My puppies are now a year old.  I wasn’t writing during the events of last year, but a week after my oldest son Alex left for the Navy, and 3 days after my youngest Andrew left for a 3 week camp we had to put our 13 year old German shorthair dog, Snickers to sleep.  It broke our hearts.
I lasted about two months before I convinced my husband that we needed another dog.  And then I came home with two.  The new girls are the same breed, as Snickers; German Shorthair Pointers.  These two are named Millie and Olive and are a handful to say the least.  They swim in the gold fish pond and have dug major trenches in the yard.  They have chewed on furniture, eaten countless phone ear pieces, electronic training collars, shoes, cash from my wallet, the comforter on the bed, and a list that goes on a lot longer.  And by the time each night rolls around, we still say to each of them “You’re a good girl and I love you so.”
Love is a funny thing.  It’s one word with many meanings.  It’s not just that it means one thing to me and another to you, although that is true, but it also means one thing to me, and then can mean something different to me depending on when I’m using it.  But so often when we think about whether or not we love someone, or don’t love them as the case may be, we tend to think it has something or everything to do with the other person.  I believe it has everything to do with our own hearts and heads and the stories we tell ourselves.
I say I loved Snickers because she was a good girl.  But I love Millie and Olive who are ridiculously mischievous  girls.  It seems their behavior actually has little to do with how I feel about them, because if it did, I would have given them away to a puppy orphanage long before now.   Instead, I seem to be able to look beyond my torn up shoe and see only the adorable puppy eyes that routinely melt my heart.
I have often said to my sons “Your dad drives me bat____ crazy.  And that is precisely how I know I love him.  Because even after he has done so, I still want to be with him at the end of the day and so I know it must be love.”   It is love which allows me to look beyond the parts of him that make me want to kill him in his sleep sometimes.   I still wake up each morning despite the fact that my snoring has kept him awake most of the night.  I suspect, he too must have loving feelings for me that are stronger than sleep deprivation can break within him.  Love is a very powerful force indeed.
Think about the example of a new baby.  (or if you prefer, stick with the puppy metaphor).  But new babies are generally speaking not that attractive, even though most of us parents don’t realize that until we look at the hospital infant photo about a year later.  That new baby doesn’t do anything except cry and fill diapers.  They bring no dowry to the relationship and in fact cost us an arm and a leg.  In short, they bring nothing to the table.  And yet, we are immediately smitten with the little creatures, full of love in our hearts and eyes.  We imagine all sorts of scenarios ahead filled with joy because of the love we have for this little “soon to be person” despite the reality that he or she has done absolutely nothing to “earn” that love except show up.  But even in the anticipation of them showing up, we start growing immense feelings for them.  So how then, can it be that love comes from the outside?
Admittedly, it is difficult some times to find the feelings of love within us when the other person behaves in certain ways.  It is hard to feel loving when you’ve asked someone to do something repeatedly and they ignore you.  It’s hard to feel loving when someone behaves inappropriately.  It’s hard to feel loving when you are expecting someone and they don’t show up for you.  That is when it’s easy to say I don’t love them because of their behavior.  But their behavior is just that:  theirs.  And our reaction to that behavior is a choice we make in accordance with our expectations.  When the person does things that fulfill our expectations, we love.  When they don’t fulfill our expectations, we choose to not love.   We don’t love or not love because of their behavior, but rather because our expectations and stories are filled or disappointed.  Thus, we don’t love or not love because of who they are, but rather because of who we are.  

Thank you to the incredibly generous responses I got for my last blog.  Apparently I’m still technologically challenged and did not have the link to the web comments page working but hope I have it fixed for now.  Also, an astute reader suggested that I request you make reviews on Google rather than health grades.  I will be greedy and ask for both.  Remember, I have a few more years to work as I have puppies to feed.

People keep asking me if I am still writing my blog.  I tell them yes, but only in my head.  I have written some really good stuff there, but it seems that none of it has made it on to the screen.  So when I was asked again yesterday, I decided I would give it a shot and see what comes out.  Here goes:

I have a few regular sayings.  You may have heard some of them.  One of them is “Therapy is supposed to make you feel better, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen today”.  I usually pull that one out when someone is in a really tough spot and I have no great fix all answer, or I have to deliver news to them that they would rather not hear.  Yesterday was that kind of day.

