By Dear Chizuko (Becky Hollingsworth) 30 Nov 2024
You’d better hold on tight, spider monkey.
Autumn is most certainly my favorite season. I love the magic in the air during the transition to cooler weather. As a person who hates to hurry, I also love the feeling that most things are slowing down.
But I’ve had plenty of bad Autumn experiences, too.
One particularly rough Autumn led to me falling in love with the Twilight movies.
I had a friend who often talked about Twilight and kept encouraging me to watch it, so I finally gave in during the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020. Our dog Pippi had passed away suddenly a few months earlier, and I was living with a huge amount of grief and anxiety. I was putting a lot of energy into caring for our dog Oski, who was dealing with arthritis and other medical issues. Also, I had recently started working again after being laid off, but I was at least able to work from home part of the time, which allowed me to be with Oski more.
One morning I was working from home and looking for something to put on TV in the background. I noticed that Twilight was available to stream, and I thought, “Oh, what the heck…” I admittedly got very little work done that morning, but I did get to snuggle with Oski. And I had found a new obsession.
Pippi (top left) and Oski.
I messaged my friend and said, “Wow, Twilight was truly terrible. But also I enjoyed it.”
That is how Twilight became my pandemic comfort movie.
Twilight saw me through Oski dying a few months later, days after my birthday. It got me through quitting my job and finishing my bachelor’s degree. It got me through a freaking pandemic. I watched it over and over and over again because it entertained and distracted me.
But it wasn’t until we adopted an anxious rescue dog that it truly connected with me.
Image from the original post about Luna in the New Mexico shelter.
We adopted Luna in September 2021, about seven months after Oski had died, which felt like both the shortest and longest period of time that had ever passed. Pippi dying had utterly broken our hearts, but we still had Oski to care for, so our routines changed very little. However, after Oski died everything changed, and we felt completely lost and devastated. We didn’t know when we’d be ready to adopt another dog, if ever.
I see posts about rescue dogs needing assistance pretty regularly, but in early September I scrolled across one about a senior dog in New Mexico named Luna who was going to be euthanized at the end of the week if they didn’t find someone to take her. I couldn’t stop looking at her photo and then I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I mentioned her to Josh later in the day. (He says I was crying though I didn’t remember that. Then a few days ago I tried to bring this up and cried just talking about it, so he is probably correct.) We talked and agreed that we would offer to take her if no one else stepped up. I messaged the rescue organization that had posted Luna’s information to check on her and let them know that we were interested if there was nobody else.
And there wasn’t. We were the only ones who reached out about her.
I am the first to admit that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We had Oski and Pippi since they were puppies, and they were always so easygoing. Luna is different. She has serious anxiety and won’t let anyone who isn’t me or my partner, Josh, near her. She also freaks out so badly if we try to leave the house without her that I fear she will hurt herself if we leave her alone. The behavior training we’ve looked into is beyond what we can afford and having a dog that we can’t always provide needed care for makes me feel like an awful, irresponsible person, but we do our best to keep her calm, safe, and away from stressful situations. It’s a lot of work. (And I would do it all again.)
Luna and her emotional support squeaky tennis balls.
But what do Luna and Twilight have to do with each other?
After I got to know Luna, I started to see a lot of similarities between her and Edward Cullen, the sparkly vampire love interest of Bella Swan, which has helped me find a new level of enjoyment and connection when watching Twilight.