing to do but summon up the strength and get on with it.
I have to say that I am tired of marshaling forward. I am tired of always being strong. It feels like I have been doing it forever...and I am exhausted.
But I have to remember that this is the life I created. I don’t need well. I don’t ask for help well. So I have a life that is replete of those things. Everyone expects me to handle it, and I want them to think this, so I have no choice but to handle it.
But today, now, I can see that my life plan was a little short sighted. Perhaps a little off. I do miss having someone to lean into. But when I review all of my relationships, I never really remember anyone being there for me then either. Now, that isn’t really completely true. There were partners that were there for me...but never as I needed, when I needed. Usually I ended up having to fight for what I needed which completely defeated the purpose. I can see how I got here, and I own my part but I am not sure how to get anywhere else. These my best efforts at living landing me right smack dab in the middle of where I am now.
I can see that extreme self sufficiency landed me here, alone on a holiday morning with a sick dog, tired, and full of fear. I can look back over my life and see that, of course I am here. But I have to also honestly admit that I do not want to be here anymore. I want to have someone to lean on, someone to ask for help. But I am not sure how, it seems like I lack that gene.
So I have to do what ever I can to rally in the moment and right now that is to just clean up the dog barf and move on with my day. Bemoaning my lack of a partner who cares not particularly helpful right now, and also self defeating. Perhaps some might think this is a strange time to talk about this, but it is because I feel it so acutely now that I can write about it. The pain germane, present and intense. If I wait until later, I will miss it. I won’t feel this way. I will handle the issue and I will move past the feeling. I will move into the mode that I seem to live in, which is I am fine, I have got it mode. And I will stay there because in reality I like it there a lot more than I like it here.
I am going to have to figure out a different way, but it is not today. Today, I have a sick dog to take care of and a kid that hasn’t slept again. I will have to navigate both of these things while I manage my own lack of rest. I am kind of an asshole when hungry or tired...and feeling alone and unable to partner just makes everything worse.
So I focus on what I can. What can I do. I can find a vet to see my dog. I can do that when everything opens around 8 and until then I can clean up the barf and try to soothe the dog. She is not feeling well and is unhappy. I can focus on the her suffering instead of my own. But I cannot escape into her suffering, because I know mine is here to teach me something. Self sufficiency is a way to live that I mostly enjoy but it doesn’t work all the time. Sometimes, I need someone and because of the way I live most days, there is no one here. I have to own that and really examine whether I am able and willing to do the work to change it.
Sometimes life is a teaches us lessons with dog vomit. Sometimes it is the only way life can get our attention...
