My so Charmed Life

and I miss her as much today as I have all week.

I try not to cry, because all she ever wanted to do was make us happy. She was so small, but life revolved around her. The house is so empty with (just) the four of us here.

I want to think about the good times. I want to remember what a funny, happy, loving girl she was. I know (as I sit here clutching her stinky old pillow from her cage) that it’s time. I have to stop thinking about the end. Stop thinking about life without her. I have to. I need to do it for myself, but also for Hushbear and Baby.

My very wise friend, Ashlea, said to me in an email “I think the best dogs we never really quit missing, eventually it just hurts less.” So here goes.

I’m going to remember the girl who loved her Daddy more than almost anything and how happy they were together.

I’m going to remember how much she and Baby loved each other; they were the best sisters.

I’m going to remember how funny she looked under the covers with her head on my pillow…

and how nice it was to curl up with her at the end of the day.

Most importantly, I am going to remember how lucky we were to have her in our life.

Hushbear got back with Isabell’s ashes tonight close to 7. I’m not completely sure what I expected.

I took the box from him when he got here. It’s so light. It’s almost like there’s not anything in there. It’s sad. She wasn’t very big, but her personality could fill a room and now she fits into a little box.

The loss doesn’t hurt as much as it did. But it still hurts. I can’t sleep. I can’t study. At least I feel like I can breathe again.

Trying to go to sleep is now one of the hardest parts of my day. Almost every night for the past several years Isabell and I have gone to sleep together. She would wait patiently at the end of the bed (or next to me with her head on Hushbear’s pillow) until I was done reading or studying for me to turn out the light. Then she would crawl over to me and wait for me to lift the blankets. She would curl up right next to me under the blankets with her head right under my chin and go to sleep with her head on my pillow.

Every night as she settled in she would sigh. As if she had a trying day and was now relaxing. I would sigh along with her. There was something so comforting about our ritual. Even if I had a terrible day I could lay with my calm girl and go to sleep. It was one of the most relaxing parts of my day. If she fell asleep before me, her rhythmic pattern of breathing would usually lull me to sleep.

Last week when Hushbear and I were in Australia there was an Isabell sized pillow on our bed and I fell asleep holding it every night. It wasn’t the same, but I found a little comfort in it. Now I am back in my own bed and just can’t settle down.

I miss her all day. I keep wanting to call her over to watch tv with me. I look for her to give her a little pat and a kiss on the head when I walk into a room. When I am half asleep in the morning I pat the bed next to me to signal for her to come over…but she’s not there. I know it will get easier. It has to eventually. But for now, trying to sleep is the hardest part.

Well, not exactly home. I was walking down the street and stopped for a light when I noticed a girl across the street wearing an I’m Not Obsessed shirt. I couldn’t see the name on it, but I think it was either K or N. (Katie, Kylie, Nicole?)

I read I’m Not Obsessed daily…okay, hourly, so I was so excited. I considered running across the street to talk to her, but I fear the cab drivers too much. I tried to get a picture of her, but there were too many people and she was too far away.

I’m such a dork, but I was so excited over seeing that!

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I was good at my job. I don’t know if it was just having a lot of experience or what, but I was fairly good. I wouldn’t say I was the best (especially in recent months) but I was good.

Every time we got a new pharmacy student in I would be asked “Why didn’t you go to pharmacy school? You would make a great pharmacist.” My answer would vary between “I’m not that stupid” and “I’m not that crazy.”

I considered it. I even switched majors. I went from history to biology. I figured if I had a bio degree not only would it make getting into pharmacy school easier, I would have something to fall back on if I didn’t get in, or hated it. (See, I was already preparing to not like it!)

Here was my thought process:

• Ooooh, pharmacists make a lot of money
• Dang 6 figures starting out for adding that to what I do already???
• Everyone keeps telling me that I would make a great pharmacist
• Seriously, they make that much money?
• They all really hate their jobs, but that’s a lot of money

Then I snapped out of it. Unfortunately this was after some failed classes. I failed a calculus class and when I retook it I got a D. Then I failed an organic chemistry class. When I re enrolled in the OChem class I realized I wasn’t going to do well and dropped it. (Or so I thought. It turns out it wasn’t dropped from the system, so there is an extra F on my transcript for that. I’ve looked everywhere for the paper to prove I dropped it, but no such luck.)

Through all of this I was working in a pharmacy and knew that the pharmacists all hated their jobs and I hated mine, but still I was putting myself through this.

Quick side bar please, a few things I (and most others) hate about pharmacy

• dealing with the public
• Early refills
• fake prescriptions
• INSURANCE REJECTS!!!!!
• fuckheads that act like we are the McDonalds drive through
• the phrase “All you have to do is throw some pills in a bottle”
• people who try to make you go faster (You tell someone 15 minutes and they say “How about 10?” -My typical response is “I negotiate upwards, it can be 20 if you like”)
• Dealing with office managers, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, doctors, insurance companies, etc.

Resuming post now.

I was seriously wavering on the whole plan (admittedly, with 2 Fs and a D, getting into pharmacy school at UH would have been very difficult to swing) then it was taken out of my hands. Hushbear (who I guess was just Hushboyfriendbear then) lost his job. I had to go back to work full time while he started his company.

It turned out to be a good thing for us. Hushbear (and the rest of the AL guys) have built a wonderful company. Even with all of the stress Hushbear loves his job, and it’s been good for him. I stopped going to school and just worked full time. Working with two separate crazy-ass pharmacists (at two different companies) convinced me once and for all that I didn’t want to work in pharmacy for the rest of my life, and certainly not as a tech. Their assholeness (yes that’s a new word) motivated me to return to school as soon as I could.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I returned, so I just took some liberal arts classes. By chance my first semester back I took a history course from Dr. S and knew I should have stuck with history all along. I remembered how excited I had been in my high school history classes with Mr. Tumlinson. When we covered the French Revolution I knew without a doubt that I needed to go back into history and would probably want to focus specifically on the FR.

That same semester I also happened to take a cultural psychology course taught by an amazing grad student and found my minor. She was focused on I/O (employment stuff), but the way she taught the class sparked something in me.

I’ve been reading some pharmacy blogs (in between running around Sydney and studying) that I used to love because I could relate to them. Now I find them funny, but really they just make me more certain in my choice. So yes, pharmacy interns, I did consider going to pharmacy school, but I’m not that stupid.