Thursday, June 24, 2010

Depression Sets In

I'm officially depressed. I was sad about no more agility before, but now I am officially depressed about it. I am strongly tempted to crawl in bed for the next 5 years. And the more I go about my life, the more depressed I get.

I don't think that normal people really understand how devastating this is. I have tried to explain it to some (ie: imagine if you couldn't play video games, or if you couldn't take pictures) This is my way to disconnect from my job and from other suppressors in my life. This is a way for me to bond with my dog and to have a great time. I read books, follow blogs, talk to trainers about agility. This isn't just a sport that I do with my dog, this is a whole sub-set of my social structure!

A friend asked me earlier how Abby was doing and I said that she is fine! SHE has no idea that there is anything wrong. She enjoys agility, but she has a pretty great life otherwise so I doubt that she will be heart-broken over it. I imagine that if I took her to an agility field and didn't let her do anything that she would get frustrated, but I don't think that she thinks about it regularly.

I know that Abby and I still have a lot of things that we can do together, and I am looking forward to all of that. But there was so much more that we could have accomplished in this area and I am sad that we will never get the chance. And I am sad that this part of my life is over for the time being. And I can see why some of these people have so many dogs - when there is always a dog ready to compete, you never have to give it up.

Despite my depression over it, I am still glad that we tried it. So many people told me that I wouldn't be able to do with Abby any of the things that we have done so far. But we did. And we didn't do it with a perfectly bred, perfectly socialized dog. We spent the time and did the work and got past so many fears and we did what so many normal dogs before us have done - we did agility.

No comments: