It's been over a year since I graduated and it's still very difficult for me to come to grips with that fact.
It's my own fault, as most of my troubles are. For some reason, even since childhood, I've been smitten with the idea of college and academia. I'm sure a lot of it stems from the fact that I was a damn weird kid (and I seem weirder and weirder upon reflection as I age), and the promise to all damn weird kids is that you'll eventually figure it out in college and come into your own (which is not always true, as reddit.com will testify).
College did turn out to be pretty much everything I hoped. I learned a lot, I found a girlfriend and I goofed around with my buddies for over four years. Of course, the whole time I was doing this, I never really considered what I would do after and now I'm sitting here, all caught up in after, and it's not super-fun.
I have a good job and I really like the people that I work with, but I'm the youngest person there by 15-20 years, so there's not a lot of shared cultural shorthand. Couple that with my established difficulty integrating into social groups and it's a recipe for a somewhat solitary work life.
To add to that, I spend about three hours of every single day in my car. I live with my grandparents, which comes with all kinds of benefits (no rent, free food, grandma does my laundry), but it's 50 miles from my office. It's incredibly demoralizing to get home at 6:30 and realize that you've got all of four hours of free time before you have to get up again at 5:30 and do the drive over. Add in the lack of interaction with anyone within my generation and the whole ordeal becomes spectacularly dehumanizing.
Whenever I get unhappy, I begin to withdraw (which really just exacerbates the problem, but withdrawing is the only form of self-destructive behavior that I'm cool enough to engage in), and I begin to blame others for my own unhappiness.
And so it was on New Year's Eve this year. I was spending the holiday with my girlfriend and over the course of the weekend I'd been surly and rude and distant. We didn't really have plans for the actual evening, but, around 8:30 p.m., I decided that I wanted sushi and Lindsey though that sounded like an OK idea.
We'd only just pulled out of the apartment complex when we spotted a dog loping down the sidewalk, I assumed that she'd been scared by the fireworks and I pulled into the parking lot to see if she had a tag.
Lindsey and I chased her around for a little but before I eventually got her to come to me. She had a collar, but no tag. I tried to call animal control and the local shelters, but no one was picking up.
Lindsey decided that we should take the dog in and take care of her until we could get her to the shelter.
The dog itself was a little Australian Shepherd, and she was old old old. Her muzzle and face were gray and one of her eyes had some sort of glaucoma or cataract. We loaded her into the truck and she promptly laid down in the backseat. Lindsey was quite smitten with how sweet and quiet she was, though she was put off by the smell.
We grabbed some dog food and a toy and a leash from HEB and brought her back to the apartment with the intention of stashing her in the bathroom while we went to dinner. Lindsey went ahead of me to put up all of her various potions and make ups while I led the dog around in hopes that she would do her business in the grass.
The dog's business acumen was found wanting, so I decided to just risk it and lead her upstairs. She made it about two steps before flopping down and refusing to climb anymore.
As I carried her up the stairs, I got my first real look at her. Not only was she old, but she was in rough shape. Her nails that weren't broken were inches long, what fur she had was matted and dusty - it was absent in large patches on her hind legs. The worn away fur gave her tail that unsettling fleshiness of a rat's tail.
I led her into the bathroom and we set her up with food and water before heading out to dinner. Lindsey didn't seem to notice that the dog was in such bad shape.
We ate sushi (at one point a tuna roll had so much wasabi that Lindsey cried, which was a nice change of pace from me making her cry) and returned with intentions to give the dog, now being called Pooch (and, less affectionally, "Stinkpooch"), a bath.
When we opened the bathroom door, we discovered that Pooch was heavily favoring her right leg and I realized that not only was she missing fur, but that she clearly had some sort of tumor on her hindquarters and some sores on her legs. I felt bad for her, but also, rather shamefully, somewhat revolted.
(I don't do very well with body horror at all. It's why I don't like most scary movies. I don't like thinking about the body very much in general. In middle school, I had a brief dalliance with building model airplanes [see the earlier statement about me being a weird kid] and I sliced my finger with an exacto knife. It started to bleed and I nearly passed out. In the 8th grade, we were discussing bacteria and whatnot and I got to contemplating the fragility of the human body and I had to leave the room and get water. I had the same experience covering the same material in bio class my sophomore year of college.)
Lindsey, on the other hand, was nothing but sweetness. She dug around in her cabinets for something to clean the beast with (I chuckled when she pulled out travel bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoo AND conditioner) and kept telling it encouraging things. I loaded Pooch into the bathtub and Lindsey began to bathe her.
The image of Lindsey caring for this poor lonely animal is indelible in my mind. As she rubbed shampoo into its fur, she said, "It's okay. Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."
It was such a true and honest and beautiful thing to say that it immediately snapped me out of my selfish haze. How could I take out my insecurities and unhappiness on this gentle and loving person?
"Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."
I'll never forget that phrase. There's something incredibly powerful about that combination of love and tenderness tempered by bitter honesty. Someone may love Stinkpooch, but it's also likely that she was released, tagless, intentionally - sent out into the street to die. Regardless, we are going to choose to love this pitiful sweet animal that we just met, because she deserves it just for existing.
