Embracing Sleeplessness

Lately, for some reason, I have been thinking a lot about Ellie.  It could be because she was killed just over a year ago.  It could be because I've been spending my evenings alone and feel a sense of longing for physical companionship.  It could be talking about it at school, with my students, has reopened some of these wounds.  Or it could be for no real reason at all, but for the past week I have really been feeling the hole that she left in my life.

This (Thursday) evening was especially hard for me.  After an evening at school I came home and was really unable to focus on anything else, making it really a pretty miserable evening.  As I got ready for bed I could tell that it was really starting to consume me and from that point on I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep.
Rather than lie in bed, unable to fall asleep, dwelling on Ellie, I decided I'd try a few things to take my mind off of it.  Unfortunately, none of them worked.  What little solace I did find was in hymns and a few old blog posts.
So here I sit at 1:30 in the morning when I need to be at school by 7 for a full day with kids, nowhere near sleep, and, in all honesty, in a worse mood than when I started.  My brain has done a nice job snowballing over the past two hours, taking memories from the past 4 plus years and really using them to amplify my pain.  It has been a common occurrence in the past and I'm hoping that it doesn't become a regular thing again.
In June Jamie had two fantastic blog posts that I reread tonight and I thought I'd touch on them to wrap up this random, sad, relatively incoherent post.
First, the talked about Brokenness and how it has become something that people are ashamed of in their lives.  Since December of 2009 I have been very unashamed of my brokenness, but that does not mean that I always wear it as openly as I would like.  I think that Ellie is one example of how this has happened.  I have kept her picture up in my classroom and she is still the desktop background of my school computer.  I can't really bare thinking about taking down her picture.  Somehow it feels as though it would be betraying her.  I have been very badly broken for the last 370 days and at times it feels irreparable, but I don't talk about it.  I don't share that or wear it as openly as I do some of my other brokenness.  This, for me, is a start of embracing it and, hopefully, finding some sort of healing in this long and painful process.
Secondly, Jamie had some brilliant writing on Vulnerability.  This is something that is difficult for me, most of the time.  Sure there have been exceptions, but really, I avoid it at all costs.  When people ask me how I'm doing, I still say I'm fine or good, even thought that might not be the complete truth.  Let me say that this is very different from other "I'm fine" lies that I've told in the past.  This is not darkness of unfathomable depths, but rather, the convenience of not being vulnerable and saying that it has been a rough day, or that I'm questioning a decision, or that I'm missing a dog who has been dead for a year and I should be over.
This past winter I sent a message to my closest friends asking what about me made them want to be my friend in the first place and what about me frustrated or annoyed them.  At that point in time I was feeling lost and unable to really define who I was or who I wanted to be.  I opened myself up to these trusted people and they, at my request, held nothing back.  I won't lie, it stung, more than a little, but I knew then and now that it came from a place of love and that they loved be in-spite and because of all of my faults.
Throughout my writing process tonight I have been reminded of my own imperfections, faults, flaws, and inconsistencies.  Do I like all of these things about myself?  Not a chance in hell, but they are part of who I am, and even though I am emotional, crazy, slightly messy, sometimes lazy, and all around imperfect, I like who I am, and I do everything I can to improve myself.
Thanks for taking the time to read my late night ramblings.
Love and peace,
Daniel

Farewell Chewie

Friday, another chapter of my life ended.
Since I was little, I have always lived around a dog.  We got Spots before I could even remember, I was instrumental in obtaining Riley in November of 2001 and she's still kicking it on the farm, and when it was time for me to move on, I knew I wanted a dog of my own, so I found Ellie.
She was my best friend for about 18 months until she was hit by a car in one of her escape attempts.
Last June, I took an impromptu trip to Colorado to visit a friend, and came back with Chewie, a black labradoodle.
Now Chewie had, not surprisingly, a completely different personality from Ellie, and every other dog that I had ever been around.  He was very loving and clingy, wanting to be around me at all times and becoming very vocal when he was away.  When Ellie passed away, he became my only dog for a time.  I had Layla for a few months, until she came out to the farm, and Chewie became an only dog, again.  While he was just fine with the added attention, Chewie struggled being alone all day, and most weekends too.  When I was possibly moving to Mexico, I knew I would need to find a new home for him and thought that would be a good thing.  Well, a few weeks ago, I realized that I was not being fair to Chewie by keeping him around so I began to look for a new home.  It took a couple of weeks, but I found a wonderful new home for him in Wichita, with another poodle based dog who could have been his sister.  While it was tough to leave him behind, I knew it was best for him and he would be greatly spoiled by his new family.
So while I say farewell to Chewie, I know that he will be well loved.