Piper Kate Pup-date

Leaving Piper Kate every day to work long and difficult hours at the airport is far and away the hardest part about this new position.

I hear you, people leave their pets and their kids and all sorts of stuff at home, to go to work, and slave away all day, all the time.

Not wrong.

But let's keep in mind that I am not struggling less just because someone else is struggling also. We don't play the pain Olympics around here, remember?

Before I spent three months with her, every single day, just the two of us - I also had her by my side since the day I brought her home. (Not to mention that I was beyond privileged to be able to visit her every single week from the day she was born until the day she came home.)

So to say it has been her and I for months and months, is not at all wrong.

Beyond that, as you know (do you? I think you do.) she is my service animal. She serves a very real purpose in my day to day life - especially now - that helps me mitigate my anxiety, cope with my depression, and keep a realistic grasp on my ED recovery plan.

To be without her during the day is one thing, to be without her during a 10 hour work day is another thing, but to feel the increased stress and anxiety knowing that she's home alone is a whoooole 'nother beast altogether.

I don't really have a solution right now. I don't really have a plan right now.

As much as she is considered a necessity for me, I'm also no longer in a position that can reasonably accommodate me. (For a lot of reasons, the first and easiest is that I am in and out of kitchens all day long. But also, I don't know how dogs pass federal background checks.)

So what does it mean?

It means I'm trying to find new ways to cope, every day while at work. It means, that as soon as I come home (usually 9 to 11 hours after I've left her) I get on the floor with her, we cuddle, and I cry.

It means I just miss her, all the time. And goodness, I hope it means you'll go hug your dog.

Here We Go (Again)

But why did you stop writing in the first place?

Because I stopped being able to tell you the whole story.

This time last year, I issued myself a gag order when it became clear that I could no longer share the details of what was hurting me, without inevitably hurting someone else. Or, at the very least, upsetting a likely wonderful reality for someone else.

So I stopped talking about the whole thing. And slowly, but certainly surely, I stopped being able to tell all the parts of my story that started from that thread.

I guess that made stopping easier. As large parts of my life, and my life lessons, and the things that were making me me - had to be redacted - the public part of my life had to get smaller and smaller.

Now? What has happened?

Time. Mostly time.

For as horrible, and painful, and soul-building, and heart-changing as that whole season was...I am through it. I have moved into the next year. I have moved into the next phase/step/chapter.

And truly, that's what Florida was for.

I needed a hard reset.

Not just powering down and restarting. I needed to shut this thing down, leave it for a day (or three months,) and then try powering back up again. Hell, let's upgrade the software while we're at it.

Glory be, it worked. 

Florida changed my heart, changed my head, changed my life.

And the grateful wave that hit me the moment I drove onto my little island truly truly truly hasn't stopped hitting me since. I don't know that I will ever be able to fully share how wholly I needed that time, and how insanely thankful I am for it.

Now, I'm back. I've been back. And many wonderful, hard, amazing, and growth-inducing things have happened in the last seven months.

I think it's now or never, though. I think I'm ready to start sharing this big ol' mushy heart again. Because here's the thing, sister I've got a lot to say.