Texas – Page 2 – …on the B.L.

Pride was last month. Like all the other heritage months, those who belong exist the other eleven months of the year. I love Pride. I think it’s great. A month long opportunity to celebrate, learn, challenge, and spread love. For the LGBTQ+ community, Pride is every day, all day, forever. It’s an existence.

A combination of not being able to and spreading the joy, this post is coming after Pride month has come to an end. If you didn’t dive into learning about LGBTQ+ issues or stories during Pride, there’s no better time than the present. Learning is a never ending pursuit.

I belong to the LGBTQ+ community, but I have so much to learn as well. We all do. None of us can know all of the things. Although, that’s not going to stop me from trying. These are three of my favorite books I’ve read recently dealing with rainbow issues. If you don’t know much, these are a great place to start. They’re grounded in personal stories, so you can connect and empathize with the people that make up this beautiful community.

Of course I posed in front of a church with this one. How could I not?

The Queer Bible edited by Jack Guinness
I loved this one so, so, so much. It’s jam packed with illustrations, stories, maps, and more. It’s told by and supports the LGBTQ+ community. A collection of essays by well known members of the queer community about their personal queer icons. From David Furnish to Tan France to Graham Norton to Mae Martin and so many more. They’re personal stories of discovery but also love letters to the people who inspired them.
Memorable Quotes
“This book is dedicated to my queer ancestors who went before me, that I never knew existed, whose stories we’ll never know, I hope that I’m making you proud.” Jack Guinness—dedication

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I sat on a rainbow in a rainbow dress for Queer Love in Color.

Queer Love In Color by Jamal Jordan
The queer community has been marginalized for so long, but to be a person of color and queer is double the marginalization. So often the queer narrative has been told by the white community. The media has portrayed white queer stories. Where are the people of color? They exist. Jamal Jordan photographed people around the world and tells their love stories in this marvelous book.
Memorable Quotes
“Their stories range widely, but one thing kept coming up: the feeling that, on some level, finding love felt impossible.”

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I will find color whenever and wherever I can.

The Queens’ English by Chloe O. Davis
Language fascinates me as a writer and a linguist. Words are fluid; they change with time, geography, community, and more. Words are a way of excluding and including people. The LGBTQ+ community has their own language, which evolved as much as a way to protect themselves as to include themselves. So much of queer language has seeped into the mainstream vernacular, but so much of queer language has not.
I am known for being decades if not centuries behind on slang. I’ve found mainstream language difficult to understand, and I have found queer language just as difficult because my head has been hidden in books for years. The Queens’ English is a cheeky and very thorough dictionary that opens queer terms to me and I’m sure countless others. This is a fabulous book that is simultaneously heartbreaking, inspiring, educational, and uproariously funny. One of the most important things to remember, Davis says, “Many of the terms are not appropriate for people not in the LGBTQIA+ community to use.”
Memorable Quotes
“The Queens’ English is merely a starting point for the important conversations around inclusivity, sexuality, gender expression and identity, gay slang that’s been co-opted by mainstream culture, and queer American terminology that’s been around for decades.”

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Happy reading, my dears. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do. They’re inspiring and beautiful. They showcase the ever expanding range of humanity and our capacity to survive and love. Because love is love, and we all are exactly who we are.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Hey! I’m Queer. Happy Pride!

June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 RaeAnna

Does this outfit make me look gay? Good.

Hey, y’all. I’m queer. Pansexual to be specific. This isn’t my coming out. I’m fully out of the closet. If I’m being honest, I never had an I’m-not-straight talk with anyone. It’s just been something that has existed as a solid fact in my life for a decade now. My non-heterosexual identity has been talked about for awhile, but as I get older, I’m feeling the need to live more loudly in my queer identity. This story is a whole lot longer than a single blog post, and, honestly, I may turn it into a collection of essays at some point. Let’s be honest, I’m unpacking so many things about my sexuality that I have kept firmly in a box unto itself, which is very unfair to my identity and journey as a human.