I sat with a young woman whose life is breaking apart from all that is familiar to her.  It’s painful.  I told her life is painful when you do dumb stuff and screw it up and then have to face hard consequences.  But it’s harder still when you feel like you’ve played by the rules, worked hard, and done it “the right way” and it still doesn’t turn out like its “supposed” to.  It seems unfair.  It seems brutal.  It seems pointless to keep trying.  Most people have this experience at one point or another.  Some people seem to have it at a level of unbearable frequency or intensity. 

So how does one find the energy, motivation, hope, courage or perhaps blind faith to pick themselves up and keep going?  Not everyone does.  Some people give up.  They end their lives.  And some people keep physically alive but they shut down to a level in which they merely exist, waiting for their time to on earth to come to an end.  Sometimes the latter is facilitated with an addiction that keeps one so numb, they are no longer aware of their original pain, but become embroiled with the pain caused by the addiction itself instead.

People in the throes of despair usually feel alone in a private hell believing that not only is their pain too great to bear, but that they are in a hole where no one else can or cares to reach for them.  They feel certain that ending or giving up is personal and won’t really matter to anyone else.  And that even if it does, another’s concern or misery will be short lived and forgotten sooner than later.

As Wally Lamb says “This much I know is true”.  I can only speak from my own experience, both my personal reactions and the stories told to me over the years.  There is a blue plaid teddy bear that sits on the bookcase in my office.  It was a gift I gave to a client many years ago.  It was returned to me a few years ago by her sister after my former client committed suicide.  In the time I had seen her she contemplated it many times and we always managed to talk it through.  When she was in despair, she always told me no one would remember her.  A few years after we finished our work, I learned she had taken her life.  I still remember her.  I don’t need the bear on my shelf to remind me but I keep it there as if to keep some part of her alive and to bear witness to her pain.  When she left, she may have ended her pain.  I hope so, but she also deprived the world of something good and strong, smart and creative, capable and wise in ways she didn’t know and didn’t live long enough to prove to herself.  And most of all, she left the potential of joys not yet known.

Last week I saw a different young woman.  I met her a couple of years ago and after only a couple of sessions with me she made a very real suicide attempt that she survived only by the grace of God.  Today that same woman is getting married soon; to a man that is her best friend.  She has a job she likes and hopes to have a family.  All of these are things she could not imagine when she was in despair.  Had her suicide attempt been successful, her best friend would be looking to a different kind of life ahead.  Her children would have no chance to be born.  Her mother would still be experiencing an unbearable grief and trying to remember how to answer the question “How many children do you have?”

Agreeing to try again provides no guarantee that you will win the prize.  It provides no promise that things will not get worse again.  Trying again only means that you fully accept being human and to fulfill the contract of being here to do whatever it is you are supposed to do, even when you aren’t sure what that is.  Just as your mind takes in a million marketing and social cues everyday unconsciously, so too does it take in interactions as small as a nod or a smile.  You may never know how you being where you are at any given moment affects another person and helps them get along more easily in the world.

So just as therapy doesn’t always make you “feel better” the moment you want it too, this blog, long awaited by some, won’t likely provide the “feel good” message they may have hoped for.  But I hope it will touch just one person who thinks trying again, doesn’t make sense.  More importantly, I hope it will touch people who are in a good place to use some of their grace by looking a little bit longer at the stranger who may be struggling and ready to give up and offer them a smile or an act of kindness.  There are so many ways to do this with so little effort on our part. 

When I drive through the McDonalds (yes I’m admitting this) in Eureka, the person who takes the money hands out a dog treat when I have my dog in the car.  She has done this for a couple of years.  I tried to give the manager some money to go towards the treat fund assuming the employee was paying for this with her own money.  The manager informed me that a gentleman who lost his own dog supplies the branch with treats and makes sure they never run out.  I’ll never meet him.  And it’s not that my dog can only get a treat if she goes to McDonalds.  But the act warms my heart and reminds me that there is goodness in the world and that we always have a choice to turn pain into something productive.

On a final note, I now have “What would Mary Say” bracelets.  Yes, for those of you who enjoy remembering some of the things I say or more realistically, they serve as a reminder to listen to yourself the way I listen to you, stop on by my office for yours.  They are silicone bands (like the Lance Armstrong livestrong).  If you are an out of towner, send me a note. 

And finally, I have a favor to request.  I am trying to be more mindful that we now live in the age of technology and that I should actually join that movement.  If you have something positive to say, I would appreciate a review at Healthgrades.com
If you have something not so favorable to say, I hope you’ll write that to me and give me the opportunity to address it first.