The Garnet and Yvonne Blog Challenge Day 1: NEW!

My friend and fellow writer Yvonne have embarked on a 31 day blogging challenge.  Each day, a new topic.  Today's topic is "new."

"New" is not the word I would use to describe the beginning of any of the past few years.  They felt more like a continuation of the same pattern than anything resembling a glimpse of horizon or the crack of a new door.

This year is different.  It didn't dramatically click into a higher gear at midnight on the 31st, of course.  Most changes brew and steep for so long that we don't notice them until they've arrived and smack us in the face.  Of course some changes just up and smack you in the face, but that's a topic for another day.

I began 2013 with two dogs.  I spent nearly all of 2013 with three dogs.  I began 2014, again, with two dogs.  Through the third dog, Foxtrot, I built new friendships with women I may not have otherwise gotten to know.

Fox brought a lot of newness into my life from the day I met him at the airport in Las Cruces, NM.  He was also covered in diarrhea, but I digress...

Fox wasn't an "easy" dog.  He was like an adult human who was raised by wolves.  Or a adult dog  who was raised by alligators and needed to be sent back to puppy school.

At first we didn't always understand each other and became easily frustrated by one another's incomprehensible behaviour.  I've said to many people that Fox's "saving grace" was his exceptionally good temperament even when his manners bordered on barbaric.

The relationship that we shared was a very special one and for the first time in my life a dog taught me more about people than he did about dogs.

You don't have to understand someone or why they do what they do to love them.

Judging a dog harshly for doing something that doesn't make sense to you is pointless.  So is judging a person on the same grounds.

Most of the time when someone does something that bothers you or doesn't do something that you wish/think they should... it's not about you.

Sometimes I'm a hermit.  It's my way of limiting the stress in my life so that I can be healthier and as a result happier.  It isn't a personal slight.

Sometimes Fox would do something like dig a hole into the yard next door to chase a stray cat at 3am and then get too scared to come back though the hole he'd just dug and pace around whining pathetically.  At 3am.  Even though I had to climb onto my shed, over the fence, drag something next to the fence on the other side so I climb onto it and boost his lead butt back into our yard, and then climb back over the fence myself.  At 3am.

I was extremely irritated, beyond tired, and the entire situation was so frustrating I wanted to cry.

But you know what?  It wasn't about me.

Foxtrot stole my Kindle.

Check out Yvonne's Day One - "New" post here!

Hooray!  Dani, my sister in awesome rapid biopolar illness had joined the challenge!
Read her Day One - "New/Nude?" post here! 

It's Not You, It's Me

This past weekend was an uncommon and unusual one for me.  I had social engagements two nights in a row and went to both.  One was a LOT more fun than I had expected and the other went, well, as expected.

Regardless of how anyone, on either night, behaved in general or toward me it was ultimately my choice how I felt about it and dealt with it.

In retrospect these two events (each with a very different "crowd") seem like a metaphor for the balance I am striving to create in my life.  Instead of the Old versus New, it is more like the Old versus Recent.  If you can qualify the past three years as "Recent."  The New, The Now, is somewhere in between those poles.

I felt much more comfortable and warmly welcomed in a group were I knew almost no one than I did in a group where I knew most of the people.  Why was this?  Read below.

Friday's Lessons:  Sometimes all you need is a reminder that there are people who own and love dogs, but are outside of the obsessive, takes-over-your-whole-life dog rescue world.  Being able to discuss my other passions with like-minded ladies was refreshing and good for the soul.  Dressing up and doing girly stuff makes me feel good about myself, as opposed to schlepping around in yoga pants and a tank top (covered in dog hair) all the time.  Don't expect me to be hitting the grocery store in high heels and red lipstick (like I used to), but a nice cotton sundress and pinning my hair up into the semblance of a hairstyle is a big step up from my usual errand-running attire (which looks an awful like dog walking/running attire).

Saturday's Lessons:  Sometimes not feeling like you "fit in" is exactly that.  You don't.  Or in this case, I don't.  To be honest, I don't really feel a sense of belonging to the dog rescue community as a whole anymore.  I've often not really felt "a part of things" when among Tucson dog rescuers, but Saturday night really drove that home.  

Firstly, I run a primarily purebred dog rescue.  I own two purebreds and one crossbreed.  I'm not rampantly anti-breeder, as so many rescue people are.  I have good friends who are wonderful, responsible breeders.  My next dog will be a German shorthaired pointer puppy from a breeder.  I'll always have a rescued GSP, but I also want a dog that I can show and compete in field events with.

Over time the gulf between myself and the majority of rescue folks has increased until it has become a concrete fact.  I am not really bothered by this.

In summary, change is a good thing.  Sometimes you simply change differently that those around you.  It isn't good or bad, it just is.