The Path Most Traveled

I had an interesting thing happen with Porkie yesterday. Porkie is my year-and-a-half old Yorkie/Poodle rescue that has become the laughter in my heart. She is the silliest dog and actually resembles the offspring of a bucking bronco and a gazelle, shrunk down to 9 lbs! I took the dogs out yesterday before my husband and I went to the pool for an afternoon bake, soak and BBQ. I let them off their leashes at the foot of the stairs, they ran up and both Yorkie and Porkie immediately plopped down on my neighbors front door mat. I call to my husband to come see them, for it was a strange behavior they had never done before. As he is coming out of the house my neighbor opens her door. Yorkie jumps up and runs in our house but my little Porkie dear is frozen in fear. She is 2" from the top of the stairs and her eyes are darting around wildly, not trusting any of the humans closing in around her, inching towards a clean getaway straight down the stairs and into the parking lot. See when we rescued her she had a very checkered past. She was picked up at 5 months old off the streets and taken to the pound. She spent a month there and was 2 days away from her lethal injection when an angel of a volunteer rescued Porkie and brought the puppy to the rescue she runs out of her ranch. For my dear Porkie had HORRIBLE fear of humans and would run away at the slightest approach. My husband thought I had gone batty but indulged me and nearly a year later she is the silliest, most playful, sweetest, incredibly cunning and utterly adorable puppy that demands constant tummy scratches, chomps on Yorkie's ear when she gets excited and licks my husband and I all over the face when we come home. So it was a bit surprising to see a year's worth of socializing, training, love and pack-bonding fly right out the door as her fear instinct took over, her most basic default setting. For she did not trust and that was her instinct to preserve her life.

It reminded me of how hard it is to truly, deep in your heart and soul, change. Lots of people strive for it, want it and lets be honest here, need it in their lives. But very few can ever tap into the root source of their behavior patterns, be it drinking or working, yelling or controlling, recognize what is hidden deep down and embark on the relentless quest to change it. I am one of those that have decided to live life on my terms, not the terms presented in my childhood or mistakes I have made along the way. Not the well-worn patterns that have latched onto me via my heritage and ancestry. And most certainly not the outlook prescribed to me when I came down with a weird set of illnesses modern medicine is still ill equipped to diagnose or treat. But change is so hard! I am trying to untangle the intertwined mess between the type-A perfectionist most comfortable with self-medicating all unpleasant feelings away, the sick girl that can't do much but sit on the sofa all day zoning out on the TV in a medicated stupor, and the woman I am trying so hard to become: dutiful housewife, perfect puppy parent, Fibromyalgia crusader, inspiring writer and somewhat attractive, but more importantly healthy Pancreatitis, CFS, Fibromyalgia and Stroke survivor. Man 'o man if I am not having the darnedest time trying to figure this whole thing out!

For my life is moving, but not necessarily in the direction I want. I am spending my days ping-ponging from web page to web page, allowing the hours of my life to suck into the vacancy of social networking and blogging, neglecting all else. I have lost touch with real people, sitting in the apartment all day, seldom using the freedom to explore I am so generously afforded. I used this past weekend as an opportunity to completely physically, but more important mentally disengage from all computer-related activities and float back down to earth. My life is in a-shambles! I am no longer a bevy of perfectionistic energy, racing from one activity to the next, trying to get it all done. I'm not the sick patient watching the dust multiply and laundry pile up while I just sit there, observing it happen yet physically incapable of doing anything about it. I am a woman who exists somewhat between these two worlds, with the neuropathways that facilitate balance lightly etched into the memory of my brain. The type-A pathway is well traveled and deeply luged. The sickie is chiseled next to it, not as deep but still quite familiar. And the path of success, the one of balance, is lightly laid on the surface. It is traveled so seldom but still exists because at times, it is followed. Yes I am going through a significant stage of growth as I attempt to swerve my desired default to an entirely untraveled daily behavior pattern. But I believe we are all capable of change. For once I knelt down and raised my voice, sweetly urging Porkie in the house, I'll be darned if she didn't immediately run right in our open front door. She just needed a little reassurance, but my girl knows where home is.

Thanks for joining,

Leah