Oh, just when I think I have it all together. Just when I’m feeling good about where I am, about what I am doing, how I am doing it, and with whom I am doing it, life throws a curveball.

We had to say goodbye to our sweet Simon puppy on Monday morning.

It was one of the hardest and most loving things I have ever had to do.

I can tell myself that it was time, he was in pain, it was the right choice, and the loving thing to do.

But oh, it still hurts.

And it hurts even more because I feel  like I just took it for granted that he would always be there. A connection between me and my husband, even when we drifted apart from time to time. There were always Simon stories. Pictures of him sleeping on the couch. Pictures of him begging for a taste of pulled pork, or peanut butter, or just wanting a belly rub.

And now he’s not there. I hadn’t seen him as much the last few months – what with not traveling to see my husband as much (winter weather, schedules, other reasons…), and again, assuming that he’d be there when I could go.

This, plus a few other things going on, make me wonder how much I have taken for granted in my life

We get so set in our ways, we get so used to the status quo, the way things are, that we tend to think they’re never going to change. The dog will always be there, my parents will always be just a text or email away… and so on.

But of course that’s not true. I think we sometimes need this painful reminders that all of life is temporary, fleeting, that our current place in this world is not going to always be our place in this world.

And this reminder left a particularly gaping crack in my heart… one that will take some time to heal.

But perhaps in healing that Simon-sized hole… perhaps I can become more present in my everyday life, taking less for granted, and making sure I appreciate the ordinary everyday as it is now. Because it won’t be this way forever.

Oh, Simon, we loved you so much. You were really the perfect dog, from the minute we brought you home. Well, except for the time you ate the snickerdoodle cookies from the Amish bakery. And maybe when you chewed up your crate beds when you were trying to send us a message. You were steadfast, and loving, and just the best dog ever. We miss you.

I finally realized that if I want to connect – or re-connect – with people, then I might have to, you know, actually do something. Like reach out to them. My mindset was that yes, I wanted to connect with people, to make friends and rekindle old friendships, but that it was the other person’s responsibility to initiate the connection.

What, did I think they were going to read my mind?

I finally had to get over myself – and what I admit is a strong fear of rejection and / or inadvertently offending someone – and just, well, reach out.

So far, some successes and some misses. In the sense that I haven’t heard back from people I emailed, or messaged on Facebook.

But I’m trying to be okay with that. I reached out. I said what I wanted to say – for example, in one case, an apology for ghosting someone years ago – and it’s now up to them to determine if they want to get back in touch with me. But I certainly feel, well, better, for having at least sent the damn email.

I can say I want to connect but then hole up in my little apartment. I can say I want to have friends but then… never go anywhere, or accept any invitations. It doesn’t work that way. Putting myself out there is hard – particularly for an anxious introvert, ha! – but I hope it will be worth it.

To put it even more simply…

I know I usually start with a quote and then write about that, but this morning my brain is just full of random thoughts… So rather than start with a quote, I thought I’d just write then see if anything fits it. We’ll see how this goes…

1. I don’t usually talk to anyone until someone else shows up at work – usually around 8 am. By that time, I’ve been up for, well, let’s just say a while. (I get up really really early. It’s an odd quirk of mine and drives my spouse crazy; a topic for another post, to be sure.) That’s not to say that I don’t encounter people, but that I either just say hi, good morning, or say nothing at all. The other people at the gym – I know who they are, I see them almost every day, but we don’t interact other than the occasional comment or wave. I say good morning to the bus driver. I rarely if ever encounter anyone in my apartment complex who’s also up at that time. So by the time someone else gets here who I can have a longer conversation with, well, this introvert is actually ready to talk. It’s interesting – and so different from how my mornings were elsewhere.

2. I had to do a brain dump this morning to remind myself of all the different things and projects and analyses and grants I have going on. I was having a hard time this week remembering where, exactly, each project is, who’s working on it with me, and what the next necessary steps are.  It helped, a lot. It also reminded me that I have a lot going on.

3. I can so easily set goals in my professional life; not so much in my personal life. I don’t know why this is. I try to, I really do, and then I usually don’t achieve them. It’s odd. Maybe I just need to try harder? Write a personal to-do list, the way I do with my work-related stuff? I don’t know, but it’s something I should probably work on, as there are things I want to try and change in my personal life. Or, perhaps a bucket list type of approach would work. Hm. I need to think about this one more.

4. 2 vacations coming up with family. I hope I’m ready for this. I’m eagerly anticipating them, but my mother is now involving me in the minutiae and I’m reminded of why I love having her just do things, rather than asking me for my opinion and my input. It’s so, well, easy when someone else does the work. Time to step up, I guess. And time to come to grips with the fact that I actually, despite some major differences, really like my family. I’m lucky.

5. We finally got some good news medically for a family member who’s had some issues recently, which was a huge,  huge relief. It seemed like the blows just kept coming, and this was a welcome reprieve. Here’s what’s strange – I haven’t shared this information with anyone. Which is strange, because usually when there is good news I want to share it with at least a few close others, but this time… yeah, not sure why I’m keeping it close, but I am.

6. I love sports. I love watching SportsCenter in the morning. I have a lot of random knowledge of sports, but I never, ever use that information in the rest of my life. It’s like this separate little piece of my brain. One that very few know about it. It’s just another thing that’s weird about me.

And, oh, there, that might be the common thread here. I’m weird. I’m strange. I’m trying to embrace it.

And here’s the quote. I think I used this one before, but it’s still so appropriate.

“I’m fine with being strange, but I’m tired of people telling me I’m strange.” Carolyn Hax (wonderful advice columnist for the Washington Post)

I wrote about nostalgia a few days ago…then had another bout of it this weekend.
There was some regret woven in there, too, and that makes it harder to move past it.
It reminded me, again, that the path I am on may not be (well, is not) the path that I thought I’d be on.

I don’t know if I’ve written about the fact that I do not have children.

I don’t. It was a hard choice, but one that we came to after trying for a long time, attempting some relatively noninvasive interventions, and deciding that we did not want to go further down that road. So we veered off. I took another path, one that I rarely regret.

But this weekend, I felt a pang of nostalgia and a tinge of regret, at a library book sale, of all places. I was digging through the children’s books, always on the lookout for books of my childhood, old favorites that I’d love to add (back) to my shelves. So many books I remembered, so many covers that immediately looked like old friends. And I wished that I had a child with whom I could share those books, that passion for falling into another world, going through the doors that books open wide.

I know this would have been my role in parenting – to say my spouse is not a reader is the understatement of the year (he didn’t know about Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!!?!? How is that even possible?). One that I would have embraced wholeheartedly.

One that I was not able to take on.

I felt the pang of regret, the nostalgic longing for the relative simplicity of childhood, the momentary second-guessing of the path I chose over 10 years ago.

And then I returned to my quiet apartment, to an afternoon of reading a bunch of different books (I can’t be reading just one at any time…) and was reminded that the path I’m on now is a pretty good one.