The Dog That Got Me Walking

Good morning everyone! Welcome to “Whatever Wednesday”! I wanted to leave Wednesday to have some flexibility to it because I’d certainly been on a roller coaster of emotions and energy levels throughout what I would call my “Corona days”.

And I thought we would talk about getting out and going for a walk. I don’t know how many of you had to stand by your window this morning and rub your eyes like 10 times, and go holy shit is that snow? I was not prepared for that and I’m usually watching the weather. However, the snow came and I said to myself shoot, I wanted to go for a walk with everyone today because I wanted to encourage the beauty of simply walking, and I am fair-weathered, so It took a bit for me, it always takes a bit for me in the cold weather to get outside but I’ve gotta tell you it’s beautiful out. The sun is magical for me and I hope it is for you.

So what today is about is getting outside and walking. Here’s the thing you may have been someone that has been outside walking all your life, or for the past year or for the past month, and it’s an easy thing for you to do. There’s those of us who have always ran, and the thought of walking was like…I poo pooped it, it was “I’m not going to go just for a walk!” It took me a very long time to get my head around the embracing of walking, and taking my head down a bit and I think a lot of it was my ego of having to plow through.

Now don’t get me wrong, I ran yesterday, I take really big breaks between my runs, so my body can repair. I try to keep my expectations realistic, so if my body isn’t working with me when I’m running, I just walked and I don’t get wrapped up in it as I did years ago.

But today I want to talk to you about walking and one of the really fantastic creatures in my life that got me walking this year is my dog. And here’s my story…

So before I tell my story, basically, today you choose your song, get outside and do something different. Go outside, maybe get a podcast on, maybe pick up your pace if you’ve always walked a certain pace. If you’re not a walker and are freezing, I just encourage you to bundle yourself up with everything and go outside. Even if it’s just around the block. There are days where I will just walk around the block, just to get my head out of my space at home and just give me a little bit of a reboot. It works every time.

But what I would like to talk to you about is shifting my mindset. And I lot of times, well for huge chunk of my life, I believed life would go from A to B to B to C to C to D and if there’s a little blurb, well geez, you just figure it out don’t cha? And then you had divots and you hit ridiculous walls and stuff comes up in you, that you never ever would have thought, and that’s judgment.

So today is not about judgment. Today is not about huge expectations. Today is just about maybe, maybe stepping out of your comfort zone, stepping out of what you always thought you were, you should be, you could be.

And my story is, it’s a tough one that I’m gonna tell it to you. I’ve always had a dog and love dogs, Golden retrievers in particular, and basically we, um I think the kids were quite little, I had a beautiful dog, her name is Abby, and I had to put her down. And I think she was about 14 and when I put her down.

I had to come home to four small children and I had to explain what happened. So I got each of them a little Gund doll and three of them cried and one of them laughed, and I was personally grieving ’cause this dog followed me everywhere, all the way to the bathroom to my bed. Everywhere. She was my dog. She didn’t even have to walk on a leash – just gorgeous and it was super tough. I put her down by myself.

Anyways then the idea was, at the time I was married, and there is a big discussion that we would not get another dog. And you know I’m a funny bird, I had had a lot of things in my head and I was like I’m a family, got 4 kids, how can we NOT have a dog. But I listened for awhile. I know their work and I don’t know what happened.

One day somebody came into work with a dog that was a year old and they had gotten it from her breeder, and she was well trained and blah blah blah. So I contacted that breeder and they said, no we don’t have any adult dogs, but we do have a litter and you could come see. So I take the kids when I go see these puppies. You never go see Golden retriever puppies and expect to walk out without one. It just doesn’t happen. They are way too adorable.

Anyways, long story short, we get the dog. At that time my husband was so upset. He was and it was..it was…really, really looking back now was a really bad choice. It was an awful decision but again, I kind of had this “lala land” attitude with my marriage, that he would just come along, and he would figure it out. “You know it’s OK, it’s a good thing, it’s just a dog you know”.

But it didn’t. It ended up being a bit of a bone of contention. And I had a really hard time training that dog. That dog’s name was Zoe, I know. Zoe – She was bad. Well she wasn’t a bad dog, I just couldn’t train her. I tried to train her. I did an awful job training her and then I had four little ones, and they tried and it just became really overwhelming, and then we became separated, and so we were weeks on and weeks off. Well the weeks that I didn’t have the children I worked like crazy. I would work like 12-14 hour days, and that dog would be left in the house. That was awful. Heartbreaking.

Near the end, she started pooping she was like, I think 6? 5? Anyways She started pooping all over. Started eating stuff that she’d never done before, and it was just it was heartbreaking. Anyways as I felt fate happens, friends of a friends, their dog had just died, and they’re just wonderful. They didn’t have children and they were dog lovers.

Anyways, long story short, I made a huge, huge heartbreaking decision and I gave Zoe away to this wonderful family. I explained their home’s Taj Mahal. They were on the water and they had lots of land for this beautiful animal to run. It broke my children’s hearts. They were very upset with me, very upset with me. And I hung onto that guilt. That guilt was so heavy that I could not touch another dog for years. Years. Couldn’t touch I’d be out walking, running, and I would do everything in my power to divert around that animal. Never nothing.

Then last year, I don’t even know what happened and I was walking actually in Boston Commons and there were dogs everywhere, so beautiful, you know, it was a lovely setting, and I bent down and I pet a dog!

And I went, “Oh my God I miss having a dog.” But I can’t have a dog, I’ve claimed I’m not worthy to have a dog. I can’t take care of a dog. I gave away my dog. So yeah it was really tough and so then I went to my partner couple of days later and I said this is what happened, and I don’t know but I really, I don’t know, like could we have a dog? And then this commitment…like, it’s like a long ways down the road, and I don’t know if that’s really what I want either?

Anyways, but he was super cool and he said OK what are your obstacles? OK I said I don’t want a dog with hair. Well let’s look for ones without hair. Training. I obviously suck at training dogs and he’s like I’m really good at training dogs. What else? And I was like, commitment, and he was like, once the dog gets trained, if you wanna travel you want to do whatever, we can get a good boarding school, not school but you know what I mean.

Anyways, and it literally happened like that. And then this thing came. I have never been in love with an animal more. This sweet little thing has got me out walking and she has taught me to slow down. So here’s the thing I had to forgive myself. I really had to forgive myself. I had to let go of what I thought I was. I had to be OK with the fact that I did the best I could, at that moment in my life. I did the best I could. The best I could for that dog was to give her to a family that could give her everything that she deserved.

And I also realized that I can do hard things, and that’s a Glennon Doyle thing, and it’s phenomenal but when you start thinking about it, sometimes the hard things aren’t really you know the training for the marathon Or going out for those hard runs, they’re difficult physically, you know a lot about that really, really hard stuff that’s just inside of you. It’s forgiving other people, forgiving yourself or letting things go. Just let it go, and maybe accepting that people change.

Maybe accepting that you change. Maybe surrendering to what is happening in our lives right now, to just ease ourselves off of things that are out of our control. Letting go of control and loving, just love yourself, just love yourself, you deserve it. Nobody, nobody gets to say you don’t. Right? You, you get to. And there’s nothing. We do the best we can in the moment at that’s it.

So get outside get outside, get outside. Enjoy this gorgeous day if you’re working today, thank you, thank you. If you’re not, get outside, take care of yourself, take care of your heart, take care of your soul. See you tomorrow.