[ 02-01-05 ] [ 12:15 p.m.]
[ Dealing with life and death ]

I've had a weekend to think, to clear my head and to recover from the shock and sadness of losing Rueben, who had been a part of my life since I was a little girl. In all honesty, I feel like maybe I should have been prepared for it sooner than now. I feel like I should have been prepared to live with the shock of losing anyone close to me, but it's a lot like a 20-page research paper - it's something you want to put off, something you don't want to think about, but you know it must be done. It's unfortunate, though, that I wasn't ready to deal with Rueben's death - even though I knew she was sick, part of me was convinced that she would get better and would be there to greet me when I got home for Spring Break.

As it is, there probably won't be any wagging tails to greet me when I walk through the door on March 5th. One of those wagging tails is gone forever, and the other belongs to a Golden retriever who's getting too old to dance around like a puppy.

It's sad, but it's life... and though I know I'll take Daizy's death as hard as I took Rueben's, I suppose I'll have to be ready this time.

People aren't invincible, and neither are dogs. I have to deal with the way life goes.

At the very least, I feel like some sort of weight has been taken off of me. I managed to finally tell my mom about me and Carol. I did it on Friday, the night I found out that Rueben had died. It probably wasn't the easiest time to tell her, but my reasoning was that dealing with the loss of the dog, she would be less likely to be mad. I was right about that, at least - she wasn't mad at all, in fact, she had known for a while that Carol and I are dating but chose not to ask me about it. For as many times as my mom and I have argued, I do have to say that what she said to me regarding Carol forgives all of our past disagreements in my eyes. She was the most understanding she's ever been about anything - on the topic that I would have guessed she would have been least likely to be understanding about. Her words were something along the lines of "It's not what I want for you, but I'll never tell you how to live your life, and I'll always support you."

I'm not sure she knows exactly what that means.

But I have noticed that my constant fantasizing about marrying whatever cute guy happens to be sitting across the room has abated quite a bit. I don't know if it's been happening gradually or if it just magically stopped, but my head has been out of the clouds for much more time than normal. I think I may have finally gotten to the point where I'm serious about my life, though there are still a lot of question marks for me. For one thing, I'm not sure I want to keep my major. The more I think about it, the more I think I'd like to be a music teacher. Music has been a part of my life since I was a toddler and I plunked on the piano keys. That, and I've already had experience teaching music, when I had the piano teaching job for two years in high school. (Still the only job I've had to date.)

Well, graduation is still three and a half years away, and I still have time to make up my mind. But for now, I've got to go to class.

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