Why I Decided to Give Back My Dog

That title makes me cringe. I didn’t expect to write that sentence a week after adopting Albie. I especially didn’t expect to write it considering he is a great dog.  This whole thing might’ve been easier if he’d been an anxious dog, a problem dog, if he’d been leaving me presents all through the house or chewing things to bits.  Instead, I adopted a low energy dog who loves to sleep most of the time, occasionally play, who could stay at home more than ten hours without having an accident and who loved me to bits when I got home.  He is a really phenomenal dog.  The problem is that I wasn’t good at owning a dog.  The reason I gave him back is all on me.

I know.  He's the cutest. 

I knew all the facts—in theory. I knew owning a dog would mean a huge life change and that I would have to take own an awful lot more responsibility.  I knew it would take some getting used to and that there would be things a dog would do which I wouldn’t love at first. 
But there was more to it than that.  I didn’t think about the fact that it would mean I was never alone.  Never.  That the solitude that I’ve come to cherish in my house would be gone—even when he was sleeping quietly and peacefully on the ottoman, he was there. I didn’t think about the fact that I’d set my life up to pour into people all day at work, to relax and spend quality time with people I love outside of work, and then to come home to a quiet sanctuary.  And I absolutely love that balance right now.  Yes, I loved that he was so excited to have me come home and that he simply wanted to love on me. But I wondered when I got to just relax. 
I abhor selfishness.  It’s one of my biggest pet peeves.  And I know this is absolutely a selfish decision, to only want to have to worry about me.  But, it’s only been in the past year or two that I’ve come to realize that there are advantages to being single. It’s not where I’d planned to be right now, it’s not where I want to be long-term.  But there are definite advantages to not worrying about anyone else’s schedule or preferences when I make decisions about how to spend my time.  Even though people have maybe told me this for quite awhile, I’ve only actually embraced it recently, and while I could give it up, I selfishly don’t want to, not for Albie. Because even though I loved him from the beginning, I came to realize loving him would change the way I had time to love other people and was making my inner introvert scream out for time alone.
 

Yup, he slept like the sweetest boy.

I know a week isn’t much time. I know that eventually I probably could’ve gotten used to him being here and the life change it would mean.  I know there wasn’t a choice between one good and one bad decision. I had a choice between two hard decisions: continue to love this dog but not love being a dog owner or give back this dog I loved to get my life back. 
I know that’s hard for my dog lover friends and family to hear. (Please don’t hate me guys.  One reason I almost kept him was because I didn’t want to disappoint all of you.)  I’ve heard quite a few people talk about how owning their dog has been a transformative experience, how must they’ve absolutely adored it and how wonderful it’s been.  And I believe them.  And I don’t mean to say there weren’t moments that I loved.  The morning routine Albie and I developed of sitting together on my big chair, his head in my lap, while I did my devotions were the sweetest moments.  But in this moment, it wasn’t enough. 
I don’t think dog ownership is totally out for me forever.  There are situations where I could see it working far better.  If I had a partner in doggie parenthood who could take some of the responsibility or if I had a huge yard—okay, any size yard, or didn’t live in an area where there’s no such thing as a quick trip with no traffic, I could see it working out really well.  But none of those ‘ifs’ are true right now.

He is a snuggle buddy.

I could have done it. I know that.  If there had been some reason that I had to keep Albie, I could’ve.  If he’d been the pet of a dear relative or friend who needed him to live out his days with me, I could’ve done it.  If I had thought I was condemning him to a terrible life or something even worse, I could’ve done it.  But that wasn’t the case.  Lost Dog Rescue (https://lostdogrescue.org)  is actually a pretty phenomenal organization. They have a two week period where you can do exactly what I did—figure out if this is the right thing for you—and bring your dog back, no judgment.  They have a Ranch where Albie was living before (which he got to right back to unless he got adopted right after I dropped him off) where he can run outside, lay on a doggie couch in comfort, and sleep in his own individual crate at night.  Albie is a great dog and I hope very much that he gets adopted very soon by his forever family.  But even if he doesn’t, I know that he will have a great life because of Lost Dog, and for that I am tremendously grateful.

I wasn't kidding.  I was crying
in my car after saying bye.

