Baby Steps

I have officially been a Chicago resident for one week. It's still not quite sunk in, but if I made it through this first week, everything else is downhill from here. Whether I believe it or not!

This afternoon, a group of friends (I have friends here!!!! Wow!!!!) were kind enough to oblige my need for captioning in the movie theathre, so we went to go see Dark Knight, which had the closed caption teleprompter thingamagie. I was very very impressed with the movie, which kept you on your toes and didn't slow down!

The other big achievement was separation anxiety for both Dusty and I. By the time I dropped someone off, and then spent 15 mins trying to find a place to park on the street, it had been over 7 hours since I had walked out the door. Other than leaking a little as I hooked up the leash to run him downstairs, there was no accident waiting for me when I got home. Whew. The house wasn't torn up, and Dusty was very very excited to see me. All ready to play and everything!

There are times I throw back the thought of the freedom of no pets and being able to stay out all hours of the night, like the rest of the group is doing right now. But, I am the one living alone, and they are not. I would rather have the companionship for all the other hours except those few where I feel a little tied down. Who knows, maybe that feeling will persist, but I will deal with that when the time comes. I am learning to acknowledge my thoughts and worries, but not to dwell on them, or at least not to make decisions based on them until I have reached a more stable place of mind. I've got a couple more weeks, I think, before I can say I've arrived at that point.

and so in the dark, with the fan and the sound of Dusty contendly chewing on the bone in the background, I am winding down my day.