This post is a bit of a pet-centric journal of self-examination. It started as a fluff piece about Smokey and Uroy, with all my whining about social alienation and disappointment lately, I wanted to add a note of positivity about these, my most beloved of "social" responsibilities. Along the way, it turned into the kind of narcissistic self-examination the reader has no doubt come to expect from me. So it goes. One of the things I've learned in the past year is that human beings cannot be "loved up", you can't take a broken person into your heart, love them, and expect that your love will fix all the cracks and fissures that are or were breaking that person down. My standards of "fixed-ness" are also to blame, being vastly higher for humans than they are for animals.
Smokey, for example, was basically a neglected elderly cat with no taste for humans and more than enough defensive aggression to keep potential admirers at a distance. I've had him now for almost two years, and I'm satisfied if he wants to sit/sleep next to me and doesn't bite me every day. This summer I've been leaving him alone in Syracuse four days a week to work in Ithaca, and when I return he won't leave me alone, following me around just to be pet and talked to. The change is remarkable, and reinforces my sense that indeed, this anti-social cat is now more or less socialized and misses me when I'm gone.
Uroy, on the other hand, came to me from the Speisers', and although he was a healthy dog who grew up with a family who loved him and taught him good manners, he wasn't getting enough attention or exercise for his relatively modest needs. This is life in a family, really, and a totally dependent dog does not take priority over an adorable 7 year old boy, for example. With my single family-lessness, and my very flexible schedule of sitting around, reading and writing, I can take him around the block 5 times a day, haul him around to all outdoor events, and even take him to work with me at the market. Since the winter especially, Uroy has gone from a kind of lethargic, totally dependent -- but unbelieveably adorable -- lump of sleeping wrinkles to an astonishingly active and social dog. He comes with me practically everywhere and has developed a fighting trim and precocious cheerfulness that I wasn't quite expecting. He has a wonderfully balanced energy -- as Cesar Milan would say -- that mellows other dogs and people, including over-excited puppies and children.
More often than not, I think my loneliness despite my rich social life comes from an instinctual urge to nest, to make a loving home for myself and others, an urge that is only getting stronger as I get older. Contrary to some advice I've received, I don't think I can simply make a choice about the person I make such a nest for and with. Sometimes it defies my imagination to conjure up some person I could seriously commit to and build a home with. Every criteria I imagine turns out to be either completely unrealistic or not at all sufficient. On the other hand, making a home suitable for Uroy and Smokey is more or less a snap. Food? Check. Water? Check. Acceptable places to poop? Check. Demonstrations of love? Check.
Of course our little domestic paradise has its problems. Smokey still bites me occassionally and Uroy's flatulence and spats of serious attitude continue to embarrass me, and I haven't slept alone in my own bed since Smokey showed up. But the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and I see little unexpected improvements in both of them nearly daily. I have, indeed, successfully "loved up" my furry rejects and we are all better for it. I'm less self-centered in general and less anxious about my ability to sustain serious love for another creature, an ability I have seriously doubted in the wake of past romantic relationships.
The problem of course is that this increased faith in my own ability to care for another creature has pushed to impatience my desire to find another person to nest with. There are so many differences between pets and "boyfriends" it's hardly worth mentioning them, but perhaps the most thorny of nettles for me is the "live and let live" attitude that I have toward my pets' idiosyncrasies and the exacting, vocal expectations I have for the one I'm with. On the one hand, I've accepted too much in the past and been burned REALLY badly. In a sense I need to raise my standards, change leagues, get better at cutting my losses etc. That's an issue of self-esteem versus my impatience and the things it makes me hallucinate about other people. On the other hand, what I really need to accept is that sooner or later someone is going to surprise me, blow apart my expectations and only THEN will it be an issue of accepting this or that flaw or idiosyncrasy. People are not pets, you can't just pick out the needy and damaged ones and lovingly chip away at their rough edges. It's a balancing act and a waiting game rolled into one and there's no end in sight. As crazy as that makes me, as proactive as I want to be about it all, there's nothing I can really do. I have to learn to be satisfied. I have to analyze and work on myself. I have to make myself and my pets happy, and I have to enjoy and appreciate my own company and the company of my dear ones. All of this takes patience. I have to develop a little "live and let live" in relation to my own life.
