good boy

I miss you.

I'm glad I was home, and not still in Chicago.  I'm glad I got to sit with you and scratch your ears.

I still can't really believe you're not around.  I still feel like I'll walk in the door and there you'll be, your ridiculous, adorable stub of a tail wagging visibly.  Like if I sit on the floor, you'll try to crawl into my lap, even though you're really too big to be a lap dog.

I want to throw plastic bottles around the yard for you to chase - I even want to hear you crunching and squeaking them to pieces.  I have no idea why you liked them so much; you were such a loveable weirdo, and I think that's what I miss most.

The worst part is that I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to you.  I mean, no one ever is.  But you were supposed to have another good ten years.  In that last week, I wasn't even seriously worried, because I just figured you'd get better.  That's how it works.  You were young and otherwise healthy.  You'd get better and live a long happy life.  I'd get to see if your one still-floppy ear would ever stiffen up.  I'd get to see if you ever lost your soft puppy fur.

But I guess that's not how it always works.

Part of me thinks it's maybe a little bit silly to get so worked up and heartbroken over a dog.  That's the part that tries to be sensible and cynical.  The stupid part.

Because you weren't just a dog.  Well, okay, you were - but you were one hell of a dog.  And you deserve every tear and honest, un-self-censored pang of grief.

And no dog is "just" a dog, because dogs are loyalty and love made flesh.  No matter what terrible things humanity has done or ever will do, we can point to dogs and say, "Well, at least we made one good and beautiful thing."

You were no exception.  I miss the way you'd sit on my feet, or crawl under Nick's legs when we were sitting on the couch, because you wanted to be as close to us as you possibly could.

We didn't do a good job training you - you never did learn to stop pulling on the leash - but you always wanted to please.  It's a silly thing, but you even ate nicely.  You didn't gobble your kibbles, and you always waited for me to put a treat in your bowl before you tried eating it.  You'd leave the kitchen when we told you to stop hunting for scraps while we were cooking.  You always came when we called.  You didn't like baths or being brushed, but you stood still and let us do it anyway.

I can still see you lying on the cool tiles by the front door, belly up and legs splayed in the air, the very picture of relaxation.  It broke my heart in those last minutes, saying goodbye, when you scooted off the blankets at the vet's office so you could lie on the smooth linoleum.  It was so much harder saying goodbye knowing you were still there.

If someone said I could go back and relive the two years with you, but that it would always end this way, I would do it.  Because even knowing you for too short a time is worth all the heartache and pain I feel now.

I'm so glad I got to meet you.

I wish we'd had longer.  I don't think I'll ever stop missing you.

You were a good dog.  The best.

Chicagoland

A few weeks ago, I went back to Chicago (only the second time I've done so since moving westward three years ago).

I went for an interview with an amazing company (for a job which, sadly, I did not get), and plane ticket pricing granted me the excuse to stay through the weekend, i.e. Have rad times with all my friends.

As much as I love living out west amid the mountains and treehuggers, I really do miss home.  Which isn't so much a place (I'm not particularly tied to the midwest, though I do enjoy it) as it is the close community of friends I literally grew up with.  Home is also with Nick, but it's a different sort of happiness and safety.  When I was in Chicago, I missed him.  When I'm in Denver, I miss my childhood friends.  Having two homes in two different places can be difficult.

Becky and Meghan and Molly knew me when I wore baggy t-shirts and smudgy tennis shoes.  We went through the awkward, rocky, embarrassing teenage years together.  We speak like each other.  We fight and bicker and laugh and communicate via weird noises.  I'm pretty sure they know me better than practically anyone.

But I tend to do this to myself.  I went to school in Iowa instead of staying in Chicago.  I moved to Colorado shortly after I graduated college.  I think I do it to test myself.  I'm a homebody, and I tend to not leave my comfort zone.  Moving away from everything is a way to force myself to cut down the safety nets of familiarity.

Being back among Becky and Meghan and Molly and seeing Chris, an old college friend, was invigorating.

I've been away from female friends for too long.  I forgot how much fun it is to just sit and talk (okay, so it was really just gossiping).  We drank beers out on the deck in the evenings, sweating in the humid summer air.  We went to see an improv show that took an audience suggestion and made it into a complete Shakespearean style play.  We got nerdy and discussed Harry Potter and the Avengers.  We went to see Moonrise Kingdom.  We partied it up in the suburbs and played with dogs and kittens.  We spent the greater part of an evening in hysterics, rewording the chorus to Call Me Maybe - an abominably irritating song which became awesome when we got hold of it:

I just met you,
and this is crazy -
but here's my number.
I've got a boner.

Because we're so classy.

It was a much needed vacation among my dearest friends.