Of dogs and doubts and sour krauts

I gave my dogs rawhide bones for their holiday treat.  They love chewing on them and it's good for their teeth.  My older dog though, it gives her terrible gas.  She also managed to sneak some people food yesterday and that just adds fuel to the...well, farts.  I do not own enough candles to mask the stench emanating from her backside.  Maybe that's what brought on the dog analogy while I've been rumenating about the past year.  But, surprisingly, it's not fart related.

I've been like a dog who suddenly discovers that it's leash isn't attached to anything and never has been.  It tentatively steps farther and farther from the yard, slowly testing the reality of freedom.  Then the heady rush hits and the dog runs frantically through the neighborhood, sniffing, pissing and tasting everything new!  Some glorious garbage is even rolled in.  But then the new reality sets in.  It is far from it's former home.  It has no anchor.  What now? 

Okay, so this isn't a perfect analogy but it does capture much of what this past year or two has been like.  I am now without an anchor (the church, which had been my whole life for 45 years). Garbage has been rolled in and I've pissed in places I probably shouldn't have. (I'm giving no details on THAT.)  I'm not sure where to go or what to do next.

What is there of my old life that I want to cling to?  My kids.  I do know that much.  The sour kraut (my husband)?  I'm not sure he wants to leave the yard with me.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't.  And I don't think he'd be happy about the garbage I've rolled in.  Whoa!  Enough with this analogy.  I am not a dirty, stinking mutt running amok.  But I am without an anchor, a belief, something to cling to.  I have to make my own decisions now.  Rely on my own intelligence, intuition, spark--whatever it is--to guide me.   For me that is something entirely new and extremely frightening.  But I won't go back to that yard.