mercredi 2 décembre 2020

Dog Days

 I have a dog. This is a sentence I never thought I would be able to write. I was never in one place enough. I have a terrible fear of commitment! That sort of grown-up thing is for 'other' people.

I have a dog. It blows my mind a bit. Nobody and nothing has ever really relied on me in that way before. Sometimes I look at her and she seems so little and helpless. It's lovely and it's awful.

I feel a bit behind other people, sometimes. Like, when everyone else was growing up, I was drunk and having terrible relationships I didn't even realise were terrible. I thought I was really grown-up when I was about twenty-five. I didn't realise what a fucking joke that was. I've spent the years since unpicking how very wrong I was.

Some of my friends got pets when we were in our twenties. That seemed unbelievable to me at the time and even more so to me now. Like my friend Susie, who bombs around in a van and takes her dog everywhere and has this amazing air of capability and an assumption that it'll all work out fine. Incredible. How the fuck do they do it?

I have had a dog for one month and four days and I regularly cry because it's so overwhelming. I realise I don't think I could have done this at any point in my life before now. Especially at the times when I thought I definitely would have been able to. I was an idiot.

I have to remind myself often that it's OK to do things at your own pace. It's OK to do things differently to other people. It's all OK. Sometimes I even believe it.

I am so happy that I have a dog now. We are still getting to know each other but I love her a lot.

Which is good, because she takes up most of my time at the moment. I have a half-written book that is currently remaining that way. I am behind on my homework. I haven't done any exercise since I got her and I can't wait to get back to it. I kind of want her to stay a baby forever but I also can't wait until I can actually take my eyes off her without her chewing my wooden floor/record player/sofa to shreds.

In the (very) brief windows between dog wrangling, it's currently the perfect time of year to:

  • listen to White Chalk by PJ Harvey in the bath
  • rewatch Gilmore Girls
  • read the new book by Charlotte Duckworth
  • eat veggie shepherd's pie.