I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Saturday Reflections, I take time out to reflect.
My foster dog Sally has a potential adopter, so she may be leaving our house (again). This has got me thinking about how the things (especially the creatures, human and otherwise) I love come into and out of my life, often unexpectedly.
Back in June of 2023, my daughter Briar received an email from the animal rescue with the subject line URGENT Dogs Die at 11 Today. Sally was one of the dogs on the list, and here’s how she was described:
Sally ~ Female German shep mix, 3 years, 72 pounds, good with other dogs. She is heart worm-posiutive so she will need to be seen in Aurora for her vetting. From the shelter: I approached and got up to say hello with gentle tail wags and took treats gently through the bars, she was easy to leash and sniffed dogs down the row, she walked easy on the leash. she immediately did her business outside and met a dog next door with a waggy tail and polite sniffs, she is treat motivated and comes over for pets and attention and takes treats gently. She even knows how to sit! She let me dress her up and even gave me some kisses too. She’s a super calm just all around chill girl.Sallyis a great dog that would make any family happy with her low key demeanor. She walked right back to her kennel easy.
Sally was with us for six months the first time around, before being adopted out. We all fell in love with her, and I even put an adoption application in for her, but ultimately decided not to adopt her because I wasn’t ready to adopt at that point, and because she was so reactive on leash to other dogs. Briar and I were happy when Sally was adopted, but both a little heartbroken to see her go too.
I would later go on to foster and adopt Bo. One reason I picked him out was that he reminded me of Sally. You can see that they look like they could be siblings!
Towards the end of last year, Sally’s first adopter contacted the rescue and told them he could not keep her. The ostensible reason was his partner’s allergies but I imagine Sally’s reactivity on leash and at the vet made things difficult too. We did not take her back at that time. But when her new foster couldn’t keep her, I raised my hand to take her. I’ve had her since April of this year, about five months.
I have considered again and again adopting her, but I cannot walk Bo and Sally at the same time. She is extremely strong, and if she and Bo both decide to lunge at something simultaneously it’s too dangerous. It did happen one time and I let go of both of them, not able to keep hold of their leashes, with fortunately not too terrible consequences. Both of my hands were hurt, and Sally started a fight with another dog. But the other dog was uninjured.
While Briar has been living with me, managing Sally and Bo together works. But Briar won’t be here forever.
My heart hurts when I think of saying goodbye to Sally.
The things I love come and go. Sometimes, sadly, they leave my life permanently.
What I love comes into and out of my life
When I first bought the house I live in now, in April 2023, shortly before we hosted Sally the first time, my mother and my daughter both moved in with me. My mother’s husband needed to go into assisted living, so to make things financially easier she lived with me for a couple years. Briar was finishing her bachelor’s of social work at Metro, and living with me made things easier on her than getting her own place.
After my mom’s husband passed away, she decided she wanted to live in a community of people her own age, so she moved into a senior living place. Meanwhile, Briar moved out to live near the University of Denver to pursue a master’s in social work.
I felt sad alone, but I used the opportunity to start dating again and had a wonderful relationship of about nine months with a man I really enjoyed. It didn’t work out due to political differences, but I don’t regret that time at all. I hadn’t had romantic companionship in my life for a couple years. It surprised me when it returned into my life, even if for a short time.
And then we broke up, and he was out of my life. Beloveds come and go.
This year in June Briar moved back in after completing her master’s. She started a job in community mental health and wanted to take some time to save money before getting a place of her own.
I didn’t expect her to come back, but I was delighted she did. Beloveds come and go.
Not a river and not a reservoir
I’ve been thinking about how metaphors structure the way we approach life lately, and I’ve considered reservoirs vs rivers. While sometimes I think my life should be built as a reservoir, building up a cache of, say, relationships with people and dogs and cats, and never seeing them go, I’ve learned that’s unrealistic. Life doesn’t work like that. People leave. Breakups happen. Children become adults and get their own lives. Dogs come in to be fostered, capture your heart, and then get adopted and move out.
Perhaps relationships in your life can be carried on a river, arriving with the current and perhaps staying in an eddy, but eventually moving on. Trying to dam them up in a reservoir doesn’t work.
But sometimes the things you love come back. Briar came back, for now. Sally came back, only to (possibly) leave after a few months. So life isn’t only a river. It’s not just a reservoir or a river, though it has aspects of both.
There are spirals in life. Sally’s arrival, departure, re-arrival, and re-departure is not simply a repeating cycle, because the re-arrival was not the same as the arrival. She came back to us already known and loved, and a bit less reactive, having reached middle age while she was gone. Briar’s move-in, time away for a master’s, and then second move-in wasn’t simply a repeating pattern of Briar-lived-here, Briar-didn’t-live-here, Briar-lived here again. No, a more mature, more capable Briar arrived back to my house this June, and she moved into the basement suite that had been vacated by my mother, instead of taking a small bedroom upstairs.
Activities come and go too
With Briar’s return, I felt motivated to start swimming again. As a child, I swam on a summer team from age eight to twelve years, and then set it aside until I reached my fifties. I took it up again when the man I was living with encouraged me, and kept it up when I broke up with him and moved into my own house, luckily in a suburb with great rec centers and pools. Then I gave it up briefly after a ski accident and Briar’s moveout. And now I’m back to it.
Beloved activities come and go, pretty much on their own schedule.
I skied from age five to age 18, and then gave it up for twenty years, only to take it up again upon my return to Colorado with my then-husband and children, though I was the only one of the family very enthusiastic about it at that point. After my divorce, it became an activity that allowed me to re-establish myself as my own person, even as I used it to connect with the outdoorsy men that I felt so attracted to.
Swimming and skiing were in my life, out of my life, in my life again, spiraling.
Sally’s departure, a later arrival
If Sally gets adopted and leaves my house, it doesn’t mean that I won’t ever have that kind of doggie love again. It could be she comes back to me. Or it could be another dog arrives in my life, later. I’m not looking for a replacement for her, but I am aware that when a empty space arises in your life (as when my mom and daughter moved out at the same time) often some new love will arrive.
I am so glad I had the chance to welcome Sally back and to love and care for her again.