I have been trying to adopt a dog for several months. There have been a few near misses, in which I was promised an animal, but they ultimately decided to give it to someone else. The most recent was earlier this week, when honestly, I was not particularly in the mood to be disappointed again. I have a really hard time when good things don’t work out because I look forward to them so much. When I’m having a really bad day, I think about these things to convince myself it will get better. So when it doesn’t work out, it is a serious let down.
Ten minutes after finding out I wasn’t getting the dog I was planning to adopt, I saw a new post on Craigslist. It was a rescue group needing a home for a black lab mix that couldn’t stay in her foster home. I sent an email saying I was interested. To my surprise, the rescue group contacted me right away and wanted to set up a time to meet the dog. I scheduled it and tried not to build it up too much in my mind.
I met the dog on Friday. She is two years old and has very long legs. She is quiet and likes to eat grass. She is very snuggly. Her foster father warned me that she would need some extra help with socializing and training because of all the upheaval in her life.
“Would you rehome an animal because they were too much work?” he asked.
“I require a lot of extra work and I’m pretty glad my family didn’t rehome me,” I replied. He told me I could have her.
As we were walking back to our cars, I told him that I liked her name. “I’m a writer, I think there’s some poetry to having a dog named Story,” I told him.
“Her real name is Astoria,” he answered. I smiled. Astoria is the setting of the 80’s movie The Goonies, one of my all time favorites. She was supposed to be my dog. I knew.
The energy boost you get from something working out just right cannot be underestimated. Today, I cleaned my entire apartment, did all my laundry, ran errands, cooked dinner and lunches for the next few days, walked Harry, and took Astoria for a thirty minute walk with my friend and her small children. I am very sore and tomorrow I will be exhausted but I am so happy.
After playing with my meds recently, I am finally starting to sleep less. I am sleeping mostly during the day, when I would rather not, but I’d rather ten inconvenient hours than the entire day. I am still very nauseous, but I am throwing up less. I am eating very small meals and having some success with that. I have made some sacrifices in other areas (in particular, I am in more pain), but I am okay with that.
I can deal with all the day to day bullshit if every so often, I get a big win. Today was a big win. I can ride this for a while.
