Brave Little Me

Tonight for the first time in my not-very-long life I went to a movie by myself. It was, amazingly, a lot of fun. I'm a very cowardly person and not independent in the least, and yet I managed to get my ass out of the house and do something that I find to be a small but very exciting accomplishment. Coincidentally the movie had a lot to do with blogging. The movie was "Julie & Julia", which was very adorable. I especially enjoyed my experience because while I was out doing something that I found oddly empowering for such a simple and trivial thing, the movie was about empowering yourself.
And of course the movie also had elements of romance, because well, how many movies about women don't? Honestly? Anyways, the movie got me strongly thinking about and missing my American. After I got home, I was standing in my kitchen at the sink, drinking a glass of water, just thinking of a conversation between he and I, a conversation that has never actually occured, and I got so happy thinking about him that my eyes started to tear up! Just thinking about him makes me that happy! I don't think I've ever felt like this so quickly before and it is scary! A question to all people who know what it's like to be in a very new relationship and be feeling things that you didn't think you were at all ready to feel, should you resist the feelings or go with them?
I was thinking, recently actually, about people's behaviour when it comes to romance; when we like someone a lot we often try our best to hide those feelings from our special someone. We resist telling them how we really feel, we try not to phone them or email them or text them or see them as much as we want. But we want them to want us badly enough to be doing all of those things as much as we want to be, and yet, they're probably in the same position as us; they're trying to hide their feelings from you. Which as far as I can tell is only something that seems to make people crazy! We become paranoid that our special someone doesn't find us special or they're getting bored and don't want to be with us and all of our hopes and dreams of true love come crashing down in front us and our world starts spinning into a dark hole! And then we get a phone call, or email, or text message or we see them and we are once again on the top of the world! But then we both go back to trying to hide our feelings. Why is that? Because we are trying to prolong the life of that amazing feeling we felt when we heard from them or saw them? But, if it is real and it's a relationship that will blossom into real love, then shouldn't that feeling be something with no limit? And of course in a relationship that feeling will not always be there, relationships are far too complicated for that. But if that feeling does start to fade, on either side, in the very early stages then wouldn't it make sense that is not the right person? And yes, ending a relationship is something that is extremely painful, and yet something that it seems, most people in the world have to go through. I do believe that it does make us stronger as people and having the experience of the relationship and both it's ups and downs does then teach us about ourself and what we want in a significant other. Of course, when getting back into a relationship there is bound to be fear that we're falling back into an old habit that we so desperately want to get away from. I am scared of that right now! Though, my American is nothing like my previous boyfriends and I'm certain that, whether our relationship ends up good or bad, he will always seem a better candidate for my love and affection than those I've given it to before. So regardless of the end result, I feel I'm making progress in the whole avoiding-bad-relationship-habits thing. I think what all relationship fear boils down to, is the fear of being hurt in the end. Which is always a possibility and I think something that is inevitable to happen at least once in everyone's life. And there are lots of different ways for these things to happen, but the key is that we get up after the hurt, we stitch our hearts back up and we eventually let people in again and let ourselves be the lover of someone who loves us once again. And we of course always hope that this time, it'll be right. Also, a thought that is going through my mind a lot lately. Though of course it's far too early to tell. And I'm so young anyways, it feels silly to be thinking about it. I am however, going to let myself feel the things I'm feeling, with no hindering and lots of fear, for my American. He is, as far as I can tell, a beautiful person and he says things to me that have never been said to me before. He has actually thanked me for being with him, and thanked me for letting certain things happen, which shocked me. I have never been thanked for anything to do with a relationship before. And he already has me at a comfort level that I would have never expected to feel so soon! Which is another thing that I fear. I have talked to him about it recently, but then feared that I was going to push him away with it, but it's honesty and honesty is a virtue, not a flaw. He seemed pretty understanding about it, a little hurt I think. He seems to think that I'm treating him as though he'd done something wrong to me, which of course I wasn't trying to do, but I may have been to some extent. What I thought I was doing, was trying to keep me from making mistakes that I've made before, such as allowing myself to have strong feelings for someone without them truly deserving them. I just wanted him to know that I am feeling nervous because with him it's hard to hold back my feelings. I think I've decided, however, that I don't need to hold back my feelings. As the old saying goes, "life is too short to not do what you want!" And I want to be happy with and feel great about this amazing man in my life who likes me, I think, as much as I like him.
Funny how a night out on the town by your lonesome can really make you think about your life. I should do this independent thing more often!

RIP Beauty

This is Ebony Beauty Walker. She was my family dog from 1995 to 2009. Yesterday in fact, August 4, 2009 is the day my dog passed away. We always referred to her as Beauty.

