Machigaeta

We made a mistake. That probably sums up what happened. My therapist told me it's okay to make a mistake, and things can be no one's fault. It is a weird feeling that the mistake is actually a living thing, a 4-month-old puppy. 

We lost our beloved 12-year-old dog on September 21, 2023. She had a long life, filled with love. What was left in me was a void, and I wanted to fill that emptiness so badly. 

Before she passed, I never wanted a puppy. I knew it'd be a responsibility and explicitly stated that I'd never have one after our dog. Puppies need to be potty- and command-trained and require a lot of care, which I thought was impossible for me to do.

Then we put our dog down last month. We cried, and eventually, we thought we recovered from the pain and grieving. We were able to laugh over her memories. Then I found myself looking at dog adoption websites, looking for a puppy. Suddenly a puppy somehow became a necessity for me. 

We thought we were ready to take on another responsibility by welcoming a puppy to our family. Well, technically I thought we were. My husband was reluctant at first, but he agreed with me in the end. I was miserable on a Saturday, just sitting on a couch alone and playing picross while watching a Netflix movie that I did not even know the name of. He saw me there and said we're getting a puppy. He didn't say it, but he was definitely doing that for me.

I realized that this was a mistake a few days after we got the puppy. For my husband, the realization hit him on the day we got her. Hard. 

My husband is such a sweetheart for living creatures. He can't even kill a cockroach (I am the one who usually exterminates them). When stray cats show up on our doorsteps, he's talking about taking them in as our family on day one, which we almost did. Such a person was not happy to see an adorable puppy in the house. Something was wrong. 

On day two, we started talking. He told me he was not ready, and he was overwhelmed by the responsibility and lack of freedom we were going to have because of the puppy. I was still in the honeymoon phase, and I wanted a puppy so much in my life that I would lose a sense of living if I lost her. 

After several tearful discussions, my husband said we had a plan for the future, and this puppy did not align with it. All I could say was something like I do not have a plan in my life at this moment. After that conversation, I realized that I was in such terrible shape that I could not plan at all, which I always loved to do.

As planners, we plan everything. Spreadsheets are our buddies in marriage; all the things we do have shared Google sheets. After the loss of the dog, we were acting out of our pattern. We usually bring up pros and cons and talk through things with a spreadsheet, but in this case, we did not at all. 

We did not catch ourselves deviating from what we usually do before the adoption and were unable to make one decision. We had been switching between choices of either keeping or returning the puppy for a few days. As we went through the emotional rollercoaster, we wanted someone to intervene right now in our decision-making process, so we made an appointment with a local marriage counselor.

However, we did not need his help in the end and made our own independent decision before the appointment. My husband recognized the initial plan had to stand. As the dreamy magic of the first three days with the puppy was fading, I became aware that I was not in a state of mind where I could make a rational decision that would impact our lives together. In many ways, I couldn't fulfill the responsibility of raising a puppy and living with a dog. I just couldn't imagine a decade-long life commitment with this pup. 

It's not about the dog, but it's us. A cliche, but that applies to us so much. We were not ready. We hurried into making a decision that was against our original plan.

We are currently fostering the puppy while we find her a forever home.