A new normal

We arrived home late Monday afternoon. It was pretty much a toss-the-luggage on the living room floor and I'd get to it when I felt like it. I was tired of our long car rides and the emotions of the week, so the thought of getting life back to normal with laundry and luggage put away was not a top priority.

As I had mentioned in a previous blog post, I had done everything to my house but pack until the last minute. One of those things was cleaning the house, which is common for many to do because you want to come home to a clean place after hotel'ing in a somewhat pampering state (insert no laundry, no cooking, no bed making, etc).

On that Monday when we departed, I remember thinking when it was about time to load Kolby into the car, that I needed to sweep and vacuum before we actually closed up the house. Again, finding that "anything to stall the inevitable".

My kids vetoed my idea. They wanted some normal to come home to, in other words, they wanted the Kolby hair left on the floor. I smiled and let it be. We were summons to the car and off we went with Mister.

I will say that it was the best veto. Of course, we needed some Kolby hair upon our return. And I remembered instantly that it was going to be there when we pulled into the garage and I longed to see those little fluffs of black whisping in the air as I walked through the hallway to the kitchen.

I let it be for a day. The hair miscellaneously placed throughout the house. I also let Kolby's luggage sit on my dinning room table until this evening.

I had packed a large bag for him; food, grooming, toys, vest, treats, his red blanket. And when we walked back to the car on Friday without Kolby, I just closed the bag and told my husband that we could leave it in the car until we got home. And we did.

So tonight I opened the bag in the laundry room and began to go through the items and put them away. I purposefully brought one extra serving of dog food for Kolby, so I dumped that back into the remaining dog food in his container and replaced his red food bowl on top. It was all going smooth until I got to his collar with his personal identification of our name and phone number attached. His collar that he wore when we was little until he was big. The collar that I stripped off him every night before bed and replaced every morning before his breakfast. His collar that was only his, and will only be his, now hangs on the wall next to his leash.

A new normal has started. I am not sure what exactly that looks like or will really feel like, but for now it means that Kolby's accessories have been put away and I sit here waiting for that next thing.

The new normal.