I never felt the need to come out for a whole lot of reasons. Too many to count. The two biggest being my family and my college.

I grew up in a weird house. Conservative in as many ways as it was liberal. So much progress mired in an ideology founded in my parent’s small, Midwestern childhoods’ of the 60s and 70s. My parents were and are accepting, but they did not grasp the nuance, language, or broad rainbow spectrum. They were products of their generation, and it showed[s] in their language, phrasing, expression, and beliefs. Equally, I am a product of my own generation, education, family, and ultimately genetics.

Cornell College, my alma mater, is incredibly liberal. The epitomization of: college is for self-exploration. My friends embodied “Do the thing. Do all the things. Try them now before life crushes us with debt and responsibility.” Damn, I love those humans. There were labels, but if you were on a journey and didn’t label anything, well that was okay too. Label it or don’t, just be a good person.

I remember writing, “I think I’m gay.” at twelve. I quite literally burned that piece of paper. For so many reasons I couldn’t name back then. Shame (which was not instilled in me by my parents or church, just, you know, society and the patriarchy). Isolation. Mostly uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t gay in the binary that I was aware of. Bisexuality wasn’t even presented to me as an actual sexuality… I’m not even going to get into that here. The isolation came from knowing I wasn’t straight, but knowing I wasn’t gay either. In a progressive town that had… all but no gay people (that I knew of, especially at the time), I would have been very much alone in an identity I still had no name for. For the kids reading this, this is pre-high speed internet, and I would have had to know the term to look it up in a dictionary—it’s a large book containing all the words and their definitions. I remember hearing people say, “Oh, she’s gay.” But “she” had moved out of town years before. Had I known what I was and been out in high school, it would have changed nothing because there were only boys to date anyways.

For so many reasons, the unknown of what I was didn’t affect my adolescence in any way. Truly, there is zero trauma stemming from my pansexual existence; loads and loads of trauma from other things in my life, though!

I don’t have that trauma because of a seminal moment in my adolescence.

But first, back story. I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn’t get my first period until I was sixteen. I was not interested in sex until I met the love of my life at almost twenty. (I did get raped repeatedly by my high school “boyfriend” from 17 to 19. Oh hey there, trauma. Sup?) My sexuality wasn’t a crisis because it didn’t really exist for twenty years. I did not go through the boy/girl/sex crazy phase. Ever. I might be entering it now at thirty. Like I said, late bloomer. I became a sexual human at 19.5 when I fell in love and entered my first serious relationship with a human, who happened to be male. I fell in love with the human because he was and is incredible.

More back story. As a kid, I was pretty intensely into ballet. I was also a cheerleader, had a huge affinity for dresses, played the flute, was working on being a classical pianist, had straight As for most of middle school and high school (getting raped affected that a bit), obsessed with wearing heels. In so many ways, all arrows pointed to girly-girl, on the surface. (I still present super femme.) Dig deeper into my psyche and for those who knew/know me, the gender expression and sexuality waters get a lot murkier, but I won’t get into that right now.

On to the seminal moment.

At fifteen, I was walking through the kitchen, having just gotten home from cheerleading practice. My mother was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce. One hand controlling the wooden spoon. One hand holding the pan. One foot grounded and the other on a stool, a bit Captain Morgan-ish now that I think about it. As I walk past, she says, “RaeAnna, I have a question for you.” My mother is never this formal. The Type A personality in me froze. What had I done wrong??? “Okay?” Without missing a beat or looking at me, still very much focused on her task, “Are you a lesbian?” Not the question I was expecting at all. It was so far off my radar, I really never ever thought I would hear that question. I had always known that if I was gay that it would be no big deal. My parents would be able to accept that without a problem (probably one of the few things about the authentic me that have been easily accepted). I hadn’t really thought about it since writing “I think I’m gay” three years prior. Like I said, not a sexual human at that point in time. “Um… Not that I know of.” Again, without missing a beat, “Okay. Just asking. If that ever changes, let me know.” One of the most nonchalant conversations I have ever had with the woman. She has given me a lifetime’s worth of writing material, but this is one of the moments I look back on and respect the hell out of her for.

