Passing For Normal

Well, Day 6 didn't happen, but five days in a row is pretty momentous for me, so I'm okay with posting nearly every day for 30 days.

Lots of heavy shit went down yesterday (not mine, but involving people I know) to do with alcohol and addiction -- and given my history, that naturally stirred up a bunch of my own stuff. I have Thoughts and also Feelings, and there's a post going to come of it before too long.

But this is not that post. This is the post about how I cannot have a dog, and how my friends don't seem to get that. Of all the crap things about my life -- and they are legion, and some of them really heavy, scary sorts of crap -- the very worst one is that I can't have a dog. I can never again have the kind of relationship I had with Corey, the Belgian Malinois who was my heart dog, my soulmate with fur, not ever. There are a thousand reasons for it, they are real and big and there is NO WAY around them. I've wrestled with it in every way imaginable, and the fact stands, immutable. (In the name of all things merciful, please DO NOT try to help me find a way to change this. That would not be a kindness.)

So that's a fact of my life and I have come to terms with it as well as I'll ever be able to, and my friends know it. Both of my closest friends know it best of all, and understand it best of all, but in spite of this, as of tonight, both of them have asked me to take on one of their dogs if need be.

Suzi has two Rottweilers, one of whom is Indy, the dog I have known since she was ten weeks old and love like breathing. She's my joy and delight, my evil child, my darling freak of nature, and I could only love her a tiny bit more if she'd been my own. I'm at Suzi's house right this moment, temporarily in residence while she and Dan the Man are off for a four-day trip. In the past I've spent as long as two months living here with Indy, just the two of us; it has brought us very close.

Indy has serious health problems; that's why she can't travel with her people and their other dog. She has expensive health problems, and an expensive diet. She has behavioral issues that have to be very carefully managed. That's cool; Suzi is up for it.

I'm not. Which is why I said no when Suzi asked me if she could name me to take Indy in her will if something should happen to both her and Dan. No, I can't take your dog. I can't even get the dog I WANT, the dog of my heart and soul and dreams, and money is a major reason why not. So is size; I will not have any dog I can't lift and carry. Indy is about triple my current max. There are many other reasons, but those will do for starters. Bottom line: You know I can't have MY dog, and that money is a major reason why not. Why would you expect me to adopt YOUR dog, with her high, on-going expenses?

Okay, that one's hypothetical (though it still baffles and rankles in equal measure). The one that happened tonight was not.

My friend D, the one who lives in the Bay Area and visits me now and then with her dogs, bred and co-owns an older male dog -- let's call him Huge, because he is -- that she knows I love dearly, and he loves me. He doesn't give his heart to many people, and I'm honored to be one of the chosen few. For most of Huge's life, he has lived with his other co-owner, a woman who is about to lose her house to foreclosure and it's looking like she probably won't be able to find a new place to live where she can have Huge, so she is (per contract) probably going to surrender him back to D, his breeder.

D is also in severely straitened circumstances and is already living in one desperately over-crowded room with three Rottweilers, including an intact male; that male and Huge would like very much to fight with each other, and must always be kept completely and securely separate from each other.

Having just learned that she'll probably have to take Huge back, D called me and asked me if I would take him. Because he's seven and probably only has a couple of years left and he loves me and I love him -- all of which is true. The surrendering co-owner could help with expenses, that makes it okay, right? Wrong.

What is also true, and which D should know better than anyone, is that I CANNOT HAVE A DOG, and if I did, it would be MY dog, the dog that I choose, and it would NOT be a Rottweiler.

My heart can and does ache for her and for Huge (and for the co-owner who will be surrendering him). But no, D, I cannot, will not, and would not take your dog.

I think it's hardest to take because these people are wealthy in the thing I cannot have and yearn for most deeply -- and I don't mean money. They're rich in dogs. I am achingly impoverished, and always will be, and can never be otherwise. I can't have the dog-rich life, the canine heart-bond that they enjoy every day. I CAN'T -- and they know this... right up until they need me to handwave this intolerable reality in the face of their need to feel okay about the fate of their dogs.

It's more than a bit cruel.

Anyway, I had to do a massive vent and emo dump of all that crap, or I'd never get to sleep tonight. Apologies to anyone who read the whole thing.