We have started the process of adding another guinea pig to our family.  Before you say anything, it is early.  It is soon.  But I also know that I’m not the kind of person who can be without a pet.  In weighing out the mental health factors in taking time to mourn but being without a guinea pig vs. trying to mourn and care for a new pig at the same time, I’ve opted to go the latter route.

Is it the recommended option?  No.  Is it what I need to do?  Yes.

The woman who gave us Cozy and Truman retired in the fall.  I spent many hours Googling guinea pig breeders within a two hour drive and found only one.  I contacted various clubs in the area that involved animals, and I’m still waiting to hear back if they know about private breeders.  We drove to four different pet stores, but I couldn’t connect emotionally with any of the pigs.  Plus I felt squeamish getting a pig where the store knew nothing about its origins.  They couldn’t tell me age or breed.  Probably not a good sign.

There were a few older pigs in area rescues, but we don’t want an older pig.  We want a baby.  We want as much time as possible with the pig.  Plus all the rescues require you to adopt two pigs, and we only have room for one and have always kept pigs, one at a time.

During my third round of Googling, I found a woman about a half hour away who needs to rehome two infant guinea pigs.  She posted four pictures of the male twins, and my heart exploded.  One was spoken for according to the listing.  The other was available.

I wrote her and she wrote back immediately, admitting that there is a possible person in front of us.  They are on the fence and will decide next weekend.  If that placement falls through, we can bring the pig into our family.  I went to bed staring at his picture.  I woke up and alternated between thinking about Truman and this new pig.

It is hard not to be hopeful, but I keep reminding myself that this is — at best — a 50/50 chance.  Until he is in our family, he is not part of our family.

Part of me wishes that I hadn’t found this pig until the other person had made a decision.  Part of me feels relieved to experience something akin to love toward another pig, even if that pig doesn’t remain in my life.  It means it can happen.  It means we can find another pig who fits into our family, who fills the hole, the missing piece, with its own unique sweetness rather than trying to replace the irreplaceable Truman.

Because I’ve had this fear that my heart wouldn’t let another pig in.  It’s always the fear until it isn’t the fear; that idea that maybe our heart can’t bounce back.  Maybe it’s too broken and this is it.  Or maybe our heart will heal in the surface sense; we’ll be able to coo at other people’s pets even if we know that we won’t be bringing another pet into our own house.

The ChickieNob keeps telling me that our pig is out there.  Maybe it’s the infant pig that we saw in the listing (we’ll know between now and this Saturday).  Maybe it’s a completely different pig we don’t know about yet.  Either way, we’ve started the process.  We’re mourning and filling at the same time.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I miss Truman.  I am not shy about crying in front of the kids or Josh.  I am not shy about crying in public.  I cried in the grocery store buying parsley because it was unusually crisp, and it made me so sad to think about making soup stock without my baby wheeking through the whole thing.

I cry when I’m driving, especially if I see someone walking their dog.  I am aware that Truman wasn’t a dog, but that person has their pet and I don’t.  I cry when I walk downstairs and there is no one greeting me in the morning, and I cry when I look in the corner of the room and realize anew that there is no one to say goodnight to in the living room.

But I mostly cry in the shower.  I am a shower crier.  Sometimes I can feel my sadness or frustration building in the morning, and I wait to shower until it feels like every emotion is going to spill over.  Then I get under the water and wail.  I’m not just saying now, mourning Truman, but always.  I have always been a shower crier.

Do you cry in the shower, too?  Is it safe because you’re alone?  Because the sound of the water covers up any sounds of tears?  Because you can wash your face before stepping back out of the bathroom and facing the day?

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We had to put Truman to sleep.  And now the house is very quiet; so still that it feels like even I am not really here.

On his last day, he watched me do yoga.  He wasn’t eating despite wheeking for food and nosing his bowl every few minutes, seeing if I gave him something different.  He didn’t want lettuce, but I had given him carrots the night before (and he ate all of his overnight food), and didn’t want to give them again.  He even rejected critical care.  The pig never rejected critical care.

I gave him some water by hand and called the vet.

There were two appointments; one if I could get there in the next fifteen minutes and the other in the late afternoon.  I took the one in the afternoon because we live more than fifteen minutes from the vet.  He continued to snuffle around the rest of the day, but was pretty subdued.

And then he lay down on his side and his limbs started shaking.  He arched his head back and his eyes were wide open, but I don’t think he was seeing anything.  I called the vet’s office and was told to bring him in immediately.

I cried the whole drive over there and told him how much I loved him.

