Where Did I Leave My Brain, Dog And Ring?

Last week was one of my more, shall we say, scattered weeks. I think I left half my brain somewhere else, at least that's how I was operating. On Sunday afternoon my neighbor knocked on my front door and pointed down to the ground. It was with utter confusion my mind registered Porkie standing there, on my front door stoop, when we hadn't been out for three hours. How was this possible? As I gathered my overheated little princess into my arms tears fell from my eyes. My neighbor said my puppy was lying on the porch when she walked up, in the full setting sun of an Arizona summer. Relief washed over me as I realized the little scamp could've gone anywhere, ran away or met with any number of disasters, but didn't. She loves us and wasn't leaving our pack if she had anything to do with it. But I locked her out, I suppose not checking to make sure she was in the house after our last walk, and saw the distant look of distrust and suspicion in her eyes over the next few days until she forgot about it or at least forgave her forgetful mother. Her mother who has yet to forgive her own self.

Then on Thursday I lost my engagement ring. In the house I am reasonably certain, but since it's lost I really can't tell you for sure. I've gone through the trash 200 times, looked in every nook and under every cranny to no avail. Time will tell and my eyes are peeled but I am finding it hard to keep my positivity. Because of course in the midst of all this I have family with ailing health, my own to contend with and every other problem big and small that makes up a person's life. Sometimes it just gets to be too much. Hard to believe in a better tomorrow when today just keeps getting more difficult. I used to dream of packing what was important in one suitcase, giving away the rest and taking off to some island to work at a resort and spend my life in blissful paradise. My version of a "turn on, tune in, drop out" for the new millennium I suppose. But even that fantasy has been taken from me because my health problems are so complicated I can't live without insurance and doctors and medication. I don't have the option of even believing such a preposterous daydream is possible these days and I am becoming quite bitter with no place to imagine my unfulfilled longing for an easy life.

Now this is my personal fork in the road, where I can split in one of two different directions. A couple not so great things happen, my faith and security gets knocked around a little and I either focus or fold. I spent the last two years folding. Every time stress would take massive bites out of my life I would lose it, melt into a puddle of damaged brain functioning complete with tears and wailing, and the certain knowledge I was NOT going to survive. A few months back I wound up in a similar but different situation as last week and didn't fold, though. Didn't run for the bottle of Xanax in fear the tantrum about to erupt would hurl me down the rabbit hole head first. It was remarkable! I hadn't felt more like myself in years. I cried, felt my feelings, then picked myself up and went to clean the bathtub. Ahhh the simple things in life. As I have relayed the fear and loss of last week to friends and family I have found my humor, though. And my priorities. Because if things were gonna go down the way they did I am overjoyed it is the ring I lost and not the dog.

Thanks for joining,

Leah