There is a divinity in that statement and in that action - a reflection of the gospel message that things may be profoundly fucked up, but that love will remain and love will succeed.
The whole experience served to snap me out of my selfish cloud, especially the next day when I apologized to Lindsey and was open with her about my anxieties and insecurities. I realized that I spent a lot of time blaming other people for my unhappiness, rather than doing anything in particular to alleviate it.
So, I'm going to do what I can to pursue my own happiness. Starting with more writing (for serious this time, you guys). Hopefully it will lead to something more.
Stinkpooch, by the way, was eventually taken by the Williamson County Animal Shelter, who said they would contact her people if she has a chip before putting her up for adoption. Hopefully she gets back to her family.
Whenever I get unhappy, I begin to withdraw (which really just exacerbates the problem, but withdrawing is the only form of self-destructive behavior that I'm cool enough to engage in), and I begin to blame others for my own unhappiness.
And so it was on New Year's Eve this year. I was spending the holiday with my girlfriend and over the course of the weekend I'd been surly and rude and distant. We didn't really have plans for the actual evening, but, around 8:30 p.m., I decided that I wanted sushi and Lindsey though that sounded like an OK idea.
We'd only just pulled out of the apartment complex when we spotted a dog loping down the sidewalk, I assumed that she'd been scared by the fireworks and I pulled into the parking lot to see if she had a tag.
Lindsey and I chased her around for a little but before I eventually got her to come to me. She had a collar, but no tag. I tried to call animal control and the local shelters, but no one was picking up.
Lindsey decided that we should take the dog in and take care of her until we could get her to the shelter.
The dog itself was a little Australian Shepherd, and she was old old old. Her muzzle and face were gray and one of her eyes had some sort of glaucoma or cataract. We loaded her into the truck and she promptly laid down in the backseat. Lindsey was quite smitten with how sweet and quiet she was, though she was put off by the smell.
We grabbed some dog food and a toy and a leash from HEB and brought her back to the apartment with the intention of stashing her in the bathroom while we went to dinner. Lindsey went ahead of me to put up all of her various potions and make ups while I led the dog around in hopes that she would do her business in the grass.
The dog's business acumen was found wanting, so I decided to just risk it and lead her upstairs. She made it about two steps before flopping down and refusing to climb anymore.
As I carried her up the stairs, I got my first real look at her. Not only was she old, but she was in rough shape. Her nails that weren't broken were inches long, what fur she had was matted and dusty - it was absent in large patches on her hind legs. The worn away fur gave her tail that unsettling fleshiness of a rat's tail.
I led her into the bathroom and we set her up with food and water before heading out to dinner. Lindsey didn't seem to notice that the dog was in such bad shape.
We ate sushi (at one point a tuna roll had so much wasabi that Lindsey cried, which was a nice change of pace from me making her cry) and returned with intentions to give the dog, now being called Pooch (and, less affectionally, "Stinkpooch"), a bath.
When we opened the bathroom door, we discovered that Pooch was heavily favoring her right leg and I realized that not only was she missing fur, but that she clearly had some sort of tumor on her hindquarters and some sores on her legs. I felt bad for her, but also, rather shamefully, somewhat revolted.
(I don't do very well with body horror at all. It's why I don't like most scary movies. I don't like thinking about the body very much in general. In middle school, I had a brief dalliance with building model airplanes [see the earlier statement about me being a weird kid] and I sliced my finger with an exacto knife. It started to bleed and I nearly passed out. In the 8th grade, we were discussing bacteria and whatnot and I got to contemplating the fragility of the human body and I had to leave the room and get water. I had the same experience covering the same material in bio class my sophomore year of college.)
Lindsey, on the other hand, was nothing but sweetness. She dug around in her cabinets for something to clean the beast with (I chuckled when she pulled out travel bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoo AND conditioner) and kept telling it encouraging things. I loaded Pooch into the bathtub and Lindsey began to bathe her.
The image of Lindsey caring for this poor lonely animal is indelible in my mind. As she rubbed shampoo into its fur, she said, "It's okay. Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."
It was such a true and honest and beautiful thing to say that it immediately snapped me out of my selfish haze. How could I take out my insecurities and unhappiness on this gentle and loving person?
"Someone doesn't love you, but we love you."
I'll never forget that phrase. There's something incredibly powerful about that combination of love and tenderness tempered by bitter honesty. Someone may love Stinkpooch, but it's also likely that she was released, tagless, intentionally - sent out into the street to die. Regardless, we are going to choose to love this pitiful sweet animal that we just met, because she deserves it just for existing.
There is a divinity in that statement and in that action - a reflection of the gospel message that things may be profoundly fucked up, but that love will remain and love will succeed.
The whole experience served to snap me out of my selfish cloud, especially the next day when I apologized to Lindsey and was open with her about my anxieties and insecurities. I realized that I spent a lot of time blaming other people for my unhappiness, rather than doing anything in particular to alleviate it.
So, I'm going to do what I can to pursue my own happiness. Starting with more writing (for serious this time, you guys). Hopefully it will lead to something more.
Stinkpooch, by the way, was eventually taken by the Williamson County Animal Shelter, who said they would contact her people if she has a chip before putting her up for adoption. Hopefully she gets back to her family.
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