Addie

2018 - 2022

People tend to have this misconception about soulmates and true love. They don’t realize that these things are not just about romantic love, they are also about platonic love. That being said, I have lost my soulmate, and now the world seems so much darker and cold than it did. Nothing was more essential to my well-being than that dog, and now that she’s gone, I have no idea how I’m going to survive this life. Every day that I came home stressed and tired, I could sit on the arm of my couch and she would walk right in front of me like she knew I needed a hug. I think she did know, dogs are pretty perceptive but Addie was on a different level, she was like a mirror for my emotions, if I was stressed and tired she was there to lay with me, if I was full of energy she was ready to play, if I just needed something to rest my head on, she was there, like a big white pillow. I think that is by far what I’m going to miss the most, laying my head, my ear, on her chest, and hearing her breathe, hearing her heartbeat, just rejoicing in the simple fact that the love of my life was still alive.

I always knew our time would be cut short. Dogs are always gone too fast, but Addie was off like a bullet. As I’m writing this, it’s been two days since she left, but it feels like it’s been a million years. I only really knew her for a year, the two beforehand she was just my mom’s dog, but when I moved to Austin, from the very first day, I knew I had met my true love.

I only knew her for a year, but the bond that I formed with her was already stronger than any bond I had ever formed in my life, no man or animal could possibly compare to the absolutely bottomless pits of love I felt for that beautiful creature, it felt like I could never get enough of that dog, and now I know that I was right, I’m never going to be able to get enough. Never going to tickle her ears or tug on the tufts of hair in her feet, never going to rub my hand along her back, never going to share a look of pure joy when on a walk, there are so, so many things that I’m never going to be able to do again and every single one of them is like a hot dagger through my heart. Every single memory of her, every strand of hair still stuck in the corner of the house, all the drool stains left on my pants, every single thing is like a virus ripping through my brain, reminding me that all those things are gone forever. All I have left is her scent and my memories, and even those will fade over time.

That’s the worst part of losing someone, I think. Knowing that over time, it's going to get easier, not because you’ve learned to live with the grief, but because with every single day, the memories you have get hazier and hazier. I don’t want to forget. I may never be able to get my dog back, but if I could stay in this state of constant pain, I would, because at least then the memories would still be fresh. I can still remember the feeling of her fur, I can remember where it was softest and where it was coarse, I remember the specific spots that would make her shake her leg and do that stupid face she did, I remember how I would laugh like a child every time she sneezed. I want to keep remembering those things, but I just won’t. I can’t. I have to move on, to keep living, to keep on swimming.

I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. That dog was my coping mechanism, the only way I could stand to deal with the world, and now that she’s gone, I have to try and come up with some other way to cope with the loss of my only true friend. It feels like a cruel joke.
I just wish I could take her on one more walk. I’d show her off to all the people at the park, I’d let her chase the squirrels and say hi to the other dogs, especially the three legged shiba that wanted so fucking bad to meet her, I’d sit with her on the bench one more time and kiss her fuzzy head, and I’d just stay like that forever and ever, just knowing that she loved me and knew she was loved.

It’s hard not to be angry. It’s hard to try and keep a healthy state of mind despite every cell in my body telling me to hate, to get revenge, to lash out at anything connected to her. But I know that won’t help, that it would just burn bridges that she built for me, that it would taint the love I had for her.

I don’t know what else to say. The love of my life is gone, and my world has been cast into the darkest recess of the universe, entirely devoid of any light, not even any stars in the sky to light up the night, just the freezing cold of the void, stopping my heart ever so slowly.

The love of my life is gone, and the stars went with her.