Stray dogs and Valeries

There is a dog in my house. To be more specific, there is a dog in my bathroom. My family is not a dog-family. We don't know the first thing about dogs. We have no idea what they eat or how often they go to the bathroom or how to walk them. We just don't. But nevertheless, there is a dog in my bathroom. I was driving down a road near my house today and I found her in the middle of the road. And no one with a heart could leave a dog in the middle of the road. So I picked it up and brought it home. My family has been running around all day trying to find it food and blankets, taking it outside, petting it, and generally just being so worried of doing something wrong and breaking it. It. I mean her. Whatever. Dog. But Dog is not staying. Tomorrow morning, Dog is going to the vet's office. Dog has a family somewhere and Dog should go back to that family. Hopefully the vet can find Dog's family. I feel kind of bad for Dog, because I think she's pretty happy here. But there's no avoiding the fact that she has to go back to her real life with her real family.

I feel like Dog. I feel like I had a good family and a good life for eighteen years. For eighteen years, beds were warm, people were good, food was always around, and I was trained pretty well. But then, somewhere along the way, I got lost. And I spent a lot of time just wandering the streets. With no direction, no purpose, no stability. I wandered and I wandered for a long time. But then, someone and some place picked me up and I found home again. I found myself again. And I was oh so comfortable and happy. But the whole time, I knew that I would inevitably be sent back to my real life with my real family. Not that that wasn't a good life, it was just....an old life. A "before" life. Not an "after" life. That life didn't grow with me. I readjusted, I changed, I grew, but it didn't. I found my "after" life, or at least part of it, when I got picked up and taken somewhere else. And I was happy. But then one day I got dropped off at the airport and woke up in the same bed I'd left almost three years ago. Now I'm still pretty happy. But that directionlessness is creeping back in. That restlessness, that lack of purpose. And it makes me feel bad for Dog, because even if her old family is a good one and she'll be happy to go back, it might only be half-heartedly. Okay, maybe that's me with the half-heartedly business, but whatever. I still think that Dog will feel kind of bad leaving us. Because maybe all she needed was someone to pick her up and put her somewhere else for a change, let her be a different dog for a change, be loved in a new way for a change. I know that's what I needed, and I'm starting to miss it already.