It's a dog's life

Life is full of good and bad. It’s up to us which we focus on. 

Right now I have a really awful terrible miserable cold and I feel really low, physically but I know it will pass. I also have Louis here for his last visit. I love that dog and I’m going to miss having him come to stay, but I need to do this. I need to clear the decks to make room for me. My plan is to give it a year. If I’m still on my own then, I might just think about getting a dog of my own and becoming a recluse who potters about in the garden, paints, and does jigsaws.

Talking about good and bad. Louis the chocolate

labrador is here. He loves to play fight. He’s a big, heavy dog with sharp claws and a set of teeth that a sabre tooth tiger could get by with. For some reason he loves to ‘chew’ my hand. This involves a large leap of faith on my part as those fangs could easily hurt me, but I take the risk. Also when we play fight, somebody always ends up either with scratches or bruises and I don’t need to tell you which one of us that is, but it’s worth it; You should see the almost insane look of gleeful happiness on his face when we do play fight. It’s worth the pain.

Pain is something I’ve been avoiding. It’s complicated so try to keep up at the back. All my life I’ve been miserable, trying to make everyone else happy, like everyone else I’ve suffered loss and heartbreak. It would be easy to give up on love. I know an awful lot of people who have done exactly that. My ex is an example in point. He’s looking for the perfect woman and unless she comes along, which she won’t as she doesn’t exist, he won’t even begin to try to build a relationship. I realised, long ago, that the perfect man doesn’t exist. I realised too that if he did, I’d probably get bored with him. What I’ve been afraid of is getting things wrong. That’s been a recurring theme, all my life. As a child, if what I did wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t good enough and as it’s almost impossible to do anything perfectly, I’ve always felt unworthy and pretty much useless. That’s why although I have some musical and artistic talent, I haven’t been playing music, singing or painting for years. That all needs to change. Who cares is I paint like a six year old or play the piano worse than I did when I first started? If I enjoy it, that’s what matters. The same applies to relationships. I’m finally realising that I need to mix with people who are positive. That doesn’t mean they have to   be cheerful all the time. it’s more about the way they look at things. It’s hard for me to write this. It’s easy to get involved in long conversations about illnesses and what’s wrong with the country and talking about bad stuff is fine, providing more time is spend on the positive side of things. Sometimes it’s hard to see them, but once you start to look for them, like red cars, you see more and more.

Why am I bleating on? Basically because I’m fed up with me.  This is my way of trying to give myself the pr4eoverbial kick up the backside.  I promised a friend that this time, I would paint a picture of Louis before he goes home. I have another ten days. By writing it down, I’m hoping that this time, I can make it happen. It’s one small step, but for me, it could be a giant leap.