[Archive] Hurting Those I Love, Or How I Lost (and found) My Dog - September 2019

Hey Dear Humans,

A few weeks ago I lost and found my (partner's... technically) dog. She had tried to follow me when I left, and she ended up getting hit by a car (don't worry, she's a miracle baby and is fine). Have you ever loved something tremendously, breath-takingly, and also been responsible for it's safety and wellness? Has that thing (thing = child, pet, team, organization, etc) ever been hurt while under your care? Can you believe how much that sucks?!?!?

If you are a parent this is probably all too familiar. In those initial days of unknown, when my dear Toni Barxton (the dog) was missing, something deepened in my soul. The two truths that:

   #1   I adore this animal and that
   #2   I will cause it harm

are irreconcilable. In fact this applies to ALL of the things most precious to me. With the intimacy of love comes the responsibility of impact. And it's only a matter of time until I, oh fallible being in a complex world, will fail at keeping everything I love 100% safe. Whether it's a non-profit that I'm directing or a friendship that I'm building, or perhaps most unequivocally - my own life.

So how does one go on? How does a heart stay open and tender and willing? There are many pathways, but I believe all of them involve getting a little more comfortable with the human condition. The tension of love and impact isn't an aberration that holy and healed heroes manage to avoid. It is the very nature of the thing itself. We are all out here, doing our best, achingly deserving of love and embedded with the capacity to give love. And we will all slip up.

At the end Toni - limping, skinny and ragged - came back to us. The love that drove her after my departing car four day's earlier is the same love that brought her home. Ready to lap up all the love that I was more than ready to give her.Here's to 100% Liberation Throughout Space and Time,

Annie-Rose