A Paradox

 

 

 

Remember in my last blog when I said if you have one dog you might as well have two…

 FORGET THAT!

 

Charlotte

 

 

 

 

Max

 

MAX( aka Winston -we renamed him) is a wild child!!!!  Charlotte is like a dream pup compared to him, Max is so needy and unmannered.  He is NOT crate trained;  and after being with us for over a week he does not seem to be getting any closer to becoming crate trained. So we have moved him outside.  I can’t help but like him and feel sorry for him because he has really had a rough start on his life.  These two rescue pups, which had no love or nurture from either humans or their canine parents starting out, are more feral than tame.  Their excitement over everything is almost uncontrollable.  Charlotte has finally after over 3 weeks learned to be gentler with her teeth.  Max however is so much bigger and older his training is coming to him slower.  My life for the past few weeks has revolved around puppies, puppy training, puppy playing, and puppy everything!  I have to go home every day for lunch to feed them and take them out and then they need attention first thing when I get home for the day.  Sometimes in the middle of the night Charlotte (the younger of the two) will wake me for a potty break. I am constantly cleaning up after them, and my house is a disaster because I do not time for anything else!  But Charlotte is on her way to a new adventure tomorrow.  She will leave us here in the south for a new foster Mom and home in Connecticut.  I am proud of how she has improved and she will be a wonderful companion pet. Max on the other hand being older will be harder to place and may take a little more time.  These two pups have cured my “Puppy Fever” as my daughter likes to call it, and I have decided that I am not quite ready for a Forever Dog in my life right now.  Once I get these two pups on to new homes and adventures I am going to take a break from puppies and dogs for a while.  My rescue fostering days are over for good; I am happy to donate and assist them in other ways, but being a foster Mom is not for me anymore.

 

Moving on to my son…he is an addict and his drug of choice is heroin.  I do not know his current condition weather active or recovery.  He acts as if he is drug free and just living life on his own terms, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live like he does.  But different strokes… right?  When he was young he had a temper, as we all do, but his would explode on a rare occasion. (His father had the same issue) One time when he was a teenager, he got so mad at me that he threw something at me.  I quickly explained to him that as a single mother, I had the option of him living elsewhere; and if that behavior EVER returned he would realize that fact.  It only happened the one time, but his lack of self-control was a shock to me.  As he aged and became a young adult, he took on a more “laid back” approach to life.  Nothing seemed to bother him much during that phase of his life; his ex-girlfriend was pregnant…no big deal!  He got caught with some pot by the police…no big deal.  He was going to have to find a new job…no problem!  Don’t worry be happy was his motto.  But now it is as if he lives his life on the edge; always ready to lash out if he feels any negativity at all.  If I mention that a request by him may  be an inconvenience to me, he is upset.  If I ask him to NOT do something he is doing, then I am just being mean to him.  If everything doesn’t go exactly as he thinks it should, then he is either upset and closed off, or he is angry and hateful.  As I learn to set boundaries in my relationship with my adult son, I have often had to set and reset different ones.  There is a learning curve and things are always changing which keeps me on my toes.  I need my 31 year old son to always know that I love him unconditionally, but that does not mean I need to be on the ready to change my life for him.  My boundaries are my rules for my LIFE.  Just as he chooses to live his live on his terms, so do I.   He and I could not be more different if we had tried, and sometimes that presents challenges for our relationship.  It would be easier on us both if we did not spend so much time together, and I often feel I need a break from him; but the love we have for each other is what pulls us back together.  I do not think that my son feels much love in his life right now, and I am not convinced that I can really help with that, but I do want him to feel love from me!  When we are together sometimes I find myself scanning and watching him to look for signs that he is high, or using.  Watching his behavior to make sure he seems “normal” and “happy”; HA!  What a joke! All is in vain!!!!!

Who is normal and happy?  ANYONE?     I feel happy most of the time, but I have never ever felt “normal”, but that has not been a problem for me because I do not recognize a normal. I have certainly had my struggle with depression off and on, but I learned how to take charge of that and manipulate those thoughts that depression can bring.  The “normal” I am talking about is the status quo, 9 to 5, Sunday Church, political minded, it’s A Man’s World bullshit, because I said so, kind of normal.  I do not conform in my thinking to any group or organization that I have found.  My husband has said that I am a paradox; for example I use to smoke, but I am a Pescetarian.   I cannot find joy in being just this or just that; “Proud to be a _______” fill in the blank! Don’t get me wrong, I am fortunate to have been conceived and born in this country and I am very grateful to live here compare to other places I could have been born; but I didn’t really have a choice in that now did I.  And just like millions of other people, I have stayed fairly close to where I was born.  I could never be part of one political party because my opinions are always evolving with every experience I have.  My younger brother has been an alcoholic since he was 18; for over 20 years I felt no compassion for him with his disease.  But, after I realized that my son too struggled with addiction; I found knowledge and compassion for both of them.  So who is to say that my opinions on something won’t change in the future based upon a personal experience again in my life?  I do not want chaos, but I think there is room for differences!

Can it be OK to just say “I think” instead of “I know”?  My husband…who is my besttie… likes to say… “I’m not certain, but I am pretty sure…” and I love that attitude; it is open ended.  So much about life is evolving, we start out crawling and then we walk, we have opinions in our youth that mature and change as we get older.  I don’t want to go in a straight line and be just like someone else, I want to bounce around as life happens and be ME!  Flawed and not perfect, a work in progress until the day that my body fails.  I don’t want to stay safe, afraid of trying new things, but I also want to be prudent and respect the fact that I am not unbreakable!

And so the paradox continues I suppose.  I feel good about my life – what is the point of feeling otherwise?  Life is too short to spend much time feeling sorry for myself.  Today I am hoping for another Good day!  I am not certain it will turn out that way, but I am pretty sure!