i'm two months into the new job and i've rescued a new beast.
did i mention that fang the wonder dog died at christmas time? he was 14-1/2 years old and his arthritis was awful. when i called magee to tell her, she reminded me that we thought we were going to lose him last march so all of the rest of the time was a bonus.
he was a glorious beast. losing him almost on the anniversary of losing mummy really sucked.
next christmas, i am going to wrap myself in bubble wrap and tuck myself in the corner of a closet for the duration of the holidays in hopes that i don't emerge with any more loss before the new year starts. i will say this...after losing mummy..losing fang was nothing. it's not that i didn't love him...he was glued to my side for years and years and i found him to be incredibly sweet and very grounding...but mummy's death was so monumentally painful that losing fang was easy in comparison. it's not that it didn't hurt...but my capacity for hurt was stretched so far by the death of mummy that i barely felt the death of fang.
the new beast is quite different than fang. fang was a genius...but a curmudgeon. i think scout might be an airhead. she is so purely joyful and friendly that i am still a little surprised that we found each other. she lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared.
i brought her back to the east coast last weekend and we spent the weekend with maura and missy at the beach house.
missy is magical. she also lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared. i sometimes find myself "armchair quarterbacking" some of the more trivial aspects of her care...but i am not in maura's shoes and i can't help but marvel at the essence of maura's mothering skills because missy is purely joyful and unconditionally loved (even when she bites).
the monday before my return was really lovely. maura and i stopped off at aunt mary anne and uncle jude's for lunch on the way home from bethany beach. uncle jude's new kidney is fabulous because it has given him back the energy he needs to be his mischievous self. i didn't have to go to the bathroom and cry when aunt mary anne hugged me...but her eyes did catch me off guard a couple of times.
i can't say the scales have permanently tipped in one direction or another because this is all still very much a bumpy ride...but on monday the scales were tipped more towards feeling the comfort of seeing mummy in aunt mary anne's eyes and tipped away from the striking feeling of loss that could have come from the very same sight.
we had dinner with aunt jane and uncle john, buzzy, liam and seamus. the boys are growing like weeds. like maura, buzzy has effervescent parenting skills resulting in magical children.
i spent the last night of my trip at mummy's house. this time, i couldn't find her shoes.
now, i am back in los angeles. i have almost finished unpacking boxes. in the back of my head, i think i have been dragging out the unpacking process...because finishing the work of upending my life over the past four months means that i will have to face this question: "what's next?"
i made all of these changes so i could have more time for myself...and, frankly, that is a scary proposition.
