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So, I plan my life. Meticulously. Wearing 4 distinct hats, each of the endeavors under them pretty much a full-time job. I sometimes end up panting at one time or another during the day. You know the drill—where you’re racing to keep pace with the insanity of your life. You’re keeping up, but that’s about it. And all you need is one good stub of a toe and everything goes to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

I want things to work out. I need things to work out. And when they don’t, I regret it.

And I don’t believe in regret.

Of course, the latter is philosophical and the former, real life. But it takes a bit sometimes to get from the event to the realization. That’s kinda what they call living.

Anyhow, after all my research and planning and hands-on and dollars, after the progesterone testing and collecting/shipping and the AIs, even after being pregnant, my girl reabsorbed her babies. Sigh. (At least I’m to ‘sigh’ now.) I got to go through all the stages of grief again, over something most folks would look at me askance that it hurt so. Then again, those folks aren’t dog breeders! My breeder friends understand entirely.

And no, I didn’t lose a dear friend to a horrible disease (which I have this year, and the one before), didn’t suffer a career setback (which I have this year). Didn’t lose something beloved to me. My furr kids and I are all safe and warm and dry (and my God, as I write this, rain is actually falling from the sky! Yahooo!)

But a loss is a loss, and has to be grieved. The subconscious has a funny way of bringing that up if we don’t, and sometimes even if we do.

Last night I dreamed—vividly—that Siren started giving birth. Simply, easily, with no trauma. I couldn’t wait to call my vet and friends! LOL. She had a black boy, a yellow girl, and a Palomino. What can I say? It was a dream.

But what I knew from that was that hope remained for the future. She’s young, she’s healthy, she’s beautiful, and there’s always next time. Sans the Palomino, please.

So my crankiness has waned. No, things didn’t work out for me and Siren. Often things just don’t work out. All that new life and puppy breath wasn’t meant to be. Then again, neither was all the work and stress and emotional upheaval, which comes with having a litter.

Some lingering irritation remains of course, due to paragraph one here. Dang the timing. But I bet when I look back at some point, I’ll see the reason behind it. Not my plan, mind you, but one that works more effectively than mine do. As the old saying goes: When you want to give the gods a laugh, tell them your plans.

I’m smiling and happy again, just because life is, well, life. And that’s a good thing. And now, I regret nothing.

And I remember the words of Margaret Thatcher, who did have a few more things to do than I do: “Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it.”

How do you deal with setbacks?