In the meantime, I guess I have managed to experience another kind of relationship that prepares me in some way for some serious commitment, even if I can't really imagine it. I have my friends, that's one. I have the charred hellscape of my previous entanglements, that's another. I have my family, whose dealings are always an education in love. Now I guess I know that in some scenarios my selfishness doesn't rule supreme, and I can enjoy the little considerations and providences of caring for a dependent. Of course the next logical step is children, but that is certainly a topic for another post.
Smokey, for example, was basically a neglected elderly cat with no taste for humans and more than enough defensive aggression to keep potential admirers at a distance. I've had him now for almost two years, and I'm satisfied if he wants to sit/sleep next to me and doesn't bite me every day. This summer I've been leaving him alone in Syracuse four days a week to work in Ithaca, and when I return he won't leave me alone, following me around just to be pet and talked to. The change is remarkable, and reinforces my sense that indeed, this anti-social cat is now more or less socialized and misses me when I'm gone.
Uroy, on the other hand, came to me from the Speisers', and although he was a healthy dog who grew up with a family who loved him and taught him good manners, he wasn't getting enough attention or exercise for his relatively modest needs. This is life in a family, really, and a totally dependent dog does not take priority over an adorable 7 year old boy, for example. With my single family-lessness, and my very flexible schedule of sitting around, reading and writing, I can take him around the block 5 times a day, haul him around to all outdoor events, and even take him to work with me at the market. Since the winter especially, Uroy has gone from a kind of lethargic, totally dependent -- but unbelieveably adorable -- lump of sleeping wrinkles to an astonishingly active and social dog. He comes with me practically everywhere and has developed a fighting trim and precocious cheerfulness that I wasn't quite expecting. He has a wonderfully balanced energy -- as Cesar Milan would say -- that mellows other dogs and people, including over-excited puppies and children.
More often than not, I think my loneliness despite my rich social life comes from an instinctual urge to nest, to make a loving home for myself and others, an urge that is only getting stronger as I get older. Contrary to some advice I've received, I don't think I can simply make a choice about the person I make such a nest for and with. Sometimes it defies my imagination to conjure up some person I could seriously commit to and build a home with. Every criteria I imagine turns out to be either completely unrealistic or not at all sufficient. On the other hand, making a home suitable for Uroy and Smokey is more or less a snap. Food? Check. Water? Check. Acceptable places to poop? Check. Demonstrations of love? Check.
Of course our little domestic paradise has its problems. Smokey still bites me occassionally and Uroy's flatulence and spats of serious attitude continue to embarrass me, and I haven't slept alone in my own bed since Smokey showed up. But the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and I see little unexpected improvements in both of them nearly daily. I have, indeed, successfully "loved up" my furry rejects and we are all better for it. I'm less self-centered in general and less anxious about my ability to sustain serious love for another creature, an ability I have seriously doubted in the wake of past romantic relationships.
The problem of course is that this increased faith in my own ability to care for another creature has pushed to impatience my desire to find another person to nest with. There are so many differences between pets and "boyfriends" it's hardly worth mentioning them, but perhaps the most thorny of nettles for me is the "live and let live" attitude that I have toward my pets' idiosyncrasies and the exacting, vocal expectations I have for the one I'm with. On the one hand, I've accepted too much in the past and been burned REALLY badly. In a sense I need to raise my standards, change leagues, get better at cutting my losses etc. That's an issue of self-esteem versus my impatience and the things it makes me hallucinate about other people. On the other hand, what I really need to accept is that sooner or later someone is going to surprise me, blow apart my expectations and only THEN will it be an issue of accepting this or that flaw or idiosyncrasy. People are not pets, you can't just pick out the needy and damaged ones and lovingly chip away at their rough edges. It's a balancing act and a waiting game rolled into one and there's no end in sight. As crazy as that makes me, as proactive as I want to be about it all, there's nothing I can really do. I have to learn to be satisfied. I have to analyze and work on myself. I have to make myself and my pets happy, and I have to enjoy and appreciate my own company and the company of my dear ones. All of this takes patience. I have to develop a little "live and let live" in relation to my own life.
In the meantime, I guess I have managed to experience another kind of relationship that prepares me in some way for some serious commitment, even if I can't really imagine it. I have my friends, that's one. I have the charred hellscape of my previous entanglements, that's another. I have my family, whose dealings are always an education in love. Now I guess I know that in some scenarios my selfishness doesn't rule supreme, and I can enjoy the little considerations and providences of caring for a dependent. Of course the next logical step is children, but that is certainly a topic for another post.
