Moving

Musings

I am moving soon, and I can’t stop hearing the Jefferson’s theme song in my head. I have been in my current house for a little over five years, and this is the longest I’ve been in one place since I was twelve. I got so used to moving as a kid, that when I moved out on my own as an “adult,” I would move every year. At that point in my life, it was just ingrained in my psyche. I think it’s no secret that moving sucks. This time is different though. I am having the normal anxiety about packing and the typical moving logistics, but I feel as if this isn’t just a physical move, but a spiritual and emotional move too, that is an outer reflection of my inner movement.

So much has happened in the last few months, I don’t even know where to begin. One of the most profound moments was putting my dog Pepper down. I adopted him at the SPCA when I was nineteen, and he was eight weeks. He was my first dog, and he became my emotional anchor. For the next fifteen years, he saw me through all my ups and downs of life, never judging me, always forgiving, and forever happy to see me.

I decided to put him down, a week before I actually put him down. That week leading up to his death was like sitting Shiva in reverse. Normally, in the Jewish faith, you sit Shiva the week immediately following a person’s death, to celebrate their life. And since this was sitting Shiva reverse, it was completely ass backwards. I slept every night that week on the couch with Pepper, since at that point, he was unable to ascend and descend stairs very well, and relentlessly beat myself up over the last fifteen years of my life, which essentially encompassed my entire adult life. I relived every mistake, every misdeed, all the harm I felt I inflicted on others, including poor Pepper, and of course, myself. I had so much guilt attached to Pepper. Pepper was born deaf, and when he was two to three years old, he would be very aggressive to certain people. Looking back, I was probably way too hard on him, but at the time, I feared for his life. He was incredibly well trained; more so than most hearing dogs, but I felt I had sucked the joy out of his life, and squashed a part of his exuberant spirit. At some point during my flogging, I had an awareness. No matter how much I thought I had harmed Pepper, I had truly only hurt myself. Pepper loved me unconditionally and had forgiven me for all my blunders, the moment after it was done. Now for the hard part, I had to forgive myself.

And this was why I was stuck in so many ways in my life. Repeating so many old, worn out patterns. It was time to let go of the previous fifteen years, accept them for what they were, good or bad, and MOVE ON! And I knew that letting go of Pepper in the physical world, and the time period of my life he represented, was one of the first steps to healing myself, to create the life I truly want and deserve. And he deserved better, his physical body was failing, and the sparkle in his eyes was dulled by a baseline of pain and an overall tiredness.

He died in my arms, it was the least I could do.

Pepper’s impending death, and eventual death, brought up for me the real work I needed to do in my life. The inner work. All those uncomfortable emotions I didn’t want to look at or deal with, which were much easier to keep under the file called DENIAL. But I wanted something more from my life, I wanted movement in my career, my relationships, my home life, everything. I wanted out of the mire. And I’m not good with slow, or small. Out came the all or nothing attitude with a little, “how bad can it be?” thrown in for good measure.

I’ll just say this, I didn’t suffer all the time, but when I did, it was unbelievably intense and painful. Luckily, it didn’t last long when it would come, and when it ended, I would feel better than I ever had before. I recently read in Eckert Tolle’s book A New Earth, that conscious suffering is the burning up of the ego. I think maybe I’ve only scorched the surface, but at any rate, I certainly got movement in my life.

Where I am moving to, isn’t where I thought I’d be going, but at least I’m moving. I have learned too, that normally how I manifest something, is never how I think it “should” happen. I do feel as if I am moving towards something, this time, instead of moving for the hell of it. I also feel unstuck and motivated. I feel empty in a good way; as if now there is plenty of room for the new. And I feel that the new, is going to be great.

Deborah @ June 18, 2008