I MUA 2012 Pt 2

That last one was feeling very long so I decided to stop there and finish up with a Pt 2.

I headed back to Seattle completely drained, exhausted, and emotionally raw. And it seems to return to not one, but two dogs sick with colitis! I was a bit of a basket case when I left for Boulder. Thanks so much to Marcus for taking care of the dogs while I was gone. They were so happy to see me when I got home again, but also really, really stressed. It didn't take long for them both to start in with the dire rear and womiting, both bloody of course. Thankfully, some bland diet and flagyl brought them back to rights within a day or so.

I think the most disturbing feeling regarding the loss of my big brother is that I am now completely alone. I don't like it. The mother passed in 2007, far too young. But I still have my brother, I'm not alone in the world, it's ok, I can handle this. But now he's gone, too, and I cannot wrap my head around just how alone I feel. There is no one else who experienced what I did growing up. The weird little quirky things we did as a family, nobody else gets them. When I meow at someone they just look at me oddly. When we felt like something should be said, but didn't really have anything to say we'd meow and then the other person would meow back. I don't have anyone to meow to anymore and that makes me very sad.

I know I have many wonderful friends and the SIL and her parents. But it's just not the same. I really, really appreciate all my family by choice, Mark & Nancy, Maria & her family, Marcus. I don't know what I would do without them. I also have all my outrigger ohana, they are da best! But there is something different about the people who knew you when, when you were a crying infant, when you lost your first tooth, when they teased you and pulled your pig tails, when they didn't come out and say they needed to approve of your dates but you knew that's what they needed to do. Someone else who remembered that Nemo liked to bat around twist ties and would leave them in the cat food dish when he was done with them and the one christmas morning when he'd left a red one and a green one in the dish. Or the night Rose got onto the kitchen counter and into the bag of catnip, had herself a little party or rather a big party, and emptied her bladder on the stove! Or that Dante liked to curl up in the downstairs bathroom sink and nap and get a drink from the slowly leaking tap. Or that I learned to walk pulling myself up on Helga, the german shepard.

I miss my mom. I miss my brother. And although I feel alone right now, I know I am not really alone. I have my dogs, I have my friends and their families. And they won't let me feel alone, not for too long anyway.

So, now it's time to i mua, to progress, go forward. I need to take that first step forward and continue with my life. I have so very much living to do! I have so many plans for 2012. It's going to be a good year.