"just enough purposelessness is required for a full life"

today i find myself home for my day off...with a stuffy nose and sore throat that i've had since last week. it hasn't really blown up fully but i feel like i've been "starting" to get this cold for way too long and i'm hoping it's actually going to go away before it gets any worse.

i've been doing nothing but watching consecutive episodes of bones for the past 7 hours or so, because i feel like this is more of a sick day than a day off. fluids. medicine. "lots of tv", as my pediatrician used to prescribe for colds.

as i was heading into a dark room to turn on a tv for desperate housewives last night, i instinctively looked down and let my eyes adjust to the darkness before moving forward. i know she's gone but it's hard to break a habit that i've had for 12 years. today when i went to the washroom and left the door open, i realized that this is my first day at home alone since the day after stella died. normally she'd come to visit me while i'm peeing, looking for a scratch and someone to pay attention to her. i can still put my hands at the exact height off of the floor to pet her head.

when i got out of the bathroom, i took a trip to the mantle where the ashes and katherine's sketch of her are. her collar is there now, as well as her leash. the collar still smells like her. that scent of oil and staleness that comes with being a long haired dog in the country, even though mom bathed her only a few days before she died.

i'm finding myself crying again...but not out of regret or from blaming myself this time. it's not because of the shock of changing back to normal life. the cats are comfortably eating on the floor, and i can feed tess for a few days at a time at once if i'm going to be away without worrying that the food will be gone before the hour's up. no, i'm not crying because of any of that.

this time, it's just because i miss her.

when i made a plan to blog about certain areas of my life that have been crazy this year - before i turn 26 - i wanted to avoid writing about the "bad" stuff and concentrate on all the blessings from this year. but i just had to get this out of my system today, i guess. so consider this my one entry about the "bad" stuff of my 25th year.