I remember the day we got our beautiful Beauty. It was Christmas of 95, I was five years old. My grandparents had come down to our house for Christmas that year, and so we were sitting in the living room with them after we'd opened up all the presents and we were just enjoying our new things and each other's company. Both of my parents got up and went into another room at one point, and when they came back they were holding this little black bundle, all fur and shining black eyes (which proceeded to get browner and browner over the years) and she had a huge purple bow around her neck. Apparently, when I saw her, I looked at my parents with my big brown eyes and excitement all over my face and in my voice and I asked them "Can we keep her for real?" I also remember holding Beauty for the first time. I was wearing a full length, plaid/red Christmas nighty and when I was holding her, she peed all down my dress! Later that morning, after Beauty had become acquainted with everyone and was a little more comfortable in the house she decided it was play time. She went tearing all over the upstairs, and at one point she was running through the kitchen across the tyle floor and she peed then too and ended up sliding on her pee all the way across the floor. It was adorable.
That morning we decided that we wanted to call her Ebony, but the only thing she'd respond to was Beauty. Thus proving her stubbornness was always there; she got to choose her own name!
She was the most insane dog. She was always excited and ready for activity. She was a full on retreiver from the get-go! That dog could chase a ball for days on end! I don't know how we lasted so long without one of those plastic flinger-thingers for tennis balls. And nothing would stop her from chasing the damn ball either! There was a time, I'm not sure how it happened, but she managed to get herself pretty hurt one day, she sliced open the inside of one of her hind legs and it was a mess! There was a huge layer of skin flapping around and it didn't even phase her! She was just "Throw the ball! Throw the ball!" and we're standing there going, "No, Beauty, we have to take you to get stitches! Get in the car!" There were a few incidents that were kind of like that. There was one time actually, I think that it was in autumn one year, my dad and I took Beauty to a lake in our town and we were throwing a stick into the water for her. When Beauty was on the shore one time, the pitbull appeared out of no where, just absolutely booking it towards our dog and jumped on her, grabbing onto Beauty's neck and getting it's crazy lock jaw business going on. My dad had to pound on the pitbull's head to get it to let go, and it was insane and scary for me to watch this, and then there was Beauty, she never dropped the stick throughout this incident and she never stopped wagging her tail! What a hysterical animal.
When we got Beauty, we had a cat, his name was Shadow. And Shadow, he always kept Beauty in line. He used to get in her face if she was doing something that he didn't approve of, and even though I'm pretty sure they got along pretty well, Shadow made damn sure that Beauty knew who's house she was in. After we had to put Shadow down because he'd eaten some anti-freeze, we ended up getting another cat, and I thought, "Okay, now Beauty get's to be the boss", soon did I find out that no, our new cat, Elwyn, was definitely the new boss. She treated Beauty exactly the same way that Shadow did... well there may have been less cuddling with Shadow. Elwyn was such a little devil with Beauty though, she'd come up to her all sweet and be rubbing her head against Beauty's face and neck and then suddenly jump on and bat at Beauty's snout! Claws out! But, Beauty, being the gentle creature she is, never did anything but sit up to get out of Elwyn's reach.
In the past six months or so signs of age have definitely been showing up on Beauty, she started peeing herself and she was losing control of her hind legs. She was doing okay though, she really seemed fairly healthy until about three weeks ago when our town got hit with quite the heat wave and her eyes were very droopy, and her inner eyelid kept coming up. And she started peeing herself more and she really couldn't get herself from one place to another very easily. And she lost her appetite and urge to hydrate herself entirely. She was so skinny by the time she passed that I'd be pretty surprised if she weighed fifty pounds.
Yesterday, my brother and I had both seen her earlier in the day and both saw her alive, but we had an appointment for her to go to the vet at 3 30 and when I went down to put her in the car, I saw that she wasn't breathing. I immediately called for my brother, then ran towards her, saw that her eyes were open and then I ran to the other side of the room and started balling. My brother came over and hugged me, then we went over to her. I sat down on the floor and pet her. I just touched the side of head and could instantly tell that she was in rigamortis, she was completely stiff. She was also totally cold already. It was the most bizarre thing, I'd never been close to a dead mammal before, especially not close enough to touch it, and I knew that dead things get cold, but damn she'd only been dead for a couple of hours and she was really cold, like holding your hand just above a frozen chunk of meat. That's what she felt like. Her tongue was also sticking out, I could see that it was still wet, but it had changed to a dark, dark purple colour. As I was sitting next to her crying, I kept repeating "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I don't even know what I was apologizing for. Maybe that we couldn't keep her healthier, maybe that she died alone, maybe I was just saying sorry that she'd died at all. And now the only way to describe how I felt then and still feel now, is just that it's weird.
Beauty has been part of my life for almost as long as I can remember, and now I have to look out at my big back yard where she's always been and know that she won't be there, and when we watch movies she won't be sitting by us wanting someone to pet her, and she won't be bothering people when we have outside dinners, and she won't be barking and panting and freaking out when there are people over or when there's thunder or fireworks, or when she's just being neurotic. I have to get used to all the silence. I'm gonna miss the frantic.
I love you Beauty, I'm gonna miss you girl.