Is this real?

Lately, it has been hard to accept that life has been as good as it has been. Some days I want to shout from the rooftops how much I love life in this very moment. In this very second as I type these words.

It was only over a year ago when I sat in my room and cried to myself as I wrote out a list of reasons for me to continue living. I had lost my job, my "everything", and to make matters worse- I was dealing with chronic pain. I truly felt helpless, I felt like a complete waste of space. My chronic pain left me insecure, moody, ugly. I was an ugly person. I constantly questioned why this was all happening to me. I wanted a break.

 I know I sound so silly when I talk about my dog, but I really feel that she saved my life. The nights what I laid in bed in pain she was there with me, snuggled up against me. She would wait hours for me to get up out of bed to let her outside to use the restroom, it would be hours before I would ever give her any love...all because I was selfish and too busy crying in bed about how sorry I was feeling for myself. There were moments when I contemplated giving her to a family that she deserved so that she could go out and play, but I know no one will ever love her the way I love her. I sometimes imagined giving her away and it made me sad to think that anyone would ever mistreat her or not love her the way I love her, understand her the way that I do. I know I needed her more than she ever needed me.

 She saved my life, she made me want to be better for her.

Anyone that knows me, knows the story of how she came into my life. For those of you that don't.. I was working one day and a friend called me. Said that she wanted me to meet this sweet sweet pit-bull and that if she wasn't adopted by the next morning she was to be put down. I then drove the hour to meet her and I couldn't not take her home with me. I didn't know anything about pit-bulls, nothing. I was not educated about her breed at all, but something about her drew me to her. She was silly and sweet as could be.

In a way it is like we have saved each other. She means more to me than any person could ever understand.

Sometimes I think back to where I was over a year ago and it makes me cry...it makes me cry because it is so surreal for me to feel so much joy and happiness.. It's a happy cry. I always say that everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that I am LIVING proof of this.