An Update

So, it’s been a while. Again. But it’s not because of writing this time.

On the 13th, about a week ago now, our ten-year-old Boxer lost her battle with suspected cancer. I still don’t have the words to even begin to express the pain of losing her or the hole it’s left in my heart.

Roxie could be a pain in the butt sometimes, but she was a pain I loved with every damn fiber of my being, and I’m still figuring out how to live my daily life without her.

For the last five years, I’ve spent every waking moment with Roxie. Once I graduated high school, my waking moments were at home instead of behind a school desk, and that meant I was home with the dogs. With Roxie.

I’ve spent the last five years being her comfort human until Mom came home from work. I spent the last five years awkwardly standing in the kitchen in silence so she could eat without worrying that, for some reason, I was going to disappear forever. I’ve spent the last five years doing all of my writing with a grumpy brindle boxer snoring beside me or behind me, creepily staring at me until I acknowledged her looking at me, wining at me the moment I started writing because she decided she actually did have to go outside, even though I’d asked sixty seconds before.

I don’t know how to write without her beside me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to fill in the silence between the clicking of my keyboard’s keys if not with her snores, grunts, and groans.

I just don’t… know.

Am I going to get back on the horse? Eventually, of course. But I don’t know when eventually will be. And I don’t know how fast the words will come once I bring myself to sit down and try to write them.

I’m mostly typing this up to let you know where I’m at right now, and emotionally, it’s a horrible place. But when I’m ready, you’ll know, and I thank you for your patience until then, and for your patience between updates from there forward.