dream.

Last night I had a dream that Simba died.

In the dream he was writhing on the floor and his belly started to distend until it burst open exposing all of his internal organs. Everything seemed to be in order with the exception of some green tubular material present in front of the cecum and appendix in the lower right quadrant of his abdomen. In the dream this wasn't out of the ordinary, though.

When his stomach opened, I knelt down and successfully closed him back up like a purse or a clam shell. I yelled to Phillip, 'we have to get him to a doctor!' but he had left the room. He came back in and told me that we shouldn't let him suffer. I said something to the effect of 'what do you mean?' and then I looked at him, at Simba. He was staring at the ceiling, had obviously gone into shock and was about to die. I held him and was overtaken by a palpable sadness.

I woke up distressed and started thinking about my mom and my sister. Both of them had lost dogs in the past year and had to have them put to sleep. Then I thought about the inevitable which I suppose I never choose to think about - Simba will almost certainly die within the next 5-8 years. Will I one day be in a vet's office holding Simba while he dies from a lethal injection? The thought was so painful that I started to cry and I had to get up at 4am in order to distract myself from thinking about it.

....

These are trying times. I suppose I am on the verge of something. It's funny how you can go along thinking everything is fine and reasonable and secure and then, bam!, life is laughing in your face. I'm so good at the game of self-deception. In fact, I am possibly the only person who can get something over on me...I know all my weak spots. Namely, my need for quiet and normalcy. Peace and security. And I will pursue them, even create them in a vacuum.

Is it that I don't deserve to have them?
Do my actions preclude me from having them?
Or does the tone of my own personal energy and thoughts drive them away?

Eventually, though, I wind up in the same place.
Picking up the pieces of an inevitable loss.

Perhaps my dream was more of a statement about loss and how I will try to hold it together even when everything is dying around me - ignoring repeated calls to let it go, don't prolong the suffering.

I didn't see this coming.