Since it's been a while, you missed the part where we lost Buddha.
That happened near the very end of March. I held my breath until I couldn't hold it any longer and when I exhaled, he exhaled one last time and graduated the way the best spirits do and went on to do whatever it is that a Buddha will do when he makes his grand exit from his work here tending to my heart and soul. If I'm truthful and honest, I'll share that I squashed some of my missing of him in order to try to be present for his sister Stella. She is still here. She needed me to be here for her. She needed my own heart in ways that she had never asked for before because her whole world, her life as she had known it, had also ended in that last exhale.
Stella is now an only dog. Not just an only dog, she's my only dog. The one who has my heart wrapped tightly in all the sinews of hers and who carries it gently on her four wobbly paws. Stella is also now clearly dying before me and I am holding my breath and I don't know when I'll be able to exhale. I'm not ready for her to graduate as much as I know none of this is about me and all of this is about her and the way time continues to march onward even when we do everything in our power to wind the clocks backwards, to bargain with gods we don't really believe in, to cast spells and concoct potions that may keep the inevitable at bay.
I know that howling at the moon is not going to work, but I am still howling.
*****
While sitting at therapy this afternoon, I surmised that I've got a problem with narcissists.
A long, sordid affair. Ugly and abusive in parts. A rare gift in others. I even uttered that there were moments that were like a symphony they were so beautiful to me.
One does not just have a problem with narcissists, I realize. There's obviously a certain personality flaw, some sort of kink in my own hardware, some space where the light doesn't exactly shine through that creates an opportunity or, better yet, an attraction for me. Or to me. Or...well, this is why I have a really good therapist.
I own that have absolutely played my own part in all of this. I'm the writer of the narrative that is my life story. These characters came into my life because I invited them. I'm not an innocent bystander. Yet in owning my story, my history, I need to also own all the parts of it, including those that are difficult to embody. I threw up today in therapy from the nausea of remembering.
*****
I know I'm a privileged person to sit here and write on a blog, of all places, about my dead dog, my dying dog and my mental health issues.
They're connected.
My dog keeps me on the planet. She helps me to stay present and sane. Her heart ties my heart here and keeps me from floating too far away.
I don't know if I'll be able to exhale.
Comments