If you don’t know me, if you don’t follow me, if you’re just meeting me for the first time, I present as ultra feminine, conservative, Christian, Suzy Homemaker, Type A, straight woman. I can be femme, but I also have some serious masc energy. I am absolutely not conservative; I get why people think that, but yikes no. I live my life pretty conservatively because that’s my comfort zone. Haha, trauma. But I am not conservative in any way at all. I am quite the flaming liberal, progressive, intersectional feminist. I’m not Christian; I’m atheist, but I was raised Methodist. I am definitely a Suzy Homemaker. Call me grandma; I love cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, taking care of people, and keeping a clean house. I hate cleaning, but I AM Type A with a touch of OCD. Hey there, I’m neurotic, fun neurotic, still neurotic, though. I am NOT straight. I have only been in relationships with men. For a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with preferring men to women.

There was never an announcement of my queerness. No discussion. No party. I never officially came out. I never felt the need. It started with an “I’m attracted to women.” progressed to “I would definitely date women.” before turning into “I would have sex with women.” and eventually became “I’m attracted to people. I could spend my life with any gender.” It was slowly and steadily established as a fact about me. It’s been the last six years that I started using the term pansexual to describe myself. It’s been in the last year that I’ve started claiming queer. It’s a journey, and I’m on it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

In Seven Days, I Turn 30 Years Old

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021 RaeAnna

This past year has been quite the year. So long!

I turned twenty-nine.

I rescued a dog, who had thirteen puppies.

I raised those puppies and that dog in the midst of a global pandemic while depending on the kindness of family and friends as we bought a house as we dealt with rare puppy disorders as we coped with Dylan losing his job as my work slowed down to a near halt as we criss-crossed the country.

For the first three months of the pandemic, I was stuck inside with fifteen dogs, of which thirteen were completely dependent upon their mama and me. I was run ragged to the point of complete exhaustion. My body was even starting to give out under the physical strain of toting around thirteen large puppies.

As a constant struggler of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in a perpetual nihilistic crisis, it was not an ideal time to be trapped inside with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company.

Now, I work from home under normal circumstances, so I am very used to my own company. I used to joke about never leaving the house, but that’s not nearly true. I was always on the go. Having lunch with friends, traveling, going to dog parks, attending events, exploring fun Houston things, creating content, and so much more. My calendar and life were filled with talented people who inspire me.

Everything changed. The puppies gave me a brief respite. They’ve helped alleviate the catastrophic train wreck that would have been my mental health with their pure existence in my life. But during the pandemic, I’ve felt like I’m watching my impending quarter-life crisis trundling right at me for all of the reasons: imagined and real.

I turn thirty in one week. I am not one of those women who are scared of turning thirty. In fact, I quite embrace it. The vast majority of me is so ready to be out of my twenties. Those really sucked a big D. I’ve gone so far as to preemptively tell people I’m thirty for the last few months because why the fuck not. At the same time, thirty does come with its fair share of burdens.

As a woman, this is an age where culture, society, the media are persistently confronting me with an alarm clock ticking down the time left on my worth to and in this world.

I feel like time is running out. I’m almost thirty. Society is a barrage that, as a woman, life ends at thirty. I know it doesn’t. So far all the women I know over thirty have not ceased to exist when their 10,957 day arrived. But, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t help internalizing all the cues telling me life as I know it is over for me and, in a week, I’ll be shipped off to the glue factor with last month’s Kentucky Derby winner—who even remembers that horse anyways. I think if we took the part where I had to age in society out of the equation, I wouldn’t care at all. If I could hermit á la Michel de Montaigne circa 1571, I don’t think I would give a rats ass about aging and this post wouldn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, I must be of this world.

Me wearing the bikini and being all but thirty in this world because I can and will and won’t stop.

