Swimming

During the life of this blog, I have written quite a bit about my dog, Chili. I could write pages and pages about the life and adventures we have had together; the ups and downs, the hilarious and horrible, the calm and chaotic. 

Chili is dying. I don't mean that existential, "we are all dying" kind of dying. I mean he is actually dying. A couple of weeks ago he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. We have chosen to not put him through an operation and chemotherapy because of his age and because we believe in quality of life over quantity. Right now he is living the good life. He is eating expensive food. He gets all the treats he wants. He gets a pain pill before bed each night. He sits in the sun when he wants to be outside and sleeps on a pile of dog beds when he wants to be inside. He can still get up and around to eat and go out and wag. He still greets us at the door with a tennis ball in his mouth. But he is dying. The cancer is growing inside of him and shutting him down. We don't know how long it will be. We don't know if he will go fast or slow or if Jason and I will have to make the decision to let him go. But Chili is dying. 

This is a fact that has me worrying and hovering even more than usual, and that's saying something. 

This morning I had a dream. Jason and I were at a big party. This party looked like every college party scene from cheesy movies. There was a two story house with a balcony overlooking a swimming pool and people packed in everywhere around the pool, in the yard, in the house. I was on the balcony looking down. Chili was with us there and was going around to everyone at the party, getting petted and loved. He was even larger in the dream than he is in real life. More like actual Great Dane size. Anyway, I was watching him from the balcony as he moved through the crowd. I turned away for a minute and when I looked back down I saw he had jumped in and was swimming in the pool. He is a Labrador and has always been a great swimmer. I turned away again and when I looked a second time, I saw him under the water. I watched, waiting, but he did not come back up. I ran down to the pool and jumped in at the same time someone else jumped in to help. I was under the water and the two of us were trying to lift Chili off the bottom of the pool. I remember Chili's eyes being open and looking at me. I remember screaming at the other person to LIFT! I grabbed Chili with both of my arms, under his body and swam with him to the top. I walked out of the pool with him still in my arms. When I looked at him, he was perfectly fine. Alive. Panting, but not coughing up water at all. just sitting in my arms as if nothing had happened as I walked back though the crowd before waking up out of the dream...

When I woke up I could not shake the dream. I thought about how terrified I was seeing Chili under the water. My arms were sore from my body reacting to desperately trying to lift him in my mind. I was describing it all to Jason as he held me close, and then I started to cry. I realized, I can't save him in real life. I realized that he is not going to get better. I realized I can't pull him out of this. And I cried. 

It comes in waves. Most days I put on a happy face because Jason says that's the thing to do rather than being upset around Chili. Dogs pick up on emotions pretty easily. I watch him and worry about him, but I also work to make sure he is comfortable and happy. I have no fucking idea what I will do when my dog is gone. But for now, we are both just swimming. 


Because this is a blog of lists what follows is a list of some of Chili's favorite places to swim. 

• Nantahala River
• Tuckasegee River
• Lake Junaluska
• Fontana Lake
• Oconaluftee River
• Bear Lake
• Santeelah Lake
• Chautauqua Lake

A Healing Place

It has been a long time since I have been here to my little blog, a long time since I have written about myself and for myself and felt the need to share it with the known world. However right this minute, I need to do just that. 

I have been in and out of therapy with a variety of therapists for about 10 years. I have taken medicines and rubbed essential oils, lost and gained weight, changed careers many other things trying to regulate my moods and my energy and stabilize my general health and state of mind. A few years ago it was suggested that I might benefit from a stay at an inpatient facility. I thought about it, but put it at the very bottom of my list of priorities. After all, I had way too many other people to take care of and too many other responsibilities to walk out of my life for 30 days. 

Last November, that suggestion became a necessity. 

My amazing friends and family rallied around me. My workplace and co-workers made sure I had the time, and away I went, deep into the forest of Florida. 

I cannot possibly explain all the ways this experience changed my life for better...and for worse. But tonight, as another piece of exquisitely shiny mica is chipped off the granite of my foundation, I have to speak out about the truth that is my experience with inpatient mental health treatment. 

True to my mind's preferred way of teasing out the complicated thoughts and feelings that push and shove each other around in there, I have made a list. I have written two lists actually, which speak to my messy and confusing experience during my search for healing.  

Each person's experience with this kind of care is different. I understand that. So I share this information knowing it may not be understood or embraced. Nonetheless, like me, it is here. 

THE HEALING:

• For the very first time, I felt like I was not alone or unique in my unhealthy thoughts and feelings. This was truly a revelation which immediately began to bring peace and hope to every circuit of my brain and every string of my heart. 
• I gained a much deeper understanding of how I became who I am and how I can reclaim a truer, happier, healthier self. 
• I began to let go of shame which has controlled my every decision and subsequent actions for most of my life, and live in a whole-hearted way. 
• Creativity returned to my life as a powerful tool for self-expression, self-confidence,  and self-care. 
• Under the shiny leaves of an ancient magnolia and from thumbnail moon to thumbnail moon I felt reconnected to the Universe, to the God of my understanding. I laid in the dark with my skin to the grass and dirt. I stretched my arms and face to the sky and stars. I bathed in the smoke of burning sage. I once again felt the power and love of knowing I am a child of the Universe, truly made of elements, of star stuff. 
• I was able to save important relationships and come home to loved ones.

THE WOUNDING: 

• Wounds laid open, literally. Seeing young, smart, beautiful girls from all walks of life scarred with the marks of negative feelings so deeply rooted the only choice was to slice them out.
• Unimaginable horror listening to all the ways human beings can hurt one another. Women and men being splintered into the tiniest pieces by other people resulting in bottomless self-hate and fear. 
• Leaving support behind. Having created trust and hope among people who trust no one and never dare to hope, you promptly leave those people and are tossed back out into a world of unknowns. While many of those people are close in theory, keeping in touch by Facebook or email or phone, the day to day, face to face, immediacy of truly meaningful interaction is gone. It is hours and hours away in every possible direction. 
• News that someone has relapsed. News that someone wants to die. News that someone tried to die. News that someone succeeded. 
• Bills left unpaid because of time out of work. Medical debt which will take me many many years to get under control, and refusal by immoral health insurance providers to help in any way.

I am truly thankful for the once in a lifetime opportunity provided to me. I am truly proud of myself for the work I did while I was there and am continuing to do for myself and for others. 

Most days it is that healing that has my attention, but today, today my thoughts are of the wars being waged. Today I miss my people so badly I can hardly breathe.