Chapter 36: Have You Seen Me?

I’ve lost my dog…
I was really tired yesterday morning so I put him in the backyard and went back to bed, I’ve done this before, he’s always been fine. There’s no way for him to get out of our yard. Yet, he has. He’s no where to be found and I’m panicking. I have to go to work, I don’t feel like this is a justifiable reason to call in. I can only hope that for some crazy reason one of my neighbors have my dog in their home. My roommates have done a great deal to help out and even gone and asked neighbors, none have seen him, but hopefully he’s safely inside there. If not…then I don’t know.
I’m an idiot. What if he’s been kidnapped? He’s a boxer, people kidnap boxers. What if there is a crazy animal killer out there stealing puppies for their fur or something like that? What if I’m overreacting, worse, what if I’m not?
I was going to get him a tag on Saturday, but I didn’t have a tag for him yet. It’s like when you plan to make spare keys for your car and the day before you’re going to go do it you lose your keys, or lock them in the car.
I’m a bad owner. I surprise myself every time I start crying. I suppose you don’t realize how attached you are until you can no longer be attached. Now I am beginning to think that when I cried when my mouse died it was actually because I loved him. I just feel so stupid, why didn’t I sit outside with him and bring him back in with me? Why did I think it was okay to just let him loose in the backyard? He’s still too little, hasn’t walked his way around the neighborhood…at all, so how can he find his way home?
I remember when my friend from high school was very upset because she had to get rid of her dog and all I could think was that it was a blessing in disguise. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for her to get rid of the dog or why she was so attached to him. I was such a jerk.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes before but this is probably one of the biggest ones I’ve ever made, carrying regret equal to it in weight. Part of me feels like I’ve lost him forever and there’s a very small fraction that holds hope that he’s going to just show up at the front door, chaperoned or not, just scratch at the front door, I’ll open and he’ll come in and everything will be back to the way that it used to be, only I won’t be so stupid and careless this time. But I’ve always been a person who has squashed out my own hope because things hurt worse if hope accompanied them and they turned out to be fruitless. I’m trying to have hope though, belief that I will get to see my dog again, because part of me can’t believe that God would let me stay like this, doesn’t want to believe that he will. There’s another part of me that feels like if I don’t prove to God that I believe he can return my dog then he won’t, and I’m not that strong. I’ve always been a doubter I want to believe that no matter what my dog will come back in a week’s time, I want to prove that I knew God would do it. I don’t know how to let go of doubt and just believe.
Only God really knew how lonely I’ve been and I don’t want to think that He could let me go back to that. It’s stupid, I know, crying about a dog, but I can’t help it. I prayed a lot last night, begging, pleading, and waiting for some kind of answer or peace. But I don’t know if I can recognize peace or an answer. I finally e-mailed my sister this morning to let her know, I think in the back of my mind I was hoping that I could put that off as long as possible and that maybe the dog would return and I would never have to mention it to her. But I told the Lord last night that I figured he wanted me to tell her, and he probably wouldn’t return the dog until I did. I promised that even if the dog returned I would tell her, so I had to write a very difficult e-mail to her. I wish I could have tagged on at the end that the dog was safely home, just given a bath and sleeping next to me while I wrote…but I wasn’t able to do that.
In the meantime, I haven’t told many other people, my roommates may have, but I don’t like to tell people when things are wrong. I need them to not know that anything is wrong because then they can be my escape, they can help me forget, and they aren’t even trying to do that. They are just acting normal, and they help me feel normal. This is part of why I didn’t want to tell my sister about all of this; Because now I don’t know when I’m allowed to just be normal around her. Not that I just want to forget all of this, but sometimes I do. I like to be an emotional wreck in the privacy of my own room, and then to everyone else seem like nothing is wrong; but when they know something is wrong then I feel like I have to bring that private sadness to the public view, and I’m not a performer nor do I want to feel like one.
Is it odd that I feel like life is falling apart? I’m sure it doesn’t all have to do with the dog but I feel like there’s something more than just the dog missing. Maybe the dog is just the tip of the iceberg and I’m going to find myself slowing sinking in the middle of nowhere not knowing what to do.
I want to be alone, and yet I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t know how anyone could understand that right now but it’s how I feel. I came home last night to an empty house and I stayed in my car just crying. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to see anyone, but I didn’t want to be in the house alone.