So I've been 37
for about 5 days. Not a fan, really. Granted, it's not really anything
different, i just hate being closer to 40. A few years back, I started
taking a self portrait with each birthday. I probably should have
thought ahead and make them all a straight-on shot, but oh well. Here
we go:
34: 2005. On this day, Mrs. Sully-to-be and I went to meet with
someone about buying a house. No way in hell did I think it would work
out. It did. We were pretty damn freaked out. A few days later, we
started house hunting and checking out home builders. A month later, we
decided (on the first place we visited). Then came six months of
"oh-this-is-so-cool-we-can-afford-this-right?" over and over.
35: 2006. We'd been in the new house a little over six months at
this time, I'd been working for T-mo for three, and married for 20
days. Lappy took this pic for me. Thanks, lappy!
36: Fucking horrible day. RIP Charlie, my girl. It's one thing
to have to put a pet to sleep. It's another to have to do that on your
own freekin' birthday. That week, I'd noticed that Charlie had been
limping a bit, so I took her to get an xray on the 28th. A few hours
later, I learned that she had bone cancer. I could have opted to
amputate, but it had spread into her chest. There was no hope. The plan
was to bring her home, and try to spend as much time with her through
the weekend, and bring her to the vet on Monday and put her to sleep.
She had a cast on her leg to keep it from breaking, and we tried as
best as we could to have a quiet weekend with her. She was pretty doped
up and didn't really move from one of her beds in the living room.
Charlie slept in our room, but since she didn't really want to get off
of her bed, I decided to bring a mattress into the living room, and I
put it next to her, and I tried to sleep. Of course, I woke up whenever
I heard her collar jingle, but I was with her. The next morning (the
29th), it was clear that she was ready to go. I called the vet, and
brought her at 2pm. It was easily one of the hardest things I've ever
had to do. I held her and told her what a good girl she was, and that I
loved her very, very much. Even a year later, it's damn near
devastating to relive.
I had planned to scatter her ashes in the
baseball field that she and I would play in (before we moved down to
Texas), but when the time came, I couldn't do it. It's still too hard.
Anyway, Lappy took this one before I broke down completely.
...and 37: Lappy took the first one. Sadly, there was a lot of light, and when
that happens, lappy tends to take grainy pictures. Thankfully,
Photoshop came to the rescue. The second pic was taken with my
point-and-shoot. I messed with it a bit in PS as well. I kinda like it.