Who Am I Now?

I seem to be having somewhat of an existential crisis.

For almost 23 years, one of my identities has been Dog Mom. If I'm being honest, it's been my main identity. Suddenly, that's no longer my title.

I would go so far as to say that "Dachshund" is not only A personality, it's been MY personality. My IG handle is momof8dogs and most of my IG posts and stories have featured my dogs. My license plate (which I won't post here because this is a public blog, but if you know me in real life, you already know what it is), the name of this blog, decor around my house, my school bag...the list goes on and on. Dachshunds everywhere.

We've lost eight Dachshunds in the past 11 years.

Molly - November 2010

Gunni - November 2013

Duchess - April 2014

Chelsea - October 2015

Sadie - May 2017

Maddy - August 2018

Riley - March 2020

Ginny - October 2021

If you look closely at those dates, we've lost five Dachshunds in just the past 6 years.

So much sadness.

The impact of those deaths cannot be overstated.

Life-altering.

Chelsea, our first Dachshund, had the longest tenure at 16 years, 7 months, and 23 days and was an only dog for the first 10 years of her life. Ginny, our last Dachshund, had the second longest tenure at 13 years and 1 month and was an only dog for the last 1.5 years of her life. I think of them as our "bookend" dogs.

I connected with fellow Dachshund lovers on IG and many of them sent such lovely, amazing messages last week when we lost Ginny. Social media can really be a wonderful thing.

But now I suddenly feel like I'm not in the club anymore.

Like I'm on the outside, looking in.

If I'm not a dog mom, if i don't have Dachshunds, who am I?

Sometimes it's really hard to no longer be who you've been. This is one of those times.

Happy Tails to you...