It’s not a choice I made lightly.  I can’t really tell you very much about what I did this week, save for talk to people about Albie, cry about Albie, think about what to do about Albie, and cry about giving Albie back.   We spent today curled up on the chair after he got me up at 5:40 for a walk where he neither peed nor pooped.  I teared up when I realized it was time to take him, 
I started to cry to the people who took him back from me at Pet Smart, and I just let myself be sad as I sat crying in the car minus Albie. I’m biting back tears writing this right now.  And partly I’m writing this because I don’t really want you to ask me about how he’s doing or why I gave him back because the question isn’t if I’ll cry, but how much.  (And if you are one of those people who have texted to ask me about him and I haven’t responded, this is why—I just couldn’t.)
But in spite of the overwhelming emotion that this has all caused, underneath it all, underneath the sadness of not having this little furry thing who loves me best, I have a pretty deep peace.  A peace that is helping me realize that although this was a really hard choice, it wasn’t the wrong choice. 

Hard Isn't Necessarily Wrong

A few years ago, I was annoyed at a friend about something kind of stupid and when I explained the situation to my friend Katie, what she told me gave me great perspective and was exactly what I needed to hear.  She told me, yes the situation had become sucky for me, but it was probably exactly what I would’ve done in the same situation and didn’t make it wrong.  That something could simultaneously be both sucky for me and the right decision was not exactly something I naturally put together, but it was exactly what I needed to hear and try to understand in that moment.

This week, her words come back to me as something I needed to hear yet again.  After almost two years, and four auditions, I’m not on the worship team at church anymore.  That’s really hard to say because it hurts deeply and makes me very sad. It’s why I haven’t really told anybody about it, haven’t brought it up, haven’t wanted to talk about it.  It makes me sad that I’ve lost a community that has meant more than I can actually explain. It makes me sad that I don’t get to be a part of a team that is moving forward into something great.  It’s really hard that after years of sometimes crippling anxiety with being in the front of a church and singing, I’ve finally moved to a place of comfort, only to have that place taken from me. It’s painful that something that has connected me with church since almost before I can remember, since I sat up at the organ with Aunt Sue after she finished playing Sunday service, isn’t an option for me now. 

And the natural human part of me wants to be angry about it, to blame the new leadership, to say that they didn’t know what they were doing, that it’s not fair, and that I wouldn’t want to be a part of something that doesn’t want me and would treat me so shabbily.  None of those things would be true. 

Just because it’s hard for me, painful for me, sucky for me, it doesn't necessarily mean that I get to say angry, frustrated, reactionary things about the leadership, their decision, or what’s going on as the team changes.  It doesn’t necessarily make it wrong that I’m not on the team anymore.  I’m excited to be a part of a church that is growing and moving forward with the worship—I just thought I would get to be a part of that growth in a different way. 

But I do wonder, what is my response? I’ve learned a few things about my self in the past few years, and one of them is, I’m pretty solution oriented.  Give me a problem and I want to find a solution for it.  So if not making it on the worship team is the problem, then the obvious solutions are before me—complain bitterly and allow a wedge to be driven—this would be based on a lie, but this would be the easiest thing for me.    The next easiest would be to place this on myself—to take on the identify that I’m not good enough, that I was cut, that I was not worthy, not appreciated, and that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. 

It’s actually harder for me to put that one down.  It may have something to do with the fundamental evaluation that is inherent in auditions, and being turned down is fundamentally evaluative.  But it’s not that I’m not good enough.  It’s that my voice is not where it would need to be for this team to move forward.  And since music has been a part of me since before I can remember, that’s also pretty hard to hear, but it doesn’t quite strike me to my core.  And it has the advantage of being true. 

So that leaves me with a few other options.  One is to re-audition in the fall as I was invited to do.  But considering the feedback I was given and the things that would need to happen, I can already feel that music, which has always been a simple joy for me, would become work.  And I don’t know that I wouldn’t always feel like a second class citizen, always worried that my voice would again slip below the line of acceptable.  Neither of those things seem terribly desirable.

So one option remains, and that’s to simply and peacefully walk away from being a part of the worship team. The Christian in me who’s well-read in such matters knows that I should say that i’m excited to see what God has in store for me next and knows that my future at DC Metro Church holds something great.  But I’m not quite ready to say that yet.  I’m not quite ready to jump into serving on another team to cover up the hurt.  I’m not quite ready to think about where else I want to serve.  Kids might be a natural choice, since I know they need help and I know I’m good with kids.  But I also know that my kiddos take a lot out of me all day and I don’t know that I have enough left over to give something good on Sunday mornings.  I’ve never not been a part of one of those two ministries, and I’m not sure exactly where else I fit. 

So I’m going to take the next month to sometimes feel sad about it—not to wallow in it, but to accept it—and I’m going to go to Pennsylvania and Oregon and California and when I come back in August, maybe then I’ll be ready to say and do those things and mean them truthfully.  And when I do maybe it will be a little less sucky and a little less hard and hurt a little less.  But even if it doesn’t quite feel good yet, it doesn’t necessarily make what’s happening wrong.