Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Dolly’s music, though, I’ve decided, always has an answer.
I’m not obsessive or anything, but one of the rules of my house is that Dolly’s CDs always take priority over other music. A new song comes out that Benji really likes to jam to? Great. But as the sun sets and the wine kicks in, Dolly’s coming back. You really can’t beat paying the price of a CD for therapy.
And yes, I’m a thirty-one-year-old woman who still buys CDs and plays them from a nineties-style boom box I found at a secondhand shop years ago. I’m nostalgic like that. A Time Life dream customer, if you will.
I swing open the cabinet and pull out the bottle of Pinot Noir I just bought yesterday. It’s not long before I have a glass filled and I’m taking my first—and very much needed—sip of wine.
Benji’s paws tip-tap across the floor as he meanders into the kitchen and finds a spot beside the island to lie down. However, I can tell he’s making sure his eyes are on me at all times.
But that’s his job. He’s my service dog.
Basically, vasovagal syncope is a neurological condition that involves a drop in my blood pressure, heart rate, or both at the same time, and sends me into a brief—but severely inconvenient—loss of consciousness. It can happen when I’m sitting or standing or walking or talking or pretty much doing anything at all, and for many years, I had to manage recognizing the signs and symptoms myself in order to do something about it before catastrophe struck. My success rate was marginal at best.
Enter Benji.
Five years ago, just about a year after my divorce from my ex-husband Jamie, my four-legged friend came into my world and changed my life forever.
My superhero canine knows when my blood pressure and heart rate drop way before I do and makes sure I do something about it before I whack my head on the floor. He’s a literal lifesaver, and now, after almost half a decade together, he’s also my best friend.
A little pathetic, sure, that the main man in my life has paws and a propensity for drooling whenever the smell of meat is in the air, but I swear I’ve never met a human who outshines him. He’s a great listener, he’s calm, cool, and collected, and as made obvious tonight by his new Batman costume, he looks aces in pleather.
I don’t know when or why I started putting Benji in superhero costumes, but it just kind of happened, and it’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t feel right unless he’s Iron Man or Superman or any of the other mans that dominate the superhero stratosphere.
“You know, Benj, you almost look risqué in that getup. It’s probably good that we’re testing it out at home before we take it to the streets. I wouldn’t want you attracting the wrong kind of attention.” He groans, and I hold up a hand defensively. “I swear I won’t be a nightmare mother-in-law when you meet your soul mate, but I need her to be at least a little respectable. Kind, understanding, doesn’t bark after midnight—that kind of thing.”
He woofs lightly—at a volume that doesn’t anger the neighbors—and I smile. “I know. Dating is hard for me too. But we’re going to find our happily ever afters eventually…I’m sure of it.”
I’m not sure of it, but I heard you’re supposed to put the things you want out into the universe. Positive reinforcement or manifestation or whatever they call it on TikTok.
Truthfully, I’m making exactly zero progress on the love-life front. Pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of dates I’ve had since my divorce from my childhood sweetheart six years ago.
Jamie and I got married at twenty-three, right after graduating from Middle Ohio University, and spent two mediocre years trying to criticize each other into different people. I wish I could say there was some big cataclysmic event that broke us up, but sometimes the biggest changes come out of living a life with no change at all.
We lived in small-town Ohio, going to the same jobs, seeing the same people day after day, and for my ex-husband, that meant contentment. It was peace; it was comfort. Unfortunately for me, the longer I sat behind my desk at the high school with my plaque that said School Counselor, the more I felt like I was coming out of my skin.
He was a good guy with good intentions, but good intent doesn’t always equate to good results. In the end, it led to resentment from him and me, and he left the marriage emotionally. I don’t have specific evidence that he was cheating, and to be honest, I wouldn’t blame him too much if he had been. We were about as much of lovers as a couple of old, worn gym socks are haute couture.