The really hard kind of change though is the self-inflicted kind, like the promise you make to change your natural tendency so you can be better some how. It's hard when you have to be mindful of the behaviour so you can catch yourself and make the correction, choose the better reaction or behaviour. It's so much easier to just give up and let yourself be. Nobody's perfect, right? People just have to accept you, warts and all.
I wanted to stop being such a pill to my mom about looking after Elmo when my parents go away from time to time to a place where they can't bring him along. I make a big deal out of it every time and then I end up feeling terrible about it. Despite being aware of it, whenever my mom asks if I'll take him I still make it known that I am not looking forward to the responsibility.
This time she said to me, "Well fine then, I'll put him in a kennel and he'll get so stressed out he'll have a heart attack and die". I told her I didn't believe that would happen.
Why do I get all worked up about this so much anyway? Guilt. The entire situation is sauced in it. First my mom has to "ask" me if I can take the dog. I know she feels bad because I really don't have a choice but to say yes because she has no one else to go to. I have to say yes because she is my mother, she still takes care of me and who am I to deny her a weekend away? Say no and I am ungrateful and mean.
When the time comes for Elmo to stay he is usually good company. He's happy to see me when I get home and he has a cute snore when he's sleeping. But when I have to leave and go somewhere without him he gets upset. He trembles and tries to climb into my lap in protest. Or sometimes he just annoys me. Like when he doesn't want to come inside from his morning pee break and I am trying to leave for work. Or when he wakes me up at three am to go outside and it's minus forty and I have to put on my jacket and shoes and walk him to the back gate and wait for him so I can walk him back inside. Or when he won't go to sleep because he's heard a noise or is just afraid of the dark and he whines and pants and paws at my bed. Or how he always wants a cookie and always slops a big puddle of water on the floor when he drinks. And I get mad. Sometimes I just get so tired, frustrated and mad. And then I feel guilty and awful for being mad at a dog who is just being a dog and doesn't deserve my mad energy. When he's actually pretty good for the whole weekend I still feel bad because I made such a fuss about taking him in the first place. That dog makes me throw daggers at myself. He becomes a mirror for all this yuckiness inside of me--my impatience, my selfishness, my lack of maternal instincts and my absolute need for seven hours of solid sleep.
I didn't want Elmo. Not at all. I remember when our first family dog died. I was ten or eleven and it broke my heart. I never wanted to feel that awful pain again. A few years later I came home from my part-time job one day to a puppy traipsing around in our back yard. My mom and my sister had picked him out. I quickly fell in love with him (except on the days he ate my text book and my shoes). But from day one, and in the many days that followed since then, my mind has gone to that dark place to remind me that one day he's going to get sick and will need to be put down. Every year on his birthday I do the morbid math: average life expectancy for a dog is 14 years, subtract current age to get number of years left with this precious fur ball of unconditional love. He turned eleven this year.
Extreme guilt. Horrible pain. That's what I'm trying to run away from, kicking and pouting the whole way. How do I face and change that?
I have committed myself to exploring the concept of acceptance. Instead of questioning why I'm here, why I'm not there, when this will happen or why now, I am practicing taking deep breaths and facing my anxiety by coming to terms with the present.
I have a calendar at work that has a word for the month of October: optibitious. I don't know if it's a real word. I tried looking it up in the dictionary and online but my search turned up nothing. For each month the calendar features a different ad or marketing agency's selected word of the year. I wouldn't really put it past them to just make something up. Anyway, I like the word optibitious. It means (allegedly) going forth with an unrestrained determination to succeed, regardless of the odds or environment. I love the word because it is me. I want to be optibitious every single day. But with such ambition and heart comes a certain amount of pain when things don't turn out despite oozing optibitiousness. (Just because I work in a cardboard box factory doesn't mean I can't make stuff up too you know.) So I took that word and I took my promise to change and do better and I wrote this on a Post-It note as my new daily mantra:
I optibitiously accept this day as an opportunity to live, love, learn and grow.
On November 20 when Elmo comes to my house I will be repeating this mantra over and over and over. Maybe the old dog can teach me some new tricks about enjoying the present.
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