Our dog, Fletcher, is 12 — he's not in imminent danger (for those of you who know him), but he is showing his age in a variety of ways.
As he rubbed up against me again the other day (making his routinely irritating contribution of hair and dander to my dark dress pants), a thought snuck past my typical reaction, "You're not going to be doing that much longer, are you?"
Not a particular watershed thought, for sure. But, it did prompt me toward something closer to wondering what I will feel when he will never do that any more. Will miss it — will I miss him?
Yes, I will. He is so presumptuous at times...and I will miss him even for that simplicity.
So, what would it be like to have compassion for him and his 'irritations'...simply because of who he is? You can see where I might be going with this....
After all, I'm showing my age, too. And, perhaps because of that, I'm catching myself actually trending toward irritability (in a number of domains) rather than toward compassion.
It got me thinking about some things; noticing some things. Like, I don't have infinite time left either. And, I need to pay more attention to some realities about my existence, too.
For example, I've discovered lately that the last person I am compassionate with is...me.
I can often easily discover compassion for someone else — just tell me their story. But, it is not as easy for me, to honor mine and to extend it to myself. And, that actually limits my compassion for others more than I often realize.
The truth is, I want compassion, as badly as anyone else. The strange part is that I hide my need for it from others. A habit (maybe)? A mechanism (more likely). In fact, this pattern often hides my need for it from myself.
So, I'm exploring these patterns of thinking and behaving (and I must say I'm not too thrilled with what it is revealing).
A week or two ago, I blew an emotional gasket. As usual, it was not about the thing that triggered it. I was bruised by it, in more ways than one. The week after I was having bizarre dreams (you know, the perennial ones we all have from time to time; but, this time with some derivative versions that were...disturbing). Something consistent and something not. What IS happening?
I shared the gory details...continue here.
