Moving, Puppies, Sadness

I think it's been talked about enough that I can finally come out and tell you all that I'm moving out of state for a while.

I'm not entirely sure how long I'll be gone, though it will be at least 6 months. Where I'm going I have a place to stay while I look into getting my own place. When the plan was first coming together, I don't think I had thought far enough ahead to the puppies. The entire process was going to be really easy, slow, no rush to get into a situation where I've got bills piling up again. However, upon my last conversation with the person I'm going to be staying with I was informed that they are allergic to dogs and cats.

DOGS! That means my little kids. The two bright shining stars in my life. My puppies. Ava and Elle.



I am totally in love with these dogs. I haven't felt this way about animals since we had maggie, the little orange, white, black and brown mixed kitten we had. We just got into the groove of things, and were starting to fall really in love with her. Since we had been raising her from just a couple weeks old, we were really attached. It's normal for us to have a cat that's indoor, but eventually they get the itch to go outside. We had molly for 13yrs or so, maybe less. We also moved while we had her, and she went outside all the time. She also decided that when it was her time to go, she just wandered away one night and didn't come back. She was really really old, so my folks said that cat's like to go away and be alone when they die. I was crushed when that happened, I feel like I looked for that cat for days. Maggie got hit by a car, we found out when a nice citizen (unfortunately the one who killed her) called us after we had been missing her for 3 days. He left a message to the effect of "I think I ran over your cat, maggie, I backed over her, it was an accident, sorry". So that sucked. We've since gotten elle,  which I call kitty, and though I'm not as close to her as I have been with my other cats, her and I really get along.
She will wrestle with the puppies like she's just as big and strong as they are.

When I finally get where I'm going which is about 1,300 mile drive. 20hrs with stops and one over night.

The first point of business after securing some sort of work with uncle Mike or someone else in the area, I will be searching for a place that will allow dogs. It's all an insane situation. I will miss the puppies, but I will know they are taken care of and that they are safe and being loved and cared for.

Here's where my moral dilemma comes in. The kitty, Mario, and the girls are like family. They wrestle and play with each other and they snuggle and talk to one another. I can't describe something more endearing. Firstly the girls won't understand where I've gone. As it is Ava, will wait at the door for me, or sitting on the couch looking out the window for days waiting for me to come home. She doesn't eat, she cries the whole time and Mom said she has a hard time getting her to peel herself away from watching for me. That breaks my heart. Ava will think I left her, and that I won't be coming back. Elly will eventually figure it out, Ava is the one who will be completely destroyed by my leaving. She sleeps in my bed with me every night. Arm in paw, sometimes nose to nose, I mean we snuggle close. She'll lay her head on my chest and listen to my heart-beat and fall asleep to the rise and fall of my chest as I slowly breathe in and out.

The second problem I have is that the girls are so integrated with kitty and Mario that I don't know how well anyone will react being away from their friends. Mario is well... he's mario. His obsession still is, and will always be mom. Kitty I also realize is her own animal and would probably notice the girls gone but it wouldn't effect her day to day life.

I want to get to my destination and have a place of my own, that accepts pets in the first month, at the longest. The girls would for sure miss playing with kitty and mario, they would be so excited that they were with me they probably wouldn't think about it for too long.

Mom would miss the puppies terribly. She's slowly coming to terms that even though they are 'her' puppies, Ava has pretty much given her heart to me entirely. Elle thinks I'm pretty awesome too.

So is it worth it? To do my best to find a spot where I can have the puppies with me? I'm getting a canopy put on the truck, which will make it water tight and secure for sleeping in, storing my stuff, and perhaps for building a little house for the dogs to live in. I mean if I just put them in the truck at night, and kept them out and about the rest of the time it wouldn't be bad at all. Hell I could even sleep in the truck in the parking are of the apartment complex I'll be staying at.

Though am I being selfish? They do bring a lot of joy to mom also, and if they stayed here, although I wouldn't be around they would have whole lot more outside of the kennel, and outside the house playtime. I'm worried that if I start working a whole bunch then the puppies will just be left alone too much.

I guess the only thing I can do is go, see what the situation looks like, gather available options, and make a decision. I should pray about it too. I need to pray about the whole trip. I haven't really asked God much about if this is the right thing. I have a little, and the doors keep opening, and the needle seems to be pointing East.

I haven't started to get butterflies yet, though I haven't really thought a whole lot about how I'll feel leaving home, leaving my dogs, my mom, Tom Butler, the foundations family I have here. Though my breakup with M, kinda put a damper on foundations group activities. If I had known in the beginning, I wouldn't have dated her for so long. I would have broke up with her when she was feeling like she needed to move out of state. That would have been perfect. "I love you" "I love you too" , "I have to move out of state, it's just something I have to do" "I understand, I'll always love you, hopefully we'll meet up again someday".

Oh well. I'm starting to get that little bit of a sinking-homesick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I've been in this same place for a long time. I've never lived out of state. I've pretty much lived within 45mi of where I'm sitting right now. Mostly west and north of here, since right where I'm at is like half mile to the sound. Sort of looks like the ocean until you look up a little farther and see the giant mountains marking the Olympic peninsula.