December 26th, 2022

Possibly the worst day of my life.

I watched the movie Collateral Beauty last night hoping it would inspire me, make me feel less jaded, less sad. It didn’t, I actually think the movie was kind of…. shit?

However the idea of collateral beauty got me thinking.

December 26th, 2022 is the day I found out my dog had lymphoma, that there is no “cure” and that even with chemo she probably wouldn’t make it another year, I thought I was taking her to the vet for something minor, a little bump that was bothering her, maybe a bug bite or an abscess or something. The idiot I am, when the vet said lymphoma, I said ok so how do we treat it, I didn’t even know what it was, and when she said Presley wouldn’t live more than another year it was like a scene in a movie, where I could hear her talking, but it sounded distant, I was totally zoned out. My fiancé had just left me two months ago and now my dog is going to die? I immediately felt this awful feeling in my chest, that I sometimes get when I think about the fact that she’s really gone forever, and it haunts me.

Collateral beauty to my understanding is basically finding the beauty in the shit. Finding the beauty life gives you, even in dark times live offers beauty.

At the time I didn’t think anything was beautiful, I was full of anger and hurt, shit some days I still am. While I couldn’t find beauty in anything then, and I’ve lost a lot of my spark for life, I have looked back and seen the beauty in some of it.

The honor of adopting that dog was beauty.

The honor of spending 5 and a half great years with that dog? Beauty.

Seeing that dog go from a little misbehaved shit, to a gentle soul, beauty.

Experiencing unconditional love? something I’ll always hold close. Beauty.

Giving unconditional love? Beauty.

Seeing how much I could care for something, how selfless I have the power to be? Beauty.

Seeing that dog peacefully die, with no pain, and no worry in my arms? Beauty.

And my personal favorite: Experiencing true grief, and realizing that grief is just unexpressed love I never got to give her? Fucking beauty.

I didn’t see it a year ago, but looking back, all these things were collateral beauty, things I never would have realized had she not gotten sick and passed.

That being said I’d trade all these beautiful things to have her back, and I’d trade my life to give hers back, because the impact she had on the people around her was greater than the impact I could ever have on the people around me.

It’s been a heavy 14 months,

But as Kimbra says:

“As long as I’m alive I get to start again.”

And as hard as it’s been and will continue to be,

It’s time to start again.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.