I would be 100% lying to you if I said, “I have not ended up covered in snot crying on the kitchen floor being held by my partner as the dogs try to figure out what’s wrong with their seemingly resilient mama because I’m getting older and the world will stop looking at me and stop caring because I have a gray hair (I haven’t found one yet; that’s not a lie) and the hints of forehead wrinkles so none of my big dreams will come true because they haven’t come to fruition yet and all this work has been for naught and fucking life is hard.” That would be a lie. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t happen at regular intervals over the last two years. I’m not scared of getting older, but I’m scared of how the world will treat me as I get older. The world hasn’t been kind to me for the first thirty years when I was apparently worth something, so how the hell is it going to be for the next seventy years? Society tells me: not great.

Life is terrifying. There is so much to process, handle, solve, enjoy, escape, see, do, taste, smell, and avoid all the time; honestly, I love each and every one of those pieces of living life. But being an aging woman is just terrifying. I know it’s different for me than it was for my mother and grandmothers, but things haven’t changed so much that wrinkles and grays and numbers don’t matter in the world. They do. And I don’t really care for anyone to tell me otherwise because my entire life all I’ve ever been validated for is my looks and what that means for my place in the world. The marriage I could make, the doors that will open, the way life will be “easier” because I was tall, thin, fair. So for me and my life experience, the moment my boobs start to droop, my waistline starts to expand, my hair starts to thin, my skin starts to slacken, what will I be? Who will care? It doesn’t matter and has never mattered that I’m intelligent, well-spoken, a linguist, possess a wicked wit, kind, giving, accepting, an activist, a writer, a creative, a critic, a dog mom, a friend, and all the other things that actually make me me and interesting and complex. My existence has always and almost solely been validated and made worthy by the way I look.

Who I am has always just been a positive addendum to the way I look.

I have never liked close up portraits. My teeth are funny. My nose is weird. I’m hyper critical of everything. As I get older, I see the lines, the pores, the acne that had never been there, everything. But if I don’t take them now, I never will, and I’ll look back and say, “damnit, I should have.” And I don’t do regret.

So… I love getting older. I’m wiser, funnier, smarter, humbler, more experienced, a better listener, a better talker, a deeper thinker than I was at twenty. I think I’m cuter, but that’s probably because I know how to do my makeup better. I truly and completely love getting older. Life is so much better than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, a year ago. I know myself more completely. I am happier at a week away from thirty than I was at a week away from twenty.

But… I’m scared of getting older. I don’t know how the world will treat me. I know how the world has treated women. I know how I want the world to treat women. And goddamnit, I have the audacity to age like the women who’ve come before me.

Now… I can only do one thing. Wake up tomorrow and keep on living my life. I’m going to moisturize and exercise—sometimes, infrequently, it will become a habit—to fight off aging physically, emotionally, but most of all mentally. More than anything, I’m going to keep working on my dreams. I’m going to keep creating new dreams. I’m going to strive for happiness. I’m going to live my life fully and enthusiastically surrounded by weirdos who love life and me. I’m going to support women and be everyone’s cheerleader. I’m going to be kind and find beauty in my body as it changes with the days and years I have ahead of me. I’m going to write. I’m going to lift up women’s voices of all ages because the world needs to remember that we women continue to evolve not stagnate. I’m going to tell my stories because I have seventy more years of stories, and I’ve hardly started on telling the first thirty years. My life isn’t over. I’m not done living. I will age with audacity.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

On Anxiety: Getting Lost in the Woods

May 12, 2021May 11, 2021 RaeAnna

If this isn’t your first time here, you’ve probably noticed I have anxiety. That would be because I talk about it A LOT. It’s a huge part of my life and dictates a good portion of how I live and my internal musings. Lately, anxiety has been dousing me with an extra helping or twelve, and it has really been affecting everything from sleep to productivity to mostly sleep.

Beau looking back at me… Neither of us knew where we were or where we were going.

