CHANGE, FOR THE DOGLESS

"people are always saying that change is a good thing. but all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened."

(thanks for leaving this quote in the comments, you know who you are)

once upon a time there was a girl with a big heart, who longed for a little family. she married a handsome young man with a heart the size of adventure, and the two of them set out to build that family. when it came along slower than anticipated, that short girl with that big old heart set out to glue together a family, piece by piece.

she called him peter pan.

***

when i created my little family, two parts human to two parts puppy, i meant for it to last forever. these last weeks have ripped me apart.

i talked myself into and out of calling it off a million times. writing the wire fox terrier rescue and saying, "i take it back, we're keeping him!" but every time i'd start, i could never finish. 

people always ask if it's because of henry. it was never about henry. when i adopted my boys, i adopted them knowing and hoping that we would add to our little pack someday with human babies. of course i knew that combining human babies and doggy babies would take vigilance, but i was prepared. henry was safe. the puppies loved henry. this was never about henry. 

it wasn't about simplifying my life, either. i never wanted a simple life. i want a life filled with love, and love is anything but simple. 

and it was never about convenience. i invited inconvenience in and i thrived on it. 

this was about my boys. this was about their needs, and making decisions based on what was best for them, not what was best for me. what was best for them broke my heart. 

we sacrifice an awful lot for this city life, and while we humans reap the rewards, the dogs in our life may not. the city life is a hard life for a dog. some dogs need what their owners can't give, as much as it hurts to admit it.

in five years we may be back in the suburbs, but five years is an eternity to a dog. i couldn't justify the limited life i was giving my fluffy boys. they deserved better than what i could give them, and when i realized that, it became so obvious what i had to do.

***

the cab pulled away on saturday evening.

i watched him jump in excitedly. i watched brandon reach his hand in to pat that fluffy head one last time. i reached my own hand in after him as the light changed and the meter started, but the door was shut quickly and my hand never found its target and the light was green too soon and then he was gone. i watched the taxi zoom up central park west for a brief second before it hit me. i had done it. the worst of it was over. i had sent my baby away to belong to somebody else. and then i couldn't breathe. i cried hard on the street into my baby's neck, while my husband squeezed my hand.

***

i think a lot about change lately.

my family has changed so much. some days i hardly recognize it. 

where once there was an empty ache, there is now my henry august, fat and happy on my hip. where there once were finals and classes, there is now a career with a paycheck. where there once were wheat fields and cows there now are brownstones and sky scrapers. 

i love my city life, but sometimes i grieve for moscow.

moscow was such a funny little time in our lives. and such a funny little town, untouched by time and hardly even existing at all once you left its tiny borders. it is easy to pretend that things can stay exactly as they are there, frozen in time forever just as i left them. the people, the places, my old narrow hallway extending to the back door, the patio we laid ourselves that hot summer in the sun, the rickety old lawn furniture propped against that old barn shed, the prickly grass, the hammock in the lilac breeze, my old pal mister sun.

some nights as i struggle to fall asleep i walk those quiet little streets in my head. i imagine i can feel the hot august sun beating down on my shoulders and coming up in waves against my legs through the concrete. i imagine i can the smell of the lilac trees and the earthy warmth of pine and wheat from the fields. i imagine i can feel the slow easing of my city life as it drains out from my fingers. the moscow of my mind is deserted and quiet and it is just me there, empty but for the ghosts of those i loved, slipping in and out like wisps of clouds in the atmosphere. i visit my little shoebox of a house on b street, the sandwich shop where i'd meet ollie and kendall for lunch, and all those street corners where so much life happened in my imagination on a momentary pause on an afternoon run. those old horses on d street and the llamas behind cleveland, and the middle school soccer games on the field and gyros at mikeys and visiting brandon on campus. betsy the flying potato. schweitzer engineering laboratories looming on that big hill in pullman to the west.

what a life we had there. beautiful and sad, just like it always is.

in the years to come i will always long for my little family of moscow, two parts human to two parts puppy. at times i will want it so desperately it will crush inward on my chest, pushing residual sadness down my arms.

but i am okay with it. because that is where peter pan and barnaby macduff will always be mine. where a little family of four will still sputter and ache and struggle to start. where a short, childless, romantic, big-hearted girl lives with them still.

they will always be mine, there.