Looking back...Baloo and beyond

Hanging out at home today with Aengus, our lovely giant love of a mutt. He is feeling as out of sorts as I am. Just yesterday we had to assist our amazing Baloo up to the Rainbow Bridge.  A lovely metaphor  or euphemism for pet euthanasia.

Baloo

Baloo was with us for close to 15 years.  He was a crazy puppy we adopted from the Oregon Humane Society and he was a bundle of energy from day one. I had so much I wanted to say about him but now I don't know where to start or what to say.

These last couple of months have been a swirl of life coming at me too fast to attempting to slow down the day to day to longing for closure.  In addition to Baloo's rapid decline in health, I lost an amazing friend to cancer and my beautiful mother as well.  My reactions to each of these loved one's passing have been utterly exhausting, spasmodic and full of fits and starts. I have read about stages of grief and all of that but where is the cut and dry?  The line by line stages? I have felt my emotions turn every which way all at once.  I feel myself seeking solace and at once breathing sighs of relief.

I used to write.  I guess I still write, just not as much as I'd like to and definitely not as publicly as I used to.  I haven't shared on this blog page in well over a year and before that post, a year further still.  Oh the things I used to do...and share...before the fear of Oversharing became a thing.  I can admit that I may border on being an over-sharer at times.  Social Media allowed me to express and expose so much that I wanted to express and expose but was too awkward to actually get out.  And so I transitioned from one fear (awkward personal encounters) to another (awkward online actions).  My fickleness between the two led me to drop both of my online blogs simultaneously leaving me with countless un-posted pictures of food and sunsets on my camera.

I struggled with posting about these deaths that have peppered my life this summer. I don't think I posted at all about Ruthie.  I wanted her passing to be a lie.

Mammom and Pop at Shae's wedding

I could barely bring myself to post some pictures of my mom with a cryptic blue heart in the description.  My words were nowhere to be found.  As I approach her memorial I wonder what my heart will let me share. My sadness over losing her bit by bit to Alzheimer's is running concurrent with my guilt.  Did I let her slip away from me too soon?

I posted a similar photo montage of my dear pet, Baloo, along with a short eulogy of his life.  Dozens of my friends acknowledged my loss with-in moments of my post.  Was this what I was looking for?  Some sort of affirmation for my jumbled feelings?  Misery loves company?  I don't know.

I do know it was/and is appreciated.  I'm just not sure I'm expressing it all adequately right now.  Hashtag Awkward Emoticon Blue Heart Emoticon Smiley Face with Hands Raised Shoulders Shrugged.