The doctor said his heart was barely beating and that it was cruel to keep him alive and let him die slowly over the next hour.  So I picked him up and gave him three kisses — I always gave him three kisses — and stroked him for a little while, repeating how much we love him.  He was so limp, half-gone, and letting out little, shuddering breaths from time to time.  His head never moved from that tilted back position.

After he was gone, she wrapped him in a purple towel and I drove him home.  I didn’t play his vet music in the car because he couldn’t hear it.  I didn’t have to drive with one hand on his back telling him not to climb out of his box because he could no longer climb out of his box.

It was just me, alone, going home to meet Josh and tell the kids that our guinea pig was gone.

They were devastated.  My parents came over and we buried Truman, each of us giving him a last cookie.  I cleaned out his cage and washed his dishes.  And then there was nothing left to do except say, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I am so sad.  A few nights ago, ChickieNob and I were fooling around with Truman, and I took a bunch of pictures of them puckering their lips at one another.  I can’t believe that’s all I have left of my little moo.

I am sitting here, feeling a vague wave of nausea, waiting for everyone to wake up so we can face this day together.  We will not be watching the Inauguration.  We don’t normalize hate in this house, and unlike our local Girl Scouts, we don’t participate in events just for history’s sake.  We make mindful decisions based on the facts we have on hand, and those facts point us directly in the opposite direction of this administration.  Where they hate, we’ll help.

We’ll start by not participating in today’s event.  It’s a small step, but it’s an important one because if we don’t take this first step, that normalization paves the way for a lot of other small steps that lead nowhere good.

Wishing everyone a deep breath today.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Other Side” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Just a Normal Day in the Backyard” (Persnickety Chickadee)
• “Wordless Wednesday” (Persnickety Chickadee)
• “Nicht Mein Problem” (Elaine Ohne Kind)
• “Adoption on Screen: ‘This is Us’ and ‘Lion’ Give New Focus” (Lavender Luz)
• “IVF vs Adoption Waiting” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Biogirl’s post on keeping (or not keeping) resolutions cracked me up, especially the part about her journal from childhood.  Yes, you will need to click over to find out the diary entry because it’s too brief to write about without ruining the punchline.

Notes from the Ninth Circle brings in a baseball analogy when she gets bumped down to the fertility minor league for a cycle while her body recuperates.  I kept returning to this line: “But it feels weird to have a new plan and be waiting to implement it.”

My Path to Mommyhood reassures all good-hearted people that yes, she has considered it; “it” being whatever is about to come out of their mouth.  She points out: “That question feels like it is a judgment on our choices, which were difficult beyond measure and individual to our circumstance.”  It’s a great post, and one that people should read before they pose the question.

Lastly, Lavender Luz has a post about adoption reform.  She states: “Reforming policy and law is one necessary step, but it’s not the last step. Not until ideas of respect, empathy, and inherent value of others also take root in people’s hearts can true and enduring change happen” while drawing a line between reforms that brought about equality in regards to law but not full application in every facet of society.  The post begins in the link above and continues to a second space.

The roundup to the Roundup: Abnormal times call for an abnormal response.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 13th and January 20th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I don’t have regrets — Norway was great — but the story is still sort of funny when I admit it aloud.  I gave up a trip to a place I had wanted to go just because I didn’t think it could match the dream version.  It probably can’t — that dream still makes me happy — and my fake Australia did not contain spiders, snakes, or anything that would freak me out during waking hours.

The Atlantic recently had an article about false memories; things we believe with all our heart to be true, but they never happened (or they didn’t happen like that).  We insist that we know for certain the order of events or who was there or what we wore.  It feels so real, and yet scientists can prove that some of our strongest memories still turn out to be false.  They have even been able to easily plant false memories or manipulate memories with just a few words.

Harrington, now a professor of literary journalism the University of Illinois, once said, “Truth is a documentary, physical reality, as well as the meaning we make of that reality, the perceptions we have of it.”

A true story is always filtered through the teller’s take on it.

I guess the article struck me, especially because I read it while I was thinking about the dream.  If I wouldn’t accurately recall the experience regardless, what was the difference between the dream trip and a real trip once we got beyond the logistics of travel?  After the trip was over, my brain would fictionalize my memories of Australia.  Was it worth messing with the perfect Australia in my dream if both dream and real Australia were going to end up as fiction?

There is clearly a lot of worth in travel (beyond getting to spend time with my friend), and I’m being tongue-in-cheek about our memories becoming fictionalized, but the article made me feel a little less embarrassed that I didn’t want to give up the warm, happy memory of my dream for a reality that could never match how I felt winding around the islands.

Does it bother you to think that some of your favourite memories may not be real?  Or are you so happy with the memory that it’s okay if it didn’t exactly happen as you imagine (as long as you never find out otherwise)?