My dog died.
My 32nd year on earth can be described as one of the most challenging of my life. Mildly and swifty put, I lost. The year began with a sprinkling of tiny deaths that culminated in the biggest, most earth shattering loss of my life. I refuse to feel embarrassed about the gravity of my feelings; the girls that get it, get it.
My therapist recently gave me and my partner a phrase to recite and implement as we enter our third year together, and I’ve decided to adopt it into every nook and cranny of my life: with ease.
Last August, I had an incredible birthday dinner surrounded by six of my best girlfriends. By October, I’d been blocked by five of them.
By November, I’d been blocked or unfriended by an entirely different and unrelated set of girlfriends. While I still and will always mourn those relationships, this time I understood why.
In November, I went into debt $10,000 in order to save my dog’s life. He still died seven months later.
They say as you grow, the relationships that no longer align with you fall away like dead limbs. Not because anyone has any ill intention, but because sometimes life demands focus - a small perforation we have to traverse towards expansion.
I’m not writing with intent for public consumption (for the first time in forever) to moan and groan about my troubles. Sure, it feels nice to peel back the dummy and placating smile, but because through loss, I’ve learned. On the eve of my 32nd birthday, despite every rotten feeling coursing through me, I’m proud to be a student of the universe.
I used to be such an angry person. My simmering had become a bit amongst my closest friends. The emotions I could access easily were rage, or revenge, or bitterness. These fires felt safe in the face of disappointment, sadness, or disgust. I never cried, and certainly not in front of anyone. I was ruthless, sometimes reckless, and unforgiving. If you knew me in my twenties, if you were ever caught in my crossfire, well, I’m sorry.
Finding the balance between hard and soft has been a demanding and arduous process. I made a couple choices that were in blatant opposition to the torch I’d taken up after experiencing an absolutely ass relationship. I had to decide which direction I would take; what I wanted the miseries of life to label the directions on my moral compass. When I moved away from my hometown, and quickly settled into a solid relationship, I finally had the opportunity to inhale big.
As my lungs filled and expanded, so did my capacity for compassion. So did my understanding of what it means to be human. So did my willingness to forgive.
I have encountered very, very few people I would consider irredeemable.
I am currently dating an old friend of mine’s high school/college ex. Albeit, it’s a little more layered than that, but I’m not here to present excuses. I say “old” because she’s not my friend anymore - a very understandable, very respectable choice she made. Not a good look for me, but I made my own choice, and I own that. Even if some people don’t agree or understand, sometimes I don’t agree with myself, but it was the right choice for me, just like she made the right choice for her. I know she is good, and I know I am still good.
Last year, my best girlfriends did something so unbelievably heinous, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. A year of therapy and I still don’t understand why they did it, what made them think they could do it, and why they perpetuated their behavior even months after. I don’t think they are bad people. I actually miss them terribly, the way our weirdness and quirks were perfectly matched, every day. I think they thought what they did was right, or somehow helpful. I’m sure they didn’t appreciate my initial, admittedly childish reaction. Their definition of a good friend differed from mine, and the dead limbs fell.
The support I received when I lost Marty was something I’ve never experienced. My boyfriend was out of town, so Taylor and Sam let me crash with them for two nights so I wouldn’t be home alone. Kate sent me flowers, as did Cheyney who also gifted me with a beautifully engraved necklace. Devin and Jake sent me money for food to make sure I ate. Emily Kate came over as my body double to help me clean. Jessie sent me a watercolor painting now framed beside my bed adorned with Marty’s very first collar. I received heartfelt cards in the mail that now hang on my fridge. So many people called and texted to check on me, still call and text to check on me.
In a year I felt an immense sense of abandonment, I was urged to release my thanklessness, and quickly remembered that I am in fact the luckiest woman alive.
He’s not one for attention and will most likely hate this, but I would be remiss not to mention my partner, my sweet boyfriend, Jacob. I’ve known him since he was 20 and I was 24 - he was a hilariously heavy and meaningful blip in my notoriously raucous decade. Turns out, that heaviness was intuition because the timing was off then, and we were meant for now. We shook on it and made it “official” this year. I had known a previous version of him that was, um, a boy in his early twenties - possessing one of those aformentioned wobbly moral compasses, if you will. He had known a previous version of me that was very loudly wounded. In the time we’ve been together, not only have we had the honor of relearning these new and improved versions of each other, but we’ve provided each other with a salve to soothe our ongoing growing pains. He’s healed parts of me I didn’t know still needed healing. He continues to heal me. He always shows up with a coffee or a Dr. Pepper for me in hand. He acknowledges my insecurities and anxieties and walks with me through them - even though those old wounds and crimes weren’t committed by his hand. I’ve never pumped my own gas as long as he is with me, I probably never will. He helped my dad carry and cart my dog’s dead body to his final resting place. He held me through the night as I sobbed till my eyes swelled shut.
With ease - in the end, it was easy to choose him. It’s easy to choose him every day.
When speaking to my therapist about my mass exodus of friends, I brought up the friend who was previously in a relationship with Jacob. I repeated what she told me, her shatterproof perception of him, how she said, verbatim, “I know I can’t get everyone to hate him but…”
My therapist said something that rocked my world, and that I will carry with me forever. Something that changed the way I view even the most irredeemable people from my past.
If we ourselves have the capacity to change, why would we assume any differently of anyone else?
- - -
Marty McFly was my best friend and soulmate. He was the love of my life. I won’t go into too much detail about him or what happened, simply because I am still not ready to dive that deep, but to be very clear, I would’ve gone into millions of dollars of debt if it meant him staying with me earthside in this life forever.
Until we meet again, my poo poo.
