Sometimes it’s the little things. Knowing that my best friend is losing sleep over her recent unemployment, while I want to help so badly it hurts. Having a “talk” with my Dad when he asks if I can come to Phoenix next month, it’s having to remind him that Mister only has 5 days of holidays a year. That I’ll try for next year, but I’m not sure if it will have changed.

Sometimes it’s the not having privacy at work, or the debates between co-workers, or the over hearing discussions about raising teenagers. It’s the way Mister reacts when his friend has had a baby, like it’s about him & his feelings about children instead of her. It’s relentlessly packing a lunch, or it’s family and a lack of time at home. The suggestion that I shouldn’t really have dogs because I have too much traveling to do when I haven’t  traveled in a few years, or about how my head spins when I try to figure out how much it must cost to do The Things That Twenty Somethings Do.

And then sometimes, all the tiny pieces of effort I’ve been making finally register with the universe, and little things come together.

I’ve been coming home and doing the things I need to do first. Clean. Make a lunch. Take a shower – then relax for the whole rest of the night so I can actually enjoy weeknights instead of running around trying to take on the world half a task at a time. All of the sudden I don’t feel rushed & I can sleep better.

Instead of pinning the puppies when they’re losing their sweet puppy minds to excitement, which seems to me like the dog version of going from slight disagreement to shouting in one move, I just loosely hold their collars and sit with them. I am a calm and immovable object. I ask them to sit. I am still. And I am the Zen Master of mysteriously calm and responsive puppies.

It’s getting past being shell shocked when I think about three of my five oldest friends moving away next year. I’m transitioning into being excited that they’re all moving to the Greater Toronto Area because I’ve never been to Toronto and that couldn’t really be more convenient if I asked for it to be.

It’s seriously looking at getting a part time job and going to a 50 hour work week so we can take a real holiday every year without worrying or compromising, or pay off our car twice as fast. I’m scared of how much this might complicate my life, but the worst I can do is fail right?

And most importantly of all, it’s taking down the baby gates in the house. Yesterday the puppies had full range of the house for the first time and they didn’t wreck anything.

You let the groomer clip your nails this week.

You hung with our in-laws and stayed calm 90% of the time.

You didn’t eat our garbage when we were at work.

Mal? Ash?

We’re buying the fancy rawhide tomorrow.