Life Turns On A Dime

On my own this week.  Paige dropped a book off to me yesterday.  It's a Stephen King novel, huge.  I used to read all his books years ago, but I haven't read a book (other than the one Randy recently sent me) for years.

I spent 3 hours reading it last night after going to bed.  I was hoping it would help me fall asleep without Ambien, but at 3:00 am, I went ahead and took half... woke up again in 5 hours and took the other half.  It did distract me for those hours, but as soon as I put it down and shut off the bedroom light, reality shit on me again.

Something was up with the dogs last night.  Usually Riley will get in bed with me, but after 10 minutes or so, he'll head off to the lounge to sleep.  He wouldn't get in the bed at all.  Token always sleeps in the bed, but after I turned the light off, he headed off to his crate.

About a half hour after I turned the light off, I heard a strange noise coming from outside the bedroom.  I sat up and turned on the light, and saw Token sitting on the floor, looking out the doorway.  That was odd.

I'm still struggling.  It's really difficult being alone, even if I have two dogs I care deeply about.  I know I'm not getting any better.  I have no idea what it's going to take.  Time?  I doubt it.  I feel like I want to warn people what loss like this is really like, so they won't live with their head in the sand like I have.. so they can realize that an ordinary day with their family is actually extraordinary.  I don't want anyone else to feel this way, even though most everyone will at some point.

I spent some time reading about 'near death experiences' today.  It wasn't as comforting as I thought it would be.  Still, there either is one or there is the void, right?  Either way, it's good news or it's no news.  I'm trying to convince myself of the former.

If John's passing is some sort of 'lesson' for me, I'm going to be supremely pissed off.  I think the message could have come in some other way, and I would have understood.  But then, I didn't get the message when he had a heart attack in 2010, did I?  No, I didn't.  John had to be taken away from me to understand.  That's bullshit.

I can feel the difference between 71 degrees and 72.  John was always warm, and I was always cold.. which is true in many ways, I guess.  71 was supposed to be the compromise and is programmed into the thermostat, so I keep having to change it manually.  I can't bring myself to re-program it.