Two months prior, I had picked up this little 5 week old puppy. He was skinny and covered in ringworm. I remember how I placed him gingerly on a towel on the passenger seat and when I drove away from the vet's office, he did everything his tiny body could to get to me. He ended up in a ball on my lap with his head resting against my stomach, gazing up at me. For the short time of his life with me, in any quiet moment he would gaze at me. It was like he was always watching my face trying know what my meaning was to him.
He had been dumped with 2 litter-mates at a vet's office and I volunteered to foster him thru a local pit bull rescue group. As he gained weight and his fur grew back into the bald ring-worm patches, he became the shiny coated "blue-nose" pit bull puppy that would get a lot of attention. He was all gray except for a white chest, white socks, and a little white stripe on his nose, and he was all puppy.
Even though he had a formal adoption name, I defaulted to calling him "Poocher". It was a vague and kind of detached name, yet still cute for a puppy. Poocher was work. I swear I went through a 12 pack of paper towels every week. I was constantly cleaning up pee and poop and I kept a spray bottle of cleaner everywhere. He seemed to have developed an amazing ability to pee under his crate from inside of it. I wouldn't even know it was there until hours later when it would dry and stink to high hell. The dog rescue hooked Poocher up with a dog food so fancy and nutritious it was probably healthier than most things my kids ate. But god it made his crap smell. An entire city block would smell after this dog pooped one of his incredibly healthy and expensive poops.
We came to find out that Poocher loves shoes. Shoes are everywhere in this house. It must have been heaven for Poocher. Shoes of every shape and size all are all over the place... and interesting ones too! Fireman rainboots, cowboy boots, moon boots, velcro sneakers that light-up, Nike's with neon shoelaces, Toms, sandals, flip-flops, heels, Robeez... everything. I was constantly on shoe patrol.
Our resident family dog, Petey, had a lot of fun with Poocher...except in the mornings. Petey isn't a morning dog. The whole house is moving in the morning except for Pete who snoozes the morning away. Poocher, on the other hand, couldn't wait for the sun to peak over the horizon. I would let him out of his crate and he would bee-line to Petey's bed, like an annoying little brother, and jump all over him. Petey would lie still and let out a low growl. So, I added "keeping Poocher alive" to my morning routine.
Poocher also added some family stress. My husband was tolerant but slightly annoyed with another of my "do-gooder" projects, and was almost completely hands off about helping with the Puppy. The little kids started out extremely excited to have a puppy in the house, but over the weeks as Poocher grew, they went from fighting over who got to hold him to yelling, "Get this puppy away from me!!!!!" My teenager got so annoyed with dog pee, that at one point he got angry/serious and lectured me saying, "I don't think bringing home a foster puppy was good for our family right now."
In the middle of all this, I ran across this John Lennon quote on FB:
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
People seem to love this quote. I don't. I think they're the words of a self-indulgent person. (I love the Beatles. I can sing every Beatles song by heart, but let's call a spade a spade) Happiness is the key to life? Get the eff out of here. Is happiness really the meaning of our existence? Is that what we should all be striving for in life? Happiness is of course important in life, but the KEY? I can't think that that should be true. What vapid meaningless creatures we must be.
Why the hell did I take this foster puppy? It sure didn't make me happy a lot of the time. It was hard and frustrating and at the end of the day it wouldn't be my dog to show for it. I would put in this time and energy and off he would go. And this car ride that Poocher and I were doing right now, God it was hard. I know I wasn't going to feel happy when we got our destination. And it wouldn't end there, afterwards there was going to be some anxiety, some painful worrying. What a freaking mess.
Poocher shifted in his seat and sat up alert, like he could feel my anxiousness. He took his eyes off of me and faced forward like a brave little soldier, just accepting that being around me was good, that whatever we were doing was okay, because I was doing it with him. I had been his care-taker for almost all of his short life so far and being with me was all he knew.
It wasn't all I knew though. I was human. I was blessed and cursed with great intellect and deep oceans of feelings. I could see it all for this puppy and me and I refused to allow the key to my life be happiness. The key to my life is and always will be, goodness.
Happiness can be a by-product of doing good but not always. It's an extra in human existence. Just a sweet, sweet icing on the cake but certainly not the "key". I can't imagine how terrible our world would be if everyone went around seeking happiness as the "key" to their lives. It's already a problem. I guarantee it's one of the reasons we have more anxiety, depression, and addiction. Everyone thinks they need to be seeking happiness all of the time and when they do stuff and it doesn't bring happiness it drives them deeper into self despair.
