This is Christmas

I'm sitting here on Christmas morning feeling very much at peace for what is probably the first time in my life.  I've been very VERY guilty of wishing my life away up 'till this point.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a grownup.  When I grew up I wanted to be married.  When I got married I wanted a baby.  When I had a baby I wanted to be single again.  When I got single I wanted a relationship.  When I got a relationship I wanted my freedom.  About ten years of waffling back and forth between relationships and freedom and now I am free once again.  Except this time I'm enjoying it.

Times before when I've found myself single it was always because one relationship had ended and the next one had yet begun.  I had lost one and was looking for another.  This time I intentionally got rid of one (a big difference from losing one) and I really can't imagine looking for another.  They say when you stop looking for Mr. Right he will find you, but I'm not even sure I want to be found.

I have The Boy, and I'm so proud of the man he's turning into.  It has been a VERY long and hard road but he really seems to have matured five years in the last six months.

I have SO MANY wonderful friends.  And I'm discovering that what I thought was a fear of being alone was actually a fear of having no choice BUT to be alone.  Today I spent my Christmas morning in my jammies, with my dogs, watching A Christmas Story on TV.  And I haven't felt sorry for myself once.  I think it's not only because I saw The Boy last night, and I have somewhere to go in a few hours, but also because I know that there are multiple places I could be and people I could be with rightthisverysecond if I wanted to.

There's a very big difference between alone and lonely.

I have my animals.  My loyal lap dog Boo, always there for a snuggle.  My House Pony Rue, making me laugh every single day.  My lap cat Smudge, who I swear thinks he's one of the dogs.  And my new baby Spot, my shy boy who surprises me with a snuggle every time I think he'll never really be "mine".

As I sit here, rotating between writing this, watching Ralphie nearly shoot his eye out, and scrolling Facebook, I see people sharing many different kinds of Christmas.  I do have a little twinge of missing the past when I see the lit up trees with all of the presents underneath.  As much as I always dreaded Christmas and all of the work that was involved in the process, Christmas morning with kids in the house was a joy.  Then again I was in bed by 10 last night while those friends were up wrapping and assembling 'till long after Santa's rounds were done.  I'll leave my clean-ish house this afternoon, carrying one made dish and one bought one, and come back to the same clean-ish house with a belly full of food I didn't have to cook, and a heart full of love from my family that isn't blood but treats me as if we were.

So far in my life I've experienced many kinds of Christmas morning.  I've been 14 months pregnant on Christmas (I swear it's true).  I've been on the receiving and giving ends of the ridiculously overflowing Christmas of an only child.  I've had the warm, precious and rare "look they're getting along" moments of two kids in the house.  I've had lonely, sad tear-filled Christmas mornings, and now I have peaceful, contentedly alone Christmas mornings.  Some day soon I hope to have Christmas mornings full of grandchildren's laughter.  All in due time.

But for now, this is Christmas, and it's perfect.

Greetings From the Fountain

On this beautiful day in Crocker Park, 90% through an uncharacteristically difficult work week, I opted to have my lunch outside.

As beautiful as my work neighborhood is, I rarely leave my office for lunch.   This is not due to an affinity for lunch at my desk, but more a result of my increasingly busy schedule and the difficulty and frustration that comes from trying to run a growing Jamberry business or process dog adoption applications from an iPhone 5.

So I eat at my desk, with my ergonomic keyboard and my dual monitors, breathing the recycled, too-cold office air, envying the ladies who lunch outside my window, and wonder why I’m burned out.

Duh.

But today, in an effort to circumvent this week's plague of computer issues, I brought my trusty laptop to work.  And, as expected, I didn’t need it.  The morning was blessedly free of technical difficulties but as sure as I sit here enjoying  the fall sun, listening to children giggle as people take group photos in front of the fountain (WHAT is so interesting about that fountain?), I know that had I not brought my laptop I would have had to go home for it and wanted to punch things the whole way.

So when lunch time rolled around I thought to myself, “Self…why not sling the trusty laptop over your shoulder, grab that leftover Subway sandwich and go have lunch in the courtyard?”  To which I replied, “Self, that’s a great idea!”

Alas, none of the available wifi networks are public, and my phone is not being a cooperative hotspot.  So I am disconnected.  Well as disconnected as I get, given that I do have my phone.  While I do have things I should be doing with a full sized keyboard and screen, it’s just too pretty out and days like this in Ohio are numbered.  So I’m not going back yet.  And the WiFi Gods can’t make me.

