Idiot - Laura Clery Page 0,81
Maggie leads with fear. I learned this from reading A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, which says that we are constantly in a state of either love or fear, and these states control the choices we make and the way we live. This idea really helped me in early sobriety because I used to be so fear-driven. I was hindered by this self-seeking fear that I was going to lose what I had or not get what I wanted. Then I read this book and realized that I could choose to lead with love and walk through my fear. I chose to start looking at life through a loving, giving lens, asking every day what I could give rather than what I could get. I wanted to know what my life would look like if I focused on tolerance and forgiveness. The answers are right in front of me in the form of Maggie and Allen. I’d either be happily basking in the sun and getting belly rubs from everyone around me or vomiting and crying next to my food bowl at four in the morning.
Then there’s our one-eyed pug, Oliver. I have to preface this with the fact that there is nothing spiritual about Oliver.
Three years after we got married, Stephen would hint that he wanted a dog by randomly texting me dog pictures. Some guys send dick pics, Stephen sends dog pics. That turned into full-on links to dog profiles on adoption websites. And that turned into pulling me into animal shelters to “just peruse.”
Dogs are a huge responsibility that I didn’t know if we were ready for. We already had Maggie and Allen, and although they were both very low-maintenance pets, another pet just felt like a lot. One morning we went out for coffee, and as we were walking back to the car, we saw a pug rescue nearby. Stephen’s face lit up.
“Let’s just look,” he said while hopping around like a kid on sugar.
“If we go in, we’re going to walk out of there with like ten pugs!”
“No, no, let’s just look! I can just look!”
Yeah right, but I said okay and we walked inside. And then . . . I saw them. Just tons of ugly, misfit pugs. Pugs are pretty weird-looking to begin with, but since this was a rescue, these ones were next-level funky-looking. Which is to say they were amazing and I WANTED THEM ALL.
Stephen went off on his own with so much exuberance it was like his dreams were coming true. I strolled around and then saw him. The One.
He was facing a wall, not moving, except for some nervous twitching. I picked him up and he started foaming at the mouth. I think that means he likes me? He had only one eye, which hopefully explained the staring at the wall. He was super skinny. The dog slipped through my hands a little; he was . . . gooey. Did something spill on him? I took a closer look at his skin and saw that it was irritated, oozing pus and goo. He was fucking disgusting.
From across the room, I saw Stephen holding one pug in each hand.
“Laura, look at these!” He had a healthy-looking black one, replete with two eyes, and a cute beige one, also with two eyes.
“Look at this one!” I turned the gooey pug around to face Stephen.
“JESUS!” Stephen startled at the sight of him. He composed himself and asked, “Are you sure that is a dog?”
“He is more dog than you’ll ever be,” I lashed out. The dog’s mouth foam dripped onto my hand.
“Well at least he’s . . . alive, isn’t he?”
“He’s hanging on! Let’s take him home.”
Stephen’s joy at getting a dog quickly surpassed his disgust at my choice of a gooey, one-eyed pug. We spoke to the employee about taking him home. She frowned. “I don’t think you want that one. He can’t, um . . . he can’t see very well.”
“Yes, we want him,” I interjected before Stephen could express any doubts.
The employee picked up another dog. “Have you seen Kathy? Just take her for a spin. Kathy is just awesome. So smart, SO funny. She LOVES to watch TV. Her fav show is Judge Judy. Just don’t even flip the channel while it’s on or she’ll bite your fucking face off.”
I just wanted the goo dog. Who else was going to rescue the pug facing the wall? We signed the paperwork to take home our new dog. We