I adopted another dog

You may or may not have noticed that since my beloved dog Ziggy passed away last August, I’ve barely been writing on this blog. I’m not sure if the two correlate but their timing matches up.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how we really ought to be forming new year habits rather than new year resolutions. Well, one of my new year habits is to write more.

Back in November, I adopted another dog. His name is Capone. He resembles Ziggy in his stature and coloring, but his personality is quiet different.

Capone is fearless. He spent the first few months of his life transferring hands from adopters to shelter employees to foster families, before finally arriving to me. He loves all people. At the adoption events, he became used to many different sounds and smells, all sorts of other animals, and humans both young and old. He’s a joy to take out in public because he makes everyone he meets feel like the most important person in the world, smothering them with hugs and kisses.

He doesn’t require much exercise at all or even training. For one, he’s a low energy dog and much prefers snuggling to running. For two, he’s extremely sensitive to commands and thus picks up quickly whenever I’m teaching him new ones.

In short, Capone is everything I could have ever hoped for in a dog. He’s perfect for me. And when I look at him, I can’t help but be reminded of God’s grace and goodness. That no matter how devastating a loss, God turns all things for good. And often, for better than we could have even imagined.

Is Freedom Really What We Want? (A Personal Reflection)

When my boyfriend died, the life I knew died along with him. Shortly thereafter, I packed up all of my belongings, everything I had acquired in California, and drove across the country to be back home again in North Carolina. Because, of course, when the world fails you, the only place you have to go is home.

Within one year, I had a monumental career change, my parents divorced, my childhood home was sold, and I was living on my own in an apartment for the first time in my life. All this change in only one year! Even writing about it now, it seems surreal. How has my life become so crazy, so chaotic? How have I been able to push through, to survive?

Well, God is good. And that is where I am now. Completely lost, approaching the second birthday that I will spend without my boyfriend and the only thing that I know for certain is God’s goodness and grace. Other than that, I feel adrift. Floating in a world that I have no control over, a world that is constantly shifting, one without ground.

I guess on the bright side, I have nothing holding me back. I have no attachments that hold me down, hold me steady. I’m free to fly like a bird, as I have always yearned to do.

This also means I have little security, no sense of stability, a feeling of total loss of control. Does a baby bird feel this way before it leaves its nest for the first time? I wonder. And how many nests will I have to leave? Is flying free really all it’s cracked up to be?

bird