A sign of how things are going may be that, after two nights of pretty much falling asleep as soon as the light’s been switched off and then sleeping solidly until 7am or so — something that I’ve not really been able to do for a couple of months now, because of dealing with a sick dog and/or my anxiety over a sick dog — I’m still absolutely bone tired.
Wednesday was as emotionally devastating as anticipated, which in some ways feels like a blessing; if there’s one thing that I’ve learned across the last year or so, things can always get worse when you least expect it. Unfortunately, “as bad as expected” in this case means tears, grief, and the feeling of being dizzy from emotion, something that lasted through yesterday night. There were small mercies, not least of which being that Tango seemed ready to go when his time came, and I think everyone was at peace with how it eventually happened. Nonetheless, we’re still very aware of the lack of him in the house, and the hole left behind.
One of the unexpected by-products of having such an emotionally full midweek — really, the time leading up to Wednesday, too — is that, when Thursday arrived, none of us were really ready for it. How could we have to return to work (or, in the nine-year-old’s case, school)? Why didn’t we have more time to recover before plunging back into everything? In a year where the passage of time has seemed apparently random and occurring entirely out of synch with anything resembling expectations, it felt as if the last two days of the week were a cruel prank being played on us, just to see how exhausted we’d get before the weekend arrived.
And so, here I am now, tired and fantasizing about getting a break — even if it’s simply spending a day on the couch, watching Dune or whatever. (We watched the first hour or so last night; it’s fun enough.) Fingers are crossed for calm metaphorical weather in the next few days, even if the actual weather is apparently going to be lousy.