Life with the boys

Shiloh (left) and Georgie (right).

Let me tell you, being 42 and single is hard. Very hard. I fight selfishness every day. When you don't have anyone to take care of outside of yourself, you become extremely self-reflective and self-critical. When you don't have other lives to care for, you tend to turn inward and isolated.

I've never been one of those girls that have thought "being married will complete me." I have enough friends that fight for their marriages and work hard to make it work to believe that marriage is the answer to loneliness. But being self-aware doesn't make loneliness less of an issue.

God has a way of making things simple when I overcomplicate my life. So in the midst of such a difficult season, he found a way to bring me two of the greatest gifts I didn't know I needed.

Enter Shiloh and Georgie.

To avoid a 3,000 word essay on why dogs are awesome, here are the lessons they have taught me about life. Lessons that work with dogs and people alike:

• Guilt is an effective motivator, but love is the lasting motivator. Shaming a dog can be a quick fix, but loving a dog with patience is a lasting one. Sound familiar?
• Unconditional love is a real thing. Love can be so simple. We just complicate it instead of being open and accepting it.
• It is good to care for someone other than yourself. These dogs run my schedule now and I LOVE it. Being forced to put the needs of something else first at times is good for my soul.

I do think animals are God's gift to us. A reminder of simple joy, and simple love. I hope that one day I can be the person that my dog thinks I am. For now, though, I am just loving life with Shiloh and Georgie and the ways they make my life softer and more simple.

Also, how can you say no to those faces?

Shiloh is 4 years old and loves me completely.
Other people, not so much!

Georgie just turned two and he is the town mascot
for Wake Forest! He fulfills his duty with honor.

Georgie is a therapy dog at our local retirement home.
It's the best part of my week to watch him with the
memory care patients.

Practicing being brave

Practicing being brave because, clearly, this is not Georgie's
favorite situation to be in. But one day, it will be!

So my second dog, Georgie, just got back from "camp" for three weeks. What is camp you might wonder? He lived with a trainer for three weeks and worked on potty training, basic commands, and social anxiety. But as his trainer put it, he spent a lot of time "practicing being brave."

This phrase made me laugh at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought how perfectly it defines not just my dog's emotions, but mine. This practice is necessary for my shy dog because he is putting himself out there and meeting people when he would rather sit at home and play video games.

Wait, that's me.

Social anxiety in humans is mimicked in their dogs. I now have two dogs that struggle with new environments and comfort with new people. Ok God, I get it. So the three members of my household are now practicing being brave together. Today that meant that Shiloh, Georgie, and I went to the little main street in my town and sat on a bench while motorcycles, strollers, and people walked by. We even ran into a group of ladies leaving a Wednesday knitting club and they gave my dogs lots of practice! (told you I live in a small town)

That was great practice for Georgie and Shiloh. But what about me? Well, I practiced being brave today by pulling myself off the couch, turning off Vanderpump Rules, and going for a work out. I know it was brave because I didn't want to do it. I wanted to order a pizza. Or get Panera (and not the healthy kind of Panera). I get tired of the effort, and the journey, and the working out, and the not eating McDonalds. But being healthy is a daily choice. And right now, it is my daily practice of being brave.

It's easy to do what we've always done. But it's lonely. And to get what I've never had, I have to do what I've never done. Georgie and Shiloh say "AMEN!"

Oh and did I mention that Georgie starts training tomorrow to become a therapy dog? Imagine this face in hospitals and hospice facilities bringing joy into worlds of grief. I MEAN.

Shrinking circles.

A wise, dear friend of mine, who happens to be legally blonde and legally blind, told me a few years ago that as you get older, your circles shrink. And that, with those shrinking circles, you lose your self-confidence in relationships with age.

That was lost on me ten years ago, but our conversation never left me and lately I am realizing just how right she was and still is.

Remember when you were in college how you had that core group of friends that hung out EVERY weekend? It was just understood that the 10 or 20 of you had standing plans. And then you get out of college and you hold on to that group as long as you can. Some get married, some move away, but the rest of you keep it alive for as long as careers and marriages and pregnancies allow.

Over the years, the circle shrinks. And I don't think it's just because of relationship quantity. I think it might be more about relationship quality. We always say that we would rather have one or two great friends than ten acquaintances, but we don't really mean it until it slaps us in the face in your thirties. Some of you smart people saw it earlier than me, but I haven't seen it clearly until lately.

Being ok with who you are means shrinking circles. It means you don't allow yourself to be all things to all people. It means you trade popularity for depth, quantity for quality. It means you are often lonely because you crave that depth and won't settle for less.

Shiloh. 100% havanese, 100% adorable.

Believe it or not, this is all in my brain because of Shiloh. I have fought dog ownership my whole life but now that I have him, he is teaching more about life than I thought. Someone asked me last week "Does he know he's yours?" What a question. What a deep, beautiful, life altering question.

And in true God fashion, he put that question to me: "Do you know you're mine?"

In the midst of shrinking circles, yes I do. The disappearance of my social game has allowed room for God. Is it possible that my circles are shrinking just so God can grow in the spots once filled by disappointment?

If shrinking circles means quality over quantity, then I am in. And I will no longer beat myself up for expecting the same out of my friends. May we all live up to the kind of relationships that Jesus had with his boys. Thousands of followers, twelve disciples, but really - Peter, James, and John. The three guys that were privy to the most exclusive circle in history.

If three friends was good enough for Jesus, my shrinking circles shouldn't be an issue. And hey, I will always have my dog!

-Liz