Feeling: empty
Listening to: KT Tunstall - Universe & U
Reading/Watching: A Game of Thrones & Fringe, season 1

I went through my day as a fully functional person, made it out of the school building and held it together.

Had a very productive (third) session with my new therapist, who I like very much because she makes so much sense, that it sometimes pisses me off. Her belief is that this is the best thing for me, since I need to learn to be completely independent and not want anyone to take care of me.

Okay. Sure. Nod. Force a smile. Use up the third Kleenex. Drive home.

I feel better. Resolved. I understand it, cerebrally. I have had things explained on levels I couldn't achieve, had my friends' armchair psychobabble backed up with research and degrees. I eat a decent dinner, watch some TV and check Facebook. Feed the dogs, get the mail, on and on.

When it's time to go to bed, it's just an empty house with an empty bed and an empty heart. The only thing teeming with life is my brain, which begins to cycle memories again. I lay down, try to read, and as soon as I put the book away the tears come again.

I have to stay quiet, since Bear's husband is crashing here on weeknights to save the commute from work in Schoolville and home in Sistertown. I pull the pillow around my head and sob and pray and squeak between breaths, while Dolce paces and circles unhappily in her kennel (pent up to prolong the life of my shoes).

Andante, who has his customary place of honor with his ass against my spine, slowly lumbers up to sit straight, looking down the length of his forelegs at me. He watches my red face twist in the bit of light through the curtains, and bends to lick at my eyeballs, like he's done ever since he was a baby.

Even as a two-month-old infant puppy, he would climb up to me on the bed when I cried at night, back in those long days of October and November and December. He'd plop directly on my stomach, his sturdy heartbeat thrumming just under my sternum, and stretch his head forward to lick up my face, crawling on his belly until he found the source of saltwater. When I finally quieted, he'd curl back up on my chest, upside down, and when his whiptail stopped lazily swishing and landed next to my face, I knew he was asleep and would ease him off me onto the bed.

Now, at seventy-three pounds, he doesn't try to rest his entire weight on me anymore, or at least I've grunted and elbowed him off me enough times to teach him to stop. Instead he licked at my tears from his upright position, bending his neck down like a horse at a stream. When the squeaking sobs finally stopped, he gave a sad little whuffle-whine and flopped sideways, his massive head on my stomach like old times. At least I've come far enough not to be crying about the exact same people.

Empty heart. Busy head. But I guess the bed's not totally empty, after all.

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