Screw you expectations

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I have several pictures that I have drawn over time. They are in my collection. Guess that might be why I haven't drawn the one that has been in my head the past few days. 
  • There is the one where it feels like there is so much pressure in my body that the emotions are bursting out of my chest. 
  • There is the one where I am in the middle, surrounded by locked rooms.
  • There are several where I am being engulfed by darkness of some kind.
  • There is the one where I am small and a large entity is overshadowing me.
Why draw another?

Damn anxiety. Haunts me. I guess it always will. We move into the whole learning to control it cause it isn't going anywhere thoughts and all that stuff. Still sucks.  

Gilly has anxiety. When she gets anxious, she starts scratching or biting, like a bad itch. Not sure she realizes she is doing it cause when you say here name she will jump like "oh was in another world there", kind of like I do with scratching my hands. 

She is happy if she is in some kind of contact with me. It's a joke now that we are going to have an album of all the ways she has fallen asleep on me. It's ok, yes, I know I am about to fall off the couch, and I am touching you. I like it. If that is what makes her feel safe, I am happy to oblige.

She like to sleep on my pillow when we go to bed. And my head. And my blanket. It's a whole new definition of "Close to you" and if I scoot over, so does she. One might say, just push her back. Yah, that happens and then it is play time. I need to start going to bed 30 to 45 min earlier so we can have play time and I still manage to get to sleep at a decent hour. 

I don't know if she realized my anxiety. I've had some rough trips on the rope bridge. Sometimes she just lays there, other times she just comes and flops on top of me. I think we just meet in the middle of the road somewhere. She's my dog, I'm her human. 

I have been holding this idea of what I want her to become, kind of planning out her life for her. She was doing something the other day, just silly and insane and puppy as could be, and I thought to myself - stop it. Stop planning her life, just let her be a dog. Don't put that stress on you or her. Just let her be a dog, teach her the things for her obedience class, and give yourself permission to enjoy every moment of it. Just let yourself have fun with your puppy. Play.

It's habit. Expectations. Have a plan. This is where we are and that is where we are going to end at. Especially when you are smart. You have to apply yourself. There are so many phrases that come in and out of my head - "if you would only apply yourself" is one that tops them. "You could ________ if you would only apply yourself." Ah, then there was the reason I didn't do things or failed at things - "if you would only have applied yourself." 

You see, I hated to let people know I was smart (and honestly still do). This was a lot of it. This is a lot of the base of my whole people and expectations. It all comes back to that "apply yourself" thing. Who is making the rules and defining what "apply yourself" is anyways. So, if I do really good, or even just good, or let's put it more like, if I complete something, then all is good. Yet, if for some reason, things don't get completed, the first reason out there isn't "because I didn't apply myself." 

I do the best I can each day. Yah, I do better some days than others, and there are a lot of reasons for that. I don't feel like I have to give a full account of those reasons, and I really don't think that "because I didn't apply myself" is on the list. Seriously, if that is the case, I'm going to be straight up honest with you, I'm not going to pass it off as something else and then let another label it as such. 

I just try. I always have. Yet, know what, after you are told that you "are just not applying yourself" enough times, well, your attitude does change a bit. I am very sure a time came when I wasn't applying myself. Ok, maybe more like just didn't care anymore.

So, not going to do that to my dog. Gilly, go play. Be a dog. Let's have fun. Maybe you will make it to be a service dog, and maybe you won't. God will make happen whatever is supposed to happen. I will build you a cool obstacle course in the back yard and you can keep chewing on my ear at 2 am. 

No expectations Captain Gilly! 

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