So I write.  It’s been a while.

As I approach the half-century mark, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned.  They say life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.  But I find that as I get older, while the time DOES move faster, I also seem to cram more learning into each quickly passing year.  The last ten years, in particular, I have become infinitely more aware of myself.  Of what I need and what I won’t tolerate, what I’m capable of and what I just don’t want to bother with.  What is important and what is necessary.  What comes easy and what I have to work at.  And what’s worth the work.

Blog Over Lunch is worth the work and, truth be told, it usually comes easy...once I get started.  I just have to get started.  It makes me feel good and I’ve been told it means something to a few people.  So I need to start putting it higher up on my priority list.  And you, one of my four dear readers, are probably sitting there thinking you’ve read this before.  And I’ve meant it before. 

For now I have to get back up to the office wifi so I can post this and finish out the last four hours of this horrendous work week.  But I promise it won’t take a lack of WiFi to get me started again.  Soon.

My name is Rue. And I'm a good girl.

My name is Rue, and I'm a good girl.  That's what they tell me anyway.

I used to live in a house with little people and big people.  I'm also what they call "a big girl", and somehow that means I tend to make little people fall down and cry.  I didn't mean to!  I was just playing.  Little people fall down REAL easy! And even when I kissed their little leaky faces they still were sad and leaky.  So even though I tried to be nice and stop making the little people leak they kept falling down and I got sent away to a scary, cold place.  And that made ME sad.

The people at the scary place were nice, but they weren't MY people.  They didn't play with me much.  They just gave me food and water and talked to me some, but the floor and the walls were cold and hard and it was SO noisy with other dogs crying and crying and crying for their people just like I was.  Maybe lots of dogs knock little people down and make them leak and have to go away.  It didn't make me feel any better though.

The people were nice, but they sucked at taking pictures.

After a long time at the scary place (I heard someone say "two days", which must mean a long time) a man and a lady came to see me.  They took me outside and petted me and walked me around a little bit and talked to me real quiet and sweet.

Me and The Man.  

They didn't have any little people with them so nobody fell down and leaked.  They had a little dog, but we sniffed each other's butts and decided we could be friends.

After they walked me around and I sniffed the little dog's butt we went back inside the cold noisy place and I was so scared my new friends were going away!  But they talked to the nice people and wrote some stuff down and then I got to go for a long ride in the car.

Car rides are THE BEST.  They had a big car!  So big I could stand up and even stick my face outside the window and sniff all the smells as they whizzed by.  The Lady kept telling The Man I was going to get a bug in my eye but The Man kept the window down anyway.

I wonder if a bug in my eye would be fun.

After a long time sniffing the smells that flew by the window we visited a nice lady with three little people.  I was so scared the little people would leak but The Man held my leash real tight while the little people hugged and petted me and didn't fall down or leak.  The nice lady gave us a big mattress which rode in the car with me for a while.

We went to the store and got a big fat collar with a handle on the side, and a short leash, and some food and treats that I couldn't have yet but oh my GOSH they smelled so good!  And then MORE ride in the car with more smells flying by.

And just when I thought I'd die of excitement from all of the new smells, we got to a house where I got to go inside with the little dog and sniff in all of the corners.

They said this is my yard.

And the mattress and the food and treats and stuff came in the house too. I slept on the floor for a long time.  It was so nice to be out of the noisy place.

I miss my people.  Why did they send me away?

When I woke up the mattress the nice lady gave us was inside a HUGE crate.  The people gave me treats so I would go inside the crate with the mattress.  I went, because I'm a good girl, but I didn't like it much.  It wasn't like the cage at the scary place.  It was soft and warm and quiet.  But still, Why do I have to be in a cage?  I cried for a while, but I saw that the little dog was in a cage too and he was happy and sleeping, so I tried to be a good girl and go to sleep too.  It's not so bad I guess.

I hope all of the dogs in the cold, scary place get to go for long, wonderful smelling car rides and then get a warm place to stay like me.  Nobody should have to cry and cry for their people like that.

I don't understand why I don't get to see my people, the little ones and the big ones, anymore.  But The Man and The Lady seem nice enough and they keep telling me how good I am.  So I'll try to  keep being good so I get to stay.