Umm, I’m not too sure, to be honest, but if there is something I would not like to admit, it is the fact that I don’t think I ever truly felt love for my dog, Daisy, until these past two years—not fully anyway. I know I was her mother, and I did everything I was supposed to do to support her and give her a good life, and I liked her a lot, but I don’t know what love is really supposed to feel like.
A part of me felt shame because I felt like I was obligated to love her, but I just didn’t know how. Love is supposed to feel different, like you feel it in your soul, and I have never felt that toward anyone or really anything.
I think I’ve kept my feelings so suppressed that I just came to the conclusion that I wasn’t capable of love. No matter how hard I tried, I felt barely even a sprinkle of anything.
I’m not completely sure what changed, but ever since moving to Maine, I think I’ve just been thrown a fucking curveball and had to learn how to heal whether I like it or not.
And now, when I look at my Daisy baby, I can’t help but love every single part of her and actually feel it in my heart. I love her so much it brings me to tears just thinking about it. I also feel guilty for not always feeling this way, and I wonder if she could tell.
She’s seven years old now, and I’ve had her since she was four months old. She has been the only constant in my life for the past seven years. She’s honestly been by my side longer than almost all my friends, and she will be my biggest heartbreak.
No one ever told me that the consequence of meeting your soul dog at nineteen meant that you would probably go through the worst heartbreak you could ever imagine. But thank God she’s not dead, and hopefully she will live forever. There truly is not a life for me if Daisy is not in it, or at least I refuse to believe there is.
Now, I’m not completely sure how I got to speaking about this, but I do know that I am able to love something. It just takes a large amount of time and a whole lot of healing the parts of me that I didn’t know needed fixing.