Back To It

One week ago today I was catching a very late flight back to Kansas City. The previous Saturday was the memorial service for Barry. I cannot believe so many things happened that last week.
Last Monday I resolved to get "back to normal" and got up at 4:30 a.m., ran a few miles on the treadmill, trained dogs and did all my morning chores. Went to work, came home and collapsed from exhaustion.
It's not physical exhaustion, it's emotional.
And I've discovered there are many levels of grief. At this writing, it's the Dull Ache part of it, where your heart is badly bruised and just wants to rest and heal.
Each day of last week I'd get up resolved to go back to normal, and each day I just couldn't. Fortunately sleep has come easily and I've slept long and deeply. I just seem to need a lot more. When will I feel rested?
Yesterday was the first day I felt normal so did normal Saturday stuff as well as my Welcome Wagon job. I resolved to do home stuff Saturday and devote Sunday to training and grooming the poor dogs, it's been awhile. Then ugly black clouds loomed on the horizon and I headed home early. We got the dogs and ourselves fed and cleaned up before the "fun" started...intense lightning, rain, and at one point the weather radio said to "prepare immediately for golf-ball sized hail, damaging winds in excess of 60 mph and deadly lightning. Take cover in the lowest level of your home and stay away from windows." Luckily for us that nasty storm petered out before reaching our fair town but the weather radio went off quite regularly all night. So, it's Sunday and I'm exhausted. It looks like another pajama day. I'm very fortunate to be able to have pajama days.
Pinch is signed up for the Beginning Obedience class at Renee's and it begins 10/28. Neither Pinch nor Moto has been formally trained for weeks now. I simply don't have the Heart to train. It's that Dull Ache thing getting in the way. Oh, I've done a bit here and there - tricks, the Sit and Down Game, things like that. I've decided to pull Moto from his Open class Wednesday nights and will bring him to Pinch's class. My game plan is to swap out the two dogs and do a lot of backchaining with Moto. He has more issues than I realized and if I ever want to show him, we need to go back to those building blocks to find the weak link. I have a feeling I got greedy and went too far, too fast.
Meantime my family is still trying to wrap its collective arms around all that has happened: so much in too short a time. We put one foot ahead of the other and surround each other with lots of love. Moto is truly in his element as Therapy Dog during this time: I don't know if my scent changes or how he knows, but when The Sadness envelopes me like a dark fog, he quietly makes his way over and leans against me - there if I need to hug him and bury my head in his fur.
So I am grateful that I CAN eventually get back to normal, and that I have my wonderful husband and six loving dogs to help me on my path.