I could learn a lot from my dog

Most of the time when I think about my dog, Grace, a large lab/Great Pyrenees mix, I would not think she could teach me much. For one thing, she's kind of a dope, cute but not very bright.  However, I can now see many personality traits in her that I would do well to adopt.  These are a few of the things I have learned:

1) Be adventurous in eating.  Based on the disgusting eating habits of my dog, you would not expect I would want to take any cues from her. The part that I can draw from is her willingness to try new things, almost anything, in fact, and then decide if it's good or not.  In my own life, I could stand to be a little more open to new foods than I sometimes am.  This, I have already started to change.

2) Live in the moment.  Grace doesn't worry about what happened 10 minutes ago, and she never fears the future.  She fully embraces the right now.  Sometimes, this means she gets an impulse to dig a hole, so she does it, and is remorseful about it later.  I think I could definitely use a lot more spontaneity in my life and a lot less regret and worry.

3) Meet new people with an open mind.  To Grace, every person and dog is a potential friend. She never hesitates to walk right up to any person or animal and greet them with curiosity and friendliness. I am sometimes jealous of her total lack of social awkwardness, but the more I watch her, the more it inspires me to follow her lead.

4) Embrace playtime.  Grace often finds a toy and starts racing around the house with it all by herself. She plays with joyful abandon and loves it when others join in. She even tries to get the cats to play, and it almost works sometimes. The most important part is that she is having fun, and who couldn't use a little more fun in their life?

A new choice

I've been struggling for some time over how I fit into our roller derby league in Salem (Cherry City Derby Girls).  I started out last November not knowing how to skate.  Over several months, I learned to skate pretty well, and I tested up to level 2 in May.  If I were to pursue testing to level 3 and pass, I would be eligible to be drafted onto a team. 

I started off very gung ho in level 2, but things went awry early in the summer.  My best derby buddies stopped coming to practice, and one of them left the league altogether.  Attendance at practices became sparse, and it was hard to be motivated to show up when I might be the only one there.  I found out in June that I had skin cancer on my scalp that would require surgical removal.  During the healing process, I was not able to wear a helmet, so I was off skates for 2 weeks.  Then I got two ribs knocked out of place at a derby promotional event in July, and I did not get that completely fixed for a month.  That entire time I was not skating, though I was still riding my bike and doing other activities.  Eventually, I started Crossfit as an alternate workout, and I quickly became hooked on the way it seemed to help the shoulder issues created by my misaligned ribs. 

I never really went back to skating after that. I tried to be a rec skater, but it was primarily for a workout, which I didn't really achieve in that case.  So I just stopped going.  I felt bad.  I felt like I was betraying the league by even considering leaving, but I really felt like a second-class member if I wasn't skating.

Last week, I finally came to the realization that I could actually be a very important and much-needed league member by serving as a ref or an NSO (non-skating official).  Hearing that a couple of other people I know have decided the same because they, like me, cannot commit the time required to join a team.

Tonight is my first night at practice as an official instead of a skater.  I'm nervous but excited, and I hope this ends up being the place I was meant to be in the league.

What have I done?

Today I lost the second friend in a week, and I am totally to blame.  I have fucked up in a big way, and ruined two friendships, one of which I cared very deeply about.  I am devastated.  I don't think he will ever forgive me for my behavior, and I owe him so much I don't know what to do.  I became to difficult to deal with, and I can't really be angry at him, even though it would be much easier to hate him.  I have gotten through the first failure with bitterness and anger, and that clearly made things worse for me.

I wish I could go back in time and change things, but it's far too late for that.  I can't imagine moving forward at this point.  I think I just need to cry for awhile, and that's what I plan to do. 

Here I thought I'd made so much progress, but I see that I hadn't at all.

I am an addict, baby

Addiction seems to run in my family.  In one of my brothers, it took the form of a teenage alcoholic who was forced to recover or die by the time he was 25.  Sometimes I believe it takes the form of worrying in my mother.  I won't even mention what it is for my dad, because I try not to think of him as a dirty old man. ;)

For me, it has taken many forms, though never alcohol.  I believe I was too scarred by my brother at a young age with the damage he did to our family to really go in that direction. I am very conscious of it even now, in fact, because I am aware of that nature in myself and how easily I could end up there.  Currently, I believe I am addicted to the endorphins I get from exercise.  I have found, especially lately, that the rush I get from doing Crossfit, strenuous hiking, biking, or (hopefully soon) skating is what gets me through the day.  When I don't get much exercise for a number of days, I can feel it in mood changes and an anxious feeling I get in the pit of my stomach.  This feeling only seems to be relieved by intense exercise.

