I realized this morning that it has taken me awhile to pick up on the lesson our dog taught us as soon as we adopted her from the family that raised her from a puppy for 3 years. You'd think that it would have been traumatic for her to suddenly move from a loving home to a new home at that age, but she took it all in stride and surprised all of us. I think what it boils down to is that, no matter how much the other family loved her, it wasn't enough to keep her as part of their family. I always assumed it was just because Grace's loyalty is to anyone that feeds her. While this may be true in part, I still give her credit for embracing us as her new family so quickly and completely.
For me, this translates to learning to completely embrace that community of people that care about me and understand me. At the same time, I am learning to let go of the people that were in my life that do not care enough about me to keep me around in their lives. It's a lesson in moving on. That doesn't mean forgetting or letting go of the friends I have in other places. It just means that when I find myself among people that don't seem to understand me anymore, that we part ways.
As my dog has shown me, it does not have to lead to sadness. She is a very happy dog that embraces what she does have at all times. We are always a work in progress, and that means that we should expect that sometimes, we will move beyond the people that we used to call friends.
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