My dog’s eyes

I could not look into my dog’s eyes because just the pleading expression itself was too much to handle. It was like a mirror to my soul imploring the world to look into my eyes and recognize how to help.

At the height, I was barely able to crawl under my desk to plug in the wires required to get my ‘home office’ up and running. I remembered thinking this is paralysis, rigor mortis? Lucky for the mysore yoga practice studio at the bottom of the hill.

Now, I see even that I resisted exploration because I could not handle what I, at that point, ‘knew’ I could never have. At the time I may have viewed it as the impressive estate grounds in the ranch (the land I could not have) or even the clean beautiful little homes by the golf courses.

I just, to defend my soul, avoided it all.

Equally, I had trouble with urban neighborhood that I once embraced and walked freely in, even if I should not have in my 20’s. So I found a place to wedge myself firmly in between the two and here I am today.

I am somewhat surprised I survived back then at all. No wonder my projects, while completed, carried the weight of failure with them. No wonder I “ducked and ran”. What else could I do? Explain depression?

Explain that I just did my best to forge forward? Explain that I did not really know how to take responsibility for something I could not accept myself lest in accepting it I would allow it to tear me to shreds? That when you asked me, “Can you handle this?”… the only answer I had ever known was ‘yes’ because that was how I had survived my entire life. Explain that I know that, had I been willing to test out just a bit of vulnerability, I would have learned more.

Was I afraid even of being ‘saved’? Because that would put me in the hands of others and that might be terrible? That really, I just had to keep going with that same MO that I’d leaned on so many years because it was the only ladder I could trust to crawl out of that space.

I’ve gotten past it feeling just plain embarrassing and terrible. I’ve reasoned through understanding that people like you may not be able to fully comprehend the depths from which I make decisions that are likely not at all rational in your logic. I may have even come to that painful realization that, instead of me being the one that had to let go of someone, I was the one you had to let go of.

We all reach limits. It is within mine that I may at some point re-cultivate a life where I cross back to a place where I can empower. So much about that time. So much. So much I created and let factors pull me away from.

Had he been fully supportive? Had he not wanted it all for him. A question I’ve asked myself over and over. The obvious answer is yes – a partner can indeed tear down every rung you install. And make you feel like he is actually your biggest champion.

Nevermind that though. At the end of it, I came (have come) to view my outbursts like that of a child who has fallen from the swing, bruised a knee, and is crying for a guardian who is too busy on the phone to notice. So, eventually, they give up, dust off their knee, and get up and start playing again. Over and over and over and over again.

Because, at that point, the people that were watching I was too scared to engage with, and the ones I wanted to be…well…