For A Better Tomorrow

This morning I received a phone call from my brother telling me that my dog teddy passed this morning.  I love that dog so much.  He was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of this year and was really close to dying.  I took him to the vet and gave him chemotherapy every 3 weeks which extended his life as long as possible without any pain of course.  I can tell he lived very happily for the last 6 months.  It was as if his life was over but God decided to let him stay with us just little longer - Thank you God.

This dog holds a special place in my heart.  I went through some troubles last year and it seems like he was always there with me.  I’d be watching tv on the couch and he’d lay next to my feet.  When I go to bed, he’d jump up and lay next to me.  I remember being outside in my backyard with my friends surrounding the firepit and teddy would be out there with all of us even though we know he hated being outside.  In the end, it was obvious that my dogs just wanted to be where we were.

The personality of a dog is what gets me the most.  I grew up with a ton of dogs and I saw how each and every one of them grew up.  They went through their immature stage where they’d just run around and cause trouble.  They’d rebel against us like teenagers when we’d get mad at them for making a mess.  But over the years, I can see how they eventually started to appreciate and understand us.  As they become older, they become wiser and eventually become your true best friend.  It feels like they know they are getting older and that they know they are not going to live much longer, so they spend every single moment they have with you.  I moved to my new apartment just recently and that is what I saw in my dog teddy.  He’d be sleeping under the table while I’m playing poker and when I’d go outside to the living room to watch T.V. he’d wake up and follow me.  I remember him being so tired and weak walking out to the living room but he still pushed himself.  What a great dog.  I hope to have more dogs like him in the near future.

Currently I still have another one with me, Cinderella - the princess.  She’s teddy and junior’s sister and is last dog from the same litter.  She has a sister name Curly and she’s currenlty living with my sister.  She’s very old as she was born a year before all the other dogs.  The first litter had her and another dog name Shakespeare but he ran away.  A year later came out Teddy, Junior, Cinderella, Smurf, and Bao.  Smurf ran away just last year from my sister’s house and Bao passed away at an early age.  The parents were Lucky (Dachshund) and Mimi (Pomeranian).  Amazingly Mimi is still alive.  We recently put Lucky to sleep about a two months ago and that was not easy for all of us.  He was there from the very beginning.

I have one left..

I will treasure every moment with this one just as I did with the others.  The sad realization I have now is that she will be the last one from my childhood years.

Oh man. I am such a lazy person! Okay, well not that lazy. I have been a bit busy lately and will be for the next month as I am now moving out of my place! I haven’t had much time to think about updating this blog lately, and for that I apologize for those who spend their time coming to this site. Thanks cheerdad!

Changes

I’ve come to a realization that life is all about coping with changes. All you wiser and older people are probably laughing at me for just realizing that. Yeah so what, my life was a lot smaller a just a few years ago . I have lived at this house pretty much my entire childhood and now, I am about to leave it all behind me. I have been living on my own ever since I was 20-21 years old, but I have always felt like a kid behind these walls. I feel like no matter what I do in life, if I still live here, I will always be a kid. I guess I become a little sad when I walk down my hallway at night and find myself reminiscing the days when I had 10 dogs running through my house. I then go into a trance and start to think about the days when I was running around the house with all my childhood friends. I don’t know how to really explain what I am feeling right now but I guess it’s a combination of strangeness, happiness, and sadness all put together. I’m happy that I get to move on and get out here, but I am sad that everything that I have ever done in this house will be nothing more but a distant memory.

Memories

Memories are becoming more like dreams as I grow older. When you think back at something that you have done in the past, the visual of it looks exactly like a dream. When I tell a story about my past experiences to someone, I honestly feel like I’m telling them my dream. I guess that’s what makes me even sadder. As I grow older, I feel like everything that has meant a lot to me in the past is now slowly fading away from my memory. When you “enjoy” a moment in your life, you usually try to remember every single moment of it, but as time starts to fly by, you find yourself only remember bits and pieces of that memory. Eventually, that memory starts to get mixed in with your dreams because dreams are told in bits and pieces.

Humiliation

Imagine a time when you were embarrassed in front of everybody. I remember studering my lines when I was doing a school play front of a class full of fine women. At the time, that was probably the worse day of my life (laughs). I think back at these moments quite often and I find myself chuckling about it always. Now that I am an adult, I can “logically” think about these moments, and eventually realize that NOBODY IN THE WORLD knows about it except for me. So in the end, the humiliating feeling that I have inside of myself is only there because I created it. It is being triggered by a memory or … was it…a dream?

Perspectives

As an adult, I try to think in many different perspectives. A good example of this is trying to imagine what life will be like 5 years down the line. I want to try to imagine how I would just “reminisce” the days of when I was living at my childhood house (which is this house I am in right now). In fact, I can picture myself imagining this very moment right now writing in this blog. I can imagine my future self remembering bits and pieces of it and later come to realize that what I am thinking about will soon be nothing but a distant memory.

I went apartment shopping with my roommate and he was talking about how he’ll miss his last two years living here. He said that the next place he lives in is going to be like a “new chapter” in his life. In many ways, I agree with him and I definitely feel the same way except I think about it as if it was the next “season” T.V. show. The only problem for me though is that I feel like I’m at the very end of a long T.V. show that is about to be canceled if that makes any sense. If anything new happens beyond this, it definitely has to be a spin off of some sort and not a new “chapter” or any sort of sequel lol. Now I’m rambling….

Poker Update

I’m taking some shots at the high stakes NL1k games now. I hope and pray that that will be my new home and my new “job”. I have spent a ton of time at NL400, so I guess I have a slight emotional attachment to that level and will miss it. That level has kept me alive the past two years of my dramatic experiences. While I wish I could be like the other young players who just moves up in limits at an amazing speed; I still have to consider the fact that everyone’s life cards are dealt differently. I learned that even though my life went through some speed bumps, I have to still be very fortunate and thankful for being where I’m at right now. Life has it’s downswings, and you’ve just got to deal with it like how you deal with poker. I just hope that I don’t run into another “life” downswing anytime soon or ever hehe.