I’ve never been a big sleeper. Part of that comes from my natural circadian rhythm: I just don’t need tons of sleep to feel peppy, focused, and productive. The other part is my eternal FOMO. I have had a fear of missing out since I was an infant, which is long before that term entered the patois. My parents will be the first to say that I would not sleep if there was even an inkling of something happening. I remember being about three years old, hopping out of bed during my nap to have a listen at the door because I wanted to know what was happening: Mom was watching a soap opera, but damnit I was not going to miss out on what was going on in Susan’s third husband’s love child’s second marriage (I just made that up, but I’m sure that’s come up at least thrice). The longer I sleep the more I miss out on: time to work, time to play, time to be awake and do nothing but at least I won’t miss anything while I’m awake doing nothing.

As much as I don’t want to sleep, I do, in fact, need it. Anxiety keeps me up more than anything else. This isn’t new. I remember being eight and having a borderline anxiety attack (although I did not have the words for it then) about growing up and having to file taxes and also decide what my major in college would be. I ONLY HAD ELEVEN YEARS TO FIGURE IT OUT. Yeah, I was a weirdo then. Nothing has changed. As an adult, my anxieties are a bit more grounded in reality, but in eight year old me’s defense, those are real things to worry about… Just maybe not at eight years old.

Three weeks ago, I was in the midst of an anxiety spiral over some very real problems. Some of which have since been solved, yay! I couldn’t stop. It started on Sunday and reached its zenith Tuesday night. I hadn’t slept much, which was fine. I was nowhere near a psychotic episode, although anxiety said differently. Tuesday night, I did not sleep a wink. Not one bit. I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, stewing. I eventually did a bunch of reading, writing, working, and then in a desperate attempt to dumb my mind, hopped on TikTok. Beau was snuggled between my legs, content with the consistent inconsistency of her mother at nighttime.

Beau’s got this. She led the way. The way to nowhere helpful.

By 5:30 am, I had sufficiently given sleep my every effort and failed. The only failure I have been able to accept with out personal devastation. With the energy of a sleep deprived human—it’s actually quite a lot; after years of sleep deprivation, I am one of the most energetic and positive exhausted people in the history of the world—I literally skipped into my closet, put on running clothes, dressed Beau in her running gear (aka harness), woke up Dylan, let the puppies out/fed them, and ran out the door.

Exercise is one of my least favorite activities. I loathe it, but it is something I do with regularity because it is incredibly good for our bodies, brains, emotions, and overall health. COVID halted that, but I’m trying to slowly work myself back into life.

Running is at the tippy top of exercise I hate, which is exactly the reason I turn to it when I’m dealing with inordinate amounts of stress and anxiety. It takes equal parts determination and pain to start and keep going, making it the perfect mental distraction. Beau has come to look forward to times of high anxiety because she gets lots of walkies.

My neighborhood has tons of walking trails and parks. Beau isn’t the easiest dog in the world to walk. She wants to sniff all the things, chase any bird/leaf/squirrel, and zig zap like it’s an Olympic sport, but I like getting the alone time with my OG (Original Girl). She knows the drill, we head out the door straight for the walking track just down the road. We did one lap before a walk on the woodsy trail.

I decided to confuse Beau and do something different: Head onto the dirt trails deeper into the woods. The Iowa girl in me loves exploring nature. Living in Houston, there is a stark lack of hills and woods, though we have amazing parks and walking trails. My neighborhood has some unexplored woods, and this was the day to dive in.

Beau lead the way. She loves getting to zig zag without Mommy holding her back. Every fork in the path, Beau chose the direction. I was doing a good job tracking each turn… at first. For, maybe, the first two or three forks. A gazillion forks in… I was starting to think there was a potential of being lost. An hour and ten minutes into our walk-run, I decided it was time to turn around. As we made our way home, after several turns… I realized we were lost. For realsies lost. I knew where I was adjacent to my house, but getting there via trail or off trail was a completely different story.

At one point, I found a nice little, green sign nailed to a tree at one of many, many forks, denoting the paths: Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I let Beau choose Creekside because I truly had no idea which one to take… or if we’d even seen that on our adventure in. We followed the path choosing another fork. Next thing I knew, I was back at the intersection of Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. Frustrated, I took Rabbit Pun. Obviously Beau’s career as a Sherpa in Nepal is looking quite grim. After choosing another two forks, we were ONCE AGAIN facing Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I looked at Beau, who looked at me, who looked at the sign. My future as a Sherpa in Nepal is just as grim.

