Waiting

November 16, 2021

I ugly cried in my new car today. And I did last night too. In fact, I’ve gotten my tears all over my leather seats in my fancy new vehicle a few times already, and blew my nose into a jacket that I had in the backseat more than once too. Gross, I know. I’ll wash it. Today was different though. I was sitting at work, doing a good job getting ready for a big meeting I have on Friday. I had a couple of calls with my mentees, made small talk with the girls from the strategy team, and listened to my favorite podcast while I made powerpoint slides. I did this all while feeling like an empty shell of myself. I smiled on the zoom calls, chatted excitedly over email with my career coach about some awards we are both going to receive on Thursday during a ceremony. I marked things off my to-do list and handled my business. Then I took my empty shell body downstairs to the cafe to get my usual BLT, and I sat outside in the cold and let a few tears fall, safe from the eyes of others. Once I finished my sandwich and washed my face, without thought, logic or explanation, I walked to my car. I never do this – I never go home to walk Maudie at lunchtime, but my empty shell body took me to the car and that’s what I set out to do.

When I, the empty shell, walked into the house, I didn’t hear the pitter patter of Maudie’s little feet run toward the door, or her loud bark that gets her fussed at so frequently. Even when I yelled her name…silence. I made my way into the room where she stays during the day while I’m at work, thinking I might have left her baby gate open on accident and she was hiding under the bed upstairs. When I rounded the corner of the stairs, I saw her. She was limp like a ragdoll, with her eyes closed, in an awkward position on the stairs. My stomach sank and I thought for sure she was dead. I ran to her and quickly realized that she was still breathing, but no amount of shaking or shouting would wake her.

I grabbed her with one arm and my work phone and wallet with the other, and without any outward sign of fear, panic, or dramatics, I tossed my limp, little best friend into the passenger seat of my car. I fired off a few text messages to cancel an afternoon meeting and to explain my situation to my boss, and then drove her to the emergency vet. Once I got there, I handed her over to the errrr…nurse? Vet tech? What ever those nice people in scrubs are called who weigh animals and clip toenails before the vet arrives. I answered a few questions. Has she gotten into anything unusual recently? Errr, she ate some chapstick last night, but she’s done that 2.2 million times. Has she been eating and drinking? Umm, I think so but my head has been so far up my own ass, I’m not sure. Yes. Yes I definitely fed her twice yesterday. Has she been out in a new environment – hiking or swimming? No, I wanted to take her for a hike on Sunday but again – head up ass. This went on for a few minutes, then I was asked to wait in my car for an update (covid rule).

When I got into my car and turned on my heat and my fancy heated seats, I sat in the parking lot and realized that the 30-ish minutes of terror I had just experienced made me feel…better? Maybe better isn’t the word. Alive? Just for a minute, I marveled at how I had bumped up against a true emergency in my world on a day (in a long series of days) when I was feeling like an empty, hopeless, hollow shell of my real self and I snapped back into the Rebecca I know who handles her shit and takes care of the people, work, and Maudie dogs around her. And I gave myself a little credit for that. It was short-lived relief because I quickly remembered that my puppy was very sick, and now my only job was to sit and wait- a big, rotten cherry on top of the rejection and heartache I’ve been carrying around for a while now. I released a wave of emotion for some unknown period of time, blew my nose on that poor jacket one more time, and then forced myself to exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Big deep breaths, over and over until the tears stopped.

I’m in this place now – this place where all I can do is sit and wait. With Maudie, all I could do was sit in my car and wait to hear what the vet had to say. And that phone call came with some information – Maudie has an infection that made her brain swell up a little, she needs antibiotics and a stay in the hospital – and a directive to go and wait some more. So now I’m home, in my pajamas at 5pm in a big, empty house, with a disgusting vodka drink on the table in front of my laptop – waiting. Waiting on answers that I can’t find myself. Waiting on healing to occur. Waiting on either grief or relief. And the waiting applies to more than just my Maudie situation. The things that have caused me so much heartbreak over the last few weeks are completely out of my control. Agonizing over them and trying to find solutions is no more productive than crying in the car while the veterinarian ran tests on Maudie. I fought the good fight when there was one to be had – when there were things I could do to try to direct change, but now, all I can do is wait for answers or relief, or at least wait for healing.

Waiting is hard for someone like me. I’m a problem-solver. I’m a fixer. I don’t give up. I don’t think I’ve ever given up in my entire life. I finish the run even when my legs are screaming in pain. I struggled through my PhD long after I realized I wasn’t smart enough to be there. I finished the Whole30 diet because I had promised myself I would, long after others gave up. I don’t quit, and I always succeed. But life is messy, and it’s not always about succeeding or failing, and some things can’t be “worked out”. I can’t work out Maudie’s health. There’s no painful work I can put in or ritual to perform that will guarantee that I will still have my little best friend when I wake up tomorrow. There’s no work I can do to make my heartache and rejection go away. I can’t make a to-do list to make the healing happen faster and I can’t strategize ways to change my circumstances. They just are. So here I am. Waiting.

Thank you to all of my facebook friends and co-workers for kind words today. That puppy means more to me than I can ever express. I should have taken her hiking on Sunday.