I was reading through this blog. I got all the way up to May 2013. I had to stop at the first post in May. "I almost lost my puppy..."

I can't go through that again. Reading my despair as I almost lost him, then seeing my hopefulness because he appeared to be getting better. Then reading as it all went downhill. That's still a wound in me that hurts.

It would feel nice to cry, though. It'll give me something solid to cry over. And when I mourn him, when I remember my dog and cry over the loss, I feel closer to him. But Angela is here, and I don't want to cry in front of her.

But right now, thinking about it, it's hard to breathe. There's a lump in my chest where I'm pretty sure my heart is, but it feels like my heart is in my stomach. Or, just not there at all. Because it's really hard to breathe. Honestly. It's like my lungs don't want to work. Or my heart doesn't want to pump.

It was hard enough reading my fleeting comments about Cotton throughout the first year and a half of this blog. At one point, I wrote: "Damn it, Cotton wants to play now. Goodness, doggie."

I want to go back in time, and scream in my face, "You fucking idiot! Open your fucking eyes. That dog isn't going to live forever like you want to believe. Treasure the precious time you have now, because it won't last forever. And you can't go back in time to take advantage of the this time now. You have to make the most out of life in the present, because nothing lasts forever and you can't take advantage of the fact that things exist in the now. So put down your fucking electronics. Pick up that orange ball or the pink and blue squeaky bone and throw it for that poor dog. Give him the life he deserves. Give him the attention he needs and wants. Give him the love you know you have for him while you can. Because once he's gone, he's gone. And you'll spend the rest of your life beating yourself up for it."

God damn, I hate myself sometimes.

I need to stop. Because there's a lump in my throat and I can't breathe around it, and my eyes are watering so much that I can hardly see.

Oh, what I wouldn't do to go back in time. At least for a day, just to see Cotton again.