How are you... really?

Oh what I would give if someone would ask me how I am today.  But not in the way that we ask anyone we meet on any given day. I want them to ask me with the same sad bewildered eyes that they asked me with six months ago, meaning what they meant six months ago, when "how are you doing?" turned in to "how are you holding up?".  If someone would look at me and know now that asking me that same question could give them two very different possible answers, each as likely as the other, I would give them an honest answer today.

The answer was always "I'm alright." It always is, you know. If they're not 'alright', you don't see them. They don't see the light of day, they don't answer phones, they don't come in to work. If they've gathered themselves up enough to make it out to where you can ask them that question, they give you a default answer so they don't have to tell you the truth or risk a conversation about how it happened.  Never has a co-worker asked a colleague how they were holding up after bereavement leave and gotten a blank stare from blood shot eyes and tear stained cheeks. If we've made it in to work, we're not going to fall apart now.

But now, six months later,  someone asking me that question is all I need, some one really asking me that question. I'm all right. Life is a mess. Relationships are brutal and strenuous. I have no idea how crying on my co-worker didn't make our relationship awkward as the waiting room for hell, but I'm so thankful it didn't, and I know I can't tell him that or it would be. I'm constantly torn between wanting to live a better life and just enjoying what I have here and now, and overall, I'm alright. I'm laughing again and not feeling too guilty about it. 

I want them to ask me again, with that same concerned half pitying look, because my loss isn't any less today than it was then, but now I can give them an honest answer and I want to rejoice for that.

Fur coat + 100 degree days = more panting

My dogs would love to be shaved right now.  Well... they'd love the effects of being shaved, although the act of shaving them would cause them to run and hide under tables and pee on me when I try to get them out.  Every summer is a bit of the same. About the time we hear the sound of George's panting over the sound of the fan, we grab the scissors and coax him on to the floor in the living room where he is given the worst hair cut for a collie ever. He's had that cut twice this year, and even still he doesn't want to stay out side until 11 pm when the temperature drops ten degrees and we see double digits again.  He's staring at me now, he feels uniquely positioned to lament about the heat, and the fact that it's kept him and me copped up for the last three weeks.  

I find myself longing for the rain, and hoping and feeling in my bones that when it does rain again (and my grass remembers how to grow) it's going to be one hell of a storm. 

Until then, I've got the scissors, and George is headed for the table....

Space to work

I've found over the last few weeks that my brain wants to write. Oh I've had lines and paragraphs running full speed through my punctuated thoughts. However, I haven't written a single word. I don't have the pen at the time, or the desire when I have the pen. 

So I'm carving out a space in my day to write, and force myself to write. Every day one blog and one poem. Let's see if I can pull this off for a month.  :)