My anxiety had found a new and far more tangible outlet. We were officially lost in the woods.

In a desperate attempt to navigate homeward, I pulled up Google maps. Not helpful. It gave me directions from the nearest road. From the nearest road, it was a two and a half mile walk… According to Google we were about a mile, as the crow flies, from that road. My blue dot showed me standing in the middle of green space.

Luckily, there were beautiful scenes to see.

Off we went, once more on Rabbitt Pun. It felt like the right choice. About twenty minutes later, with no familiar physical indicator, we ran into a man and his two dogs. Beau was excited for company, and I was excited for directions.

We managed to find our way out of the woods… Nowhere near where we entered them, but out we were. What was going to be an hour walk turned into a two hour and forty-five minute walk, nine mile walk. Not at all a fast pace, but there was a lot of confused twirling in the woods.

Beau was thoroughly exhausted and over the moon with joy. I was tired and running late to work at Amanda’s shop, luckily, she didn’t care. My anxiety had found a realistic outlet. Between the utter lack of sleep and long walk, I was able to sleep later that night.

Anxiety’s a bitch. I’ve found my ways of coping with it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

COVID Came For Us; We Almost Didn’t Make It

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 RaeAnna

It’s been four months almost to the day since we found out we had COVID. By we, I mean Dylan and I.

Over the last four months, I have been silent. I haven’t publicly spoken or written about our COVID experience at the beginning of this year. There has been so much guilt in my heart and soul about having COVID. I am still struggling with that guilt, but as a writer, I can’t stay silent not while this pandemic rages on. I feel shame over having COVID. Like I need to keep it a secret and not talk about it, but I’m not an ostrich. My head does not belong in the sand, and I’ve never been one to shy away from telling the truths, my truths before. People are still complaining about wearing masks, fighting the harsh reality, saying it’s a conspiracy, claiming the vaccine is dangerous.

I am an immunocompromised human. Dylan is a disabled veteran. We were quarantining for our own health and the health of all humans. In our home, we believe in science and the reality of this pandemic.

Since the announcement of quarantine over a year ago, we have been social distancing like absolute champs. We stayed the fuck home. I stopped traveling. We started having our groceries delivered. We didn’t go out to eat. We hardly saw friends or left the house, except when completely necessary. We have worn masks and stayed away. We’ve sanitized and cleaned.

So many people did not believe in the seriousness of COVID until if affected them personally. We did not need to be affected personally to know the severity of COVID. Though we did have several friends who contracted it and recovered. They were fortunate to have uncomfortable but manageable symptoms.

We did everything we could to stay safe, but COVID came for us.

COVID still invaded our home, and we were met with the full force of it. Dylan and I had been so extremely careful, and yet it entered our home and almost took his life—and mine, but I’m ignoring the severity of my own situation. There’s nothing more, really, we could have done to prevent getting COVID, but I’m still struggling with guilt over contracting it. I have talked about it so infrequently that very few people in my personal life even knew about it at the time or even now. We didn’t advertise it. We were more concerned about surviving it because we both had fairly extreme cases. Only our very closest friends and family knew what we were going through.

On December 26, 2020, Dylan went to Chicago to visit his family. By December 28, he was admitted to the hospital with a positive COVID test and pneumonia. He didn’t have enough breath to call and tell me himself, so I found out over the phone from his mom once he’d been admitted. It was devastating. My partner of the last five years was in the hospital on the other side of the country fighting for his life, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

Blake, one of the closest people in my life, had come over to spend time with me and hang out with the dogs while Dylan was gone. He was there when I got the phone call. I felt horrible because I had put him in danger without meaning to. We went for COVID tests the next day. I had a sickening feeling that I would absolutely be positive for it because I had developed a bad cough the day before. On New Year’s Eve, I found out I had COVID and Blake did not. We knew it would be two weeks of quarantine before Dylan could even think about coming home, before I could leave the house, before Blake could leave the house. We were trapped in a new way. I was trapped sick in my house with someone I loved. I was trapped by fear that the one person I depended on to be okay might not survive.