This whole addiction idea is a little difficult for me to understand in myself in particular because I also have tendencies of being non-committal.  I never get REALLY into anything fully and completely.  I think I don't have the attention span to become completely fascinated with any one activity.  I guess this is why I really didn't flourish with roller derby as the only activity in my life.  I felt like it required too much commitment, and in reality, I think I prefer to spread myself a little more across many interests.  So for now, I will continue to feed my addiction through as many outlets as possible and be satisfied that at least this particular addiction should add to my lifespan rather than detract from it.

Options and Priorities

There's a saying that goes something like this: Don't make someone a priority if they only make you an option.  It's great advice. Don't spend a lot of effort on someone that treats you as if they don't really care about you.  That should be reserved for those that truly care about you and that you truly care about.

The problem for me is that I am not always sure which people are which in my life.  Sometimes, I misinterpret someone's busy schedule or personal issues as them not caring about me.  By the same token, at times, I am sure I do not treat everyone that I care about in a manner that shows that.  By nature, I prefer directness from others.  I would prefer if we had some sort of sign on our forehead that indicated who is truly a friend and who could give a rat's ass about you...and even just those who like you but really wouldn't miss you if you were gone. 

As it is, I have a very difficult time separating my own feelings of inadequacy (which, let's face it, we all have on some level) from a genuine lack of interest by another party.  And though I say I prefer directness, I am often fearful of directly confronting a person because if I am wrong, then I inadvertantly offend someone that I care about.  So for now, I carry on and just wonder about some people.  Perhaps I will work up the courage at some point to confront those that leave me wondering.  Or perhaps that alone should tell me something.  Either way, it's a constant struggle for me.

It all adds up...

Whenever I think about past decisions that turned out to be poor choices, or the events of my past that have scarred me in some way, my tendency is to wish I could change the course of events.  I think to myself that I would have done things differently, made different choices, followed a different path, and I would somehow be better off today.  It's often difficult for me to view those experiences except in a negative light.

The thing is, everyone has those experiences that may have been the result of trauma, poor choices, or just plain unlucky coincidence.  Every individual is the sum of all of their experiences, good and bad.  I seem to have no trouble embracing the past of other people, and I can be boundlessly empathetic toward others.  When it comes to my own past, though, now that's when I tend to be judgmental. 

What I am trying to learn to apply to my own life now is to be as forgiving to myself as I tend to be toward others.  Because it's not just me that I hurt when I am hard on myself.  I am also not giving other people enough credit when I assume they don't accept me as the sum of my experiences the way I accept them.  I like who I am today, even though I am far from perfect. And ya know what? Those imperfections in my friends are what endear them to me the most. I have to hope it's a mutual arrangement. :)

Nicknames

I have never been a person that uses nicknames for people.  I can't think of one person that I use a nickname for, young or old, or ever have. Okay, except for my father-in-law, who goes by Bob even though his name is Charles. No one can explain that one to me.

The thing is, every pet I have had over the last 13 years has wound up with numerous nicknames, some cutesy, mostly unexplainable as to origin.  And the thing is, they typically actually know and respond to all their nicknames. 

 Our dog Vegas, that we had for 12 years, was the first to have a series of nicknames.  She somehow became Pooh Bear, Pooh, Booh, Poobaloo, and Veggie, among others I can't recall now.  We have a cat, Cirrus, who has the fewest names...mostly C, and P (complicated explanation for that one).  Fee, our other cat, has and responds to Bee, Busy Bee, Feasel B, Feasie Bee, Fizz...you get the idea.  Our new dog, Grace, has started to acquire nicknames quickly...G, Gracie, Gracie Mae, and my favorite, Grace-a-saurus. 

I have thinking about this lately and trying to decide how unusual we are.  We talk to the pets a lot, not like crazy people that think they will respond or that they even really understand us.  I think we do it (maybe me more than the husband, I'll admit) because they respond to us based on our tone, and they learn what different tones mean to them by us talking to them a lot.  Maybe that's crazy talk, or maybe that's dog whisperer talk.  Either way, I'm certain I will not stop doing it anytime soon, so think what you want about it.