I'm doing okay.

Thank you so much for your loving and thoughtful comments. It means a lot to hear from you. You are an amazing group of people. My brain feels kind of disorganized, but I'll share some of what is going on.

-- B&K found the blog, and though they have not indicated their feelings about it, I'm trying to sort through my own.

-- C and I got a dog. Her name is Stella and she's a 3-year old beagle-beagle mix. Extremely sweet, overall very good with the cats (Hazel laid down and took a nap with her the other day) and pretty low maintenance. After both my shrink and Dr. Shrink independently said a low-key dog might be a good idea, a reason to get out of bed, I went to the shelter for a doggie-date. That went well, so we did an overnight, and that sealed the deal. (Boy, am I glad I'm not dating anymore.)

She gets kind of anxious when I leave and I'm sure I'm going to have a post full of questions, soon, but in the meantime, so far so good. Caring for this little creature is bringing up quite a bit of miscellaneous anxiety for me, along with the "new parent" sort of concerns. C is smitten with her, and we often go for evening walks together.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking, but really? It feels good. We both get our walks and I jump right out of bed to take her out in the morning and, more than not, it feels good to have new love of this little creature. Something that's nice, is that she's too short to jump on the furniture (so far), so the cats still dominate anything that's 2 feet or higher.

I'm focused on something, even though I still feel a lot of anxiety, it's nice to have something like this to worry about, too, rather than just my dismal future. Sometimes distraction is good. And, oh, she is so sweet.



-- The week before we got her, I was having almost daily meltdowns and not getting out of bed except for school. Dr. Shrink adjusted my meds slightly again. I was joking about maybe a residential stay because I was wondering how I was going to get through the week, let alone the anniversaries. It wasn't that I wanted to die, I just didn't want to live this life. I am still depressed and anxious, but slightly more functional. C says I seem brighter, better. I have actually gone a couple of days without crying.

-- My shrink thinks this experience may potentially help me work through some of my "mother" issues (with losing the boys, both with becoming and being a mother, and missing my own mother). The week before Stella came home, I woke up saying "Mom!" a number of times. Hasn't happened since.

-- I'm still freaking about school, and getting used to the idea that right now I really am disabled. However, after my petition was approved (boy did that hurt more than I thought it would), my department chair sent me an email saying that she was glad that I was taking care of myself, and that they were not letting go of me, they would be there when I was feeling better.

-- So, yesterday, or the day before, I realized that, just for a moment, I had a glimpse of something in my mind's eye that looked kind of like hope. Just for a very brief moment. It was scary, but short. But the memory of the moment has stayed with me.

Scary.