Everyday, I struggled to breathe. My oxygen levels kept getting lower and lower and lower, yet I refused to go to the hospital because of the dogs. Blake is probably the only reason I did not die, but it was not good. (Don’t do what I do, kids. Go to the doctor.)

Everyday, I waited for texts from Dylan to know he was okay, he was still alive, he was still breathing on his own.

Everyday, I hoped to hear news that Dylan was responding well to treatment and could go home soon to finish his recovery.

Every few days, I heard from his nurses or doctors to find out how he was doing. The news was hopeful but never good.

He ended up staying in the hospital for almost three weeks. When he was finally released, he had to stay in Chicago for almost three more weeks, two of which he was dependent on oxygen. He visited specialists repeatedly, waiting on the all clear to come home. Dylan was all alone on the other side of the country with his family and doctors, but I worried constantly. I was at home with Blake, who did everything from cook to clean to take care of the dogs to helping me get dressed to checking on me in the middle of the night.

By the time Dylan came home, he had been gone for almost six weeks. He was better but not back to normal. I had not been completely honest with him about my own health because I did not want him to worry as he fought for his life. He was shocked by how sick I still was, but we made it through. We spent the next two months slowly working back into normalcy.

If we’re being honest, and I am, we are both still on the mend. Neither of us have full lung functionality. We still get tired and winded much easier than we used to. We are both grateful to be alive, to have survived.

Dylan and I are both completely vaccinated. The moment we were allowed to, we signed up. He had Moderna. I had Pfizer. He reacted with a sore arm and slight aches and pains. My reaction was slightly bigger with a sore arm, aches, pains, and a low-grade temperature. The second dose was easier for me than the first.

I was vaccinated through UTMB Health at their outdoor League City location. I signed up through their website: https://www.utmb.edu/covid-19/vaccine/ back in February. It took me a week and a half to get an appointment. Now that vaccinatio are open to everyone, I’m sure it looks a little different as far as the sign up process. I arrived at the site. I never once had to get in my car. It took about half an hour to snake through the park, sign in, read the information, and get my vaccination. I then proceeded to the parking lot, where I waited fifteen minutes to make sure I didn’t have any reaction. I was on my way. This was the process for my first dose and three weeks later for my second dose.

Dylan was vaccinated through Harris County in Waller at their outdoor location. His process was exactly the same with a shorter snake time because it was a smaller site, serving less people. It was fast and easy.

We are vaccinated. We still stay home more than we did in the before times. We wear masks when we go out. We sit outdoors when we go to restaurants. We believe in science. We believe in COVID. We believe in vaccines. We believe in doing our part. This isn’t over, but we have and will do whatever we can to make COVID a part of history.

Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Happy National Puppy Day from A Pack Mom

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 RaeAnna

Cuddling with three puppies and their mama. The others are somewhere doing something. I’m very attentive, I know.

Yesterday was National Puppy Day, and I missed it. Well, I watched everyone else post pictures about their puppies. I was lazy and didn’t.

The thing is, every day is puppy day in my house. Not only do I have four actual puppies, I have two older girls too. It’s a zoo. It’s chaos. It’s a furtacular event always. There is never a moment, big or small, that does not have something to do with the dogs. I can attribute that to their being enormous, multitudinous, and very attached to me. I go nowhere alone ever, and I love it.

Even as I write this, I have one asleep on each foot, two are upside down tug-o-warring, one is asleep in their box for naughty reasons, and a sixth is standing up on my wingback chair staring out the window in case of God knows what. That means there are five very big dogs in my small office. It’s wonderful. This is not a complaint. This is a brag. My office is better than your office.