Like parenting... how many people out there distress themselves about being happy with their kids? Like - I'm not happy enough, my kids aren't happy enough, parenting isn't making me happy enough, I must be a bad parent since I'm not happy enough. Let my tell you something, and this is the real key to life - You aren't meant to be happy all of the time, it's okay not to be happy all of the time, your meaning on this planet is not based on your happiness. Now, go be free... go be free to find goodness. That's where you are going to find the "key" to life, happiness or not.
In those moments when you are not happy in life, it will okay if you have goodness because even without happiness there is substance there. And when your cake gets iced with happiness, it will exceed your wildest dreams when using the correct key to life. Take the happiness key off your key chain. It's the wrong key. Open the door with goodness and happiness will come. Not every door you open will have happiness behind it, but if you open it with the right key, it will be okay.
Now, Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing things that make you happy just for happiness sake. Those times are like taking a breather. They are good for us. My beef is with happiness being the KEY to life.
If you run around with your happiness key, you will only be opening the same door to constantly get to happiness. At best life will be selfish, empty, indulgent and at worst it will be a tragedy. People using this key will say, "I really need to work on myself and my happiness." "I can't worry about other people right now, I need worry about what makes me happy." John Lennon used the happiness key a lot and I'm sure his first son would have a lot to say about what it meant to have a parent fixated on being happy. And what if you suffer from depression or anxiety and you keep trying to use your happy key to open that same old door, and happiness doesn't come? What then? Tragedy.
I reached over and put my hand on Poocher's back. We were nearing our destination. He felt the comfort of my touch and turned toward me again, his little whip of a pit bull tail wagging. We came to a stop light and I finally looked at him. Having my eye contact only made Poocher's tail wag faster and my heart feel heavier. God I wasn't happy. Maybe I should concentrate on my own happiness more. Wouldn't life be easier without all this noise? Easier? Is that what I really want?
Maybe John Lennon had a teacher who didn't want an easy answer. When they asked that question, maybe they wanted answer that showed depth and concern for the world around him. Maybe they wanted an answer that was some form of "I want to do good in this world!" Maybe that's why they pressed him for a better answer. Maybe someone wanted him to think, be challenged, be uncomfortable. But instead he probably went home to a mother who said, "Oh Johnny! I want you to be happy! You deserve to be happy! That's all that's really important in life, my love, your happiness!"
I parked along a tree lined street in front of a big lovely house with a big green lawn. I knew who was in there... a family of 3 and another dopey fun-loving pit bull. I sat in my car with Poocher. I dared to look at him again and fought tears. I patted my lap, the signal he was waiting for, and he leaped across the center console onto me. He was everywhere... in my hair, nipping my ears, licking my face and in return I wrapped my arms around him and covered him in the closest hug I could. My little ward could never get enough affection and he ate it all up completely oblivious that this was our last real moment.
Two tears had managed to escape and I wiped them with the sleeve of my shirt. This was the plan. I was never going to keep this dog. I spent weeks telling him, "You don't belong to me, you know" while I half-grinned at his puppy affection for me. I have a 100 pictures of him on my phone that I knew I was going to run across from time to time and feel regret. At night he would sit with me on the couch while my husband worked late and when the kids played too rough he run to me and hide between my legs. And the quiet gazing, "Who are you?" "I'm nobody, little creature, I'm just a rest stop on your path to happiness."
I picked him up and got out of the car holding him. I set him on the sidewalk and when I stood up, there was his family on the porch waiting for him. They waved at me, beaming. God they looked happy and I was envious of the feeling. Poocher noticed them and happily trotted all of the way up the path to say hello. I followed reluctantly at the other end of his leash, two beings juxtaposed with each other. I definitely was out of place in the middle of all this blatant happiness.
When it was over, I gave him one last hug and let him nip my ears a little. Then I walked back to my car. I didn't want to look back but I did, and there he was at the end of his leash pulled in my direction gazing again at me intently, "Where are you going?" I turned away and put my sunglasses on before anyone would see the tears that were blinding me. "Go little creature" I thought, "Go forget about me and be happy. Make your life about being happy. That is a luxury you can afford and that's why for me, this will have been good."
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If you would like to make a donation to help dogs like Poocher find their paths to happiness, please click here http://www.sunrayspitbulls.org/
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