Diary of a has been

This piece was written as a response to my own illness and recovery. Written for my blog. 698 words.

The dog sighed as he shifted his position in front of the black stove, eyebrows lifting and falling in some imaginary chase across the rocky moorland of his daily walks.  One leg twitched in a feeble effort to give chase and a slight yelp escaped like a bubble exploding from under his soft relaxed lips.  A woman with hair that without the wonders of modern science would have been grey, lovingly scrunched some of the curly black coat and the limbs relaxed back into slumber.

Ria didn’t know how to express what she felt for this dog, or his sister stretched with her back against the bottom of the sofa and her head planted with firm ownership on a slipper.  They weren’t child substitutes as she had two strapping sons, no longer at home but very much part of her life, but they did help populate a home that no longer bustled with young people and all their paraphernalia.  

Ria allowed her own eyes to close a little and she thought back two … no two and a half … years ago to that awful day when she knew she wasn’t up to her job any more.  She had heard of breakdowns.  She had no idea what they entailed and it wasn’t until over a year later that she realized that that was what she had experienced.  The feeling of worthlessness, the emptiness of every day, the river deep, mountain high nature of her emotions, the insurmountable fatigue, and then the depression.

Depression (oh shame you feel a bit down do you?) the yawning guilt of it.  After all she had a husband she adored, two lovely sons, a good quality of life in a beautiful location, what had she to be depressed about?  But depression, she quickly came to learn, has no reference point for whether it is justified, it just feeds with vampire thirst, draining its host of every ounce of hope and self worth, and worse, motivation.

It probably was her idea thought Ria, although she couldn’t quite remember through the fog that protected her from that time, but as soon as she knew she wasn’t going to be returning to work, the need for dogs in her life once more became all consuming.  It was five years since their last dog had died and work had dictated a period of abstinence, but the empty house screamed for movement and sound and Ria screamed to be needed.

She moved her foot before it slipped into complete numbness and the dog rolled onto her back and her soft lips obeyed gravity and slipped up her face to expose a white jagged grin.

Oh how she loved them.  They had been challenging.  Two very small puppies at the same time always are, but these two were very bright and they had recognized immediately that this human wanted something special of them.  They didn’t demand her attention or her love, they just absorbed it, luxuriated in it, and reciprocated it without question.

She sighed, this was no good, time for a walk.  She stood up allowing her knees to straighten somewhat gingerly and then headed for the stairs.  The dogs watched intently.  In the bedroom she pulled on her long socks and walking boots, and as she closed the door on the landing she heard the dogs fidgeting and pacing at the bottom of the stairs.  As she came down they became more frenzied, teddies in their mouths, a bright light of excitement in their deep brown eyes.  

She laughed and grabbed their leads and collars from the coat hooks in the hall.  They spun in tight circles and bounced up and down.  She raised her hands and they sat, their busy tails shuffling their bottoms from side to side.  Slipping their collars over their heads and watching them carry their leads in an effort to speed her to the door, she smiled contentedly.   It was a different life from what she had had before.  It was, perhaps, less important, less productive, but it was good, very good … on the good days …