A year ago, I had a home filled with Beau, the original rescue, Tess, the stray mama, and thirteen three week old puppies. I was determined to keep zero of the puppies. Life and a man had a completely opposing world view of what would happen, and I lost. Fast forward through the poop, tears, puppy breath, teething, potty training to today: I am a homeowner with a house full of six much bigger than expected dogs.

I would love to tell you this life is easy. It is not.

Having six dogs sounds amazing, and it is. Having six dogs sounds hard, and it is. Having six dogs sounds a little crazy, and it most certainly is. It was a choice and a commitment. It was a commitment to them and a commitment to Dylan, my pawtner in parenting. We made a commitment to each of our dogs to love, respect, raise, and maintain them until their last breaths, no take backsies. We made a commitment to one another that no matter what transpires between us, we will raise them together; we will not separate them; we will not keep them from the one another; we will share expenses; we will carry the burden; we will lean on the other when things are hard; and we will always create rules and boundaries together for them, no take backsies. Adopting one dog four years ago (wow) connected us in a more concrete way, making it more complicated if things went to go awry. Adding five more rescues to that equation… well, much, much, much more of a concrete connection. Worth it, but a challenge.

There are more than just the challenges of having six dogs. We did it in a COVID world where both our incomes and lives have been impacted very, very much. Tess was incredibly sick and pregnant when I picked her up off the street. Getting her healthy was expensive and heartbreaking. The puppies have some special needs, which makes it expensive and a bit complicated at times. (No complaint. I knew what I was getting into.) The reality is: VETS ARE EXPENSIVE. Their health is non-negotiable. We went without so they could be taken care of. We took on debt to take them to the ER. We buy their dog food first before our groceries. COVID made things much tighter, but it’s worth it.

On top of it, a rescue already existed in this home. Beau was the first priority. We made a decision to foster Tess and the puppies. We knew we wanted to keep Tess, but if the rescue in Beau couldn’t handle being in a multiple dog household, we would have made the very hard decision to find Tess and all the puppies their furever homes. Turns out Beau LOVED Tess immediately. They were inseparable and best buds from the beginning. They do everything together and literally hug every morning when they wake up. Beau also loves the puppies. It was an adjustment, but they adore her and she loves to play with them. But she still had to figure out how to be top dog, get attention, and cope with the fact she was no longer the sun, moon, and universe in two people’s worlds. She had to learn to share: time, food, love, attention, bed. Just kidding, she never learned how to share bed; she’s the only one that always sleeps in bed. Some of her neurosis were exacerbated at first, but with love, time, and extra attention, she’s back to her normal neurotic self.

Is it a breeze now? Fuck no.

It’s still hard. They’re still young. They’re still growing and learning and making mistakes and getting on each others’ nerves. Most days are amazing, but there are some days I cry. Being a dog parent to one is hard. Being a dog parent to six is still hard. Struggle is a part of taking care of and living with another being, human or not. The happiness outweighs all the negatives, but it’s work.

It. Is. A. Lot. Of. Work.

It takes a lot of work just to afford to maintain them and keep them healthy. It takes a lot of emotional work to stay calm in the chaos because I’m not going to fuck up my dogs’ emotional wellbeing with an inability to handle the fact they’re just being puppies. I do my best. Sometimes I fail. That’s okay. They love me anyways. They know they’re safe. They’re in the only home they’ve ever known with the only parents they’ve ever known being loved in the only way they’ve ever known: unconditionally, patiently, enthusiastically, and constantly.

My six dogs have been the catalyst for DRASTIC life changes over the last year, and I’m okay with that. Everything is for the better even when it has hurt like hell. They are and will be my number one priority until the day they die. I took on this responsibility, and no matter how hard it was, is, or will be, I chose to make their lives the very best I can.

If you ever find yourself in my home, know that you are watching six pieces of my heart and the very best of me walk around our home.

In honor of trying to be the very best pawrent I can be. I’m including six inspiration posters I created from things I’ve said to my dogs in my very best high pitched and happy-even-though-my-world-is-chaos-and-stressful dog parent voice: