How Writing is Like Falling in Love

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The last two days in particular. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about this for the last two days because I’ve been having a lot of trouble writing for the last week. And because I fell in love two days ago.

 

So, many people know that I’m a big cat person. I don’t mean that I don’t like dogs — that’s not it at all. I just adore my cats. I post pictures of them constantly.

 

 

But before Gracie and Molly came into our lives, we had Sunny. Our dog, Sunny, had to be put down last summer and it was incredibly difficult for our family. Sunny was an amazing dog. He was such a sweet soul — well behaved and affectionate and so tame. He was so good with Max. He and Molly were great siblings to one another (we got Gracie after Sunny passed.) We really lucked out when we adopted him.

 

 

 

Since then, however, we’ve decided that now is the perfect time to adopt a puppy. Since I’m home all day now, and Matt works from home a lot, too, it’s never made more logistical sense. Now, if you’ve never adopted a puppy before, you might not be aware that this is a very competitive process. In fact, it took us about two weeks to actually match up with a puppy. We “lost” two puppies to other applicants with two of the rescues we applied to. *This was a matter of timing, not approval.*

 

And then we found Clayton.

 

 

 

Clayton is a shepherd mix who is ten weeks old. He lives in South Carolina and was rescued along with is sister, Indigo.

 

When I emailed Safe Haven Puppy Rescue about Clayton, I was prepared to be disappointed. I mean, we’d applied for puppies twice, gone through the whole home visit/phone interview process, and then it didn’t end up working out. Both of those times, there were multiple applicants for the same puppy and we didn’t get approved in time. It was sad, but we had faith that the right puppy would come.

 

So, when I heard back from Safe Haven’s representative, Ruthie, that Clayton was indeed available and that he was a total sweetheart, I tried to fill in the application as quickly as possible — so quickly that I accidentally erased it the first time . But I had filled out a bunch of these already and I wanted to do it right. I made sure to describe our home and family as best as I could and even sent pictures of our backyard, considering it’s covered in snow right now and hard to tell how nice it is. (It’s a great yard.)

 

I talked to Ruthie for almost an hour on Wednesday night. She told me so much about what Safe Haven does and how their amazing organization works. They have volunteers who drive from South Carolina and up the eastern seaboard to deliver dogs to their new homes.  These transports run twice a month and work on a time schedule that any good doctor or party planner would be impressed by — it’s that organized.

 

 

Here’s a video of how the transport works — MAMAS is the mother organization of Safe Haven.

 

Puppy Transport from South Carolina

 

And here’s their Facebook Page:

 

MAMAS Mary Ann Morris Animal Society

 

So, anyway, we received our approval letter for Clayton on Wednesday night via email, then had our home visit with a lovely volunteer named Cathy last night. She was amazing — she walked through our whole house and gave us tons of great puppy tips. I’ve done the obligatory Pet Smart run and we’re all set for Clayton to come home.

 

Because he’s coming home tomorrow

 

His transport will arrive in Baltimore around 7:45 pm. To say I’m excited is such an understatement. I’m over the moon. I feel like tomorrow is Christmas or the beginning of summer vacation.

 

So, how does this get back to my original point? That writing is like falling in love?

 

Well, I’ve learned that writing, like love, isn’t something that can be forced. At least not for me. I’ll never be one of those writers who can work during certain hours every day. It’s not that I’m not disciplined. The creative process just doesn’t work that way for me. And that’s the way love is, too. You can’t force it. I took one look at baby Clayton and knew he was our dog. Sometimes that’s the way love works.

 

So, I’m going to tell you a secret. When I met my husband, I was in a relationship with someone else. I’d been dating this other guy for about a year and a half. He was very sweet and kind and nice to me. When Matt came into my life, it was a time when my relationship, while perfectly pleasant, was long out of the honeymoon stage. Sometimes you lose the chemistry you had in the beginning or you realize you’re looking for something different. Sometimes you grow up.

 

I think that’s partially what happened to me. I left my boyfriend in December of my senior year of college — this was 2001 — and I’ve been with Matt ever since. It was one of the top five best decisions I ever made. My husband completes every part of me and my life would not work without him. That doesn’t mean we don’t argue or have difficult times. We’ve had our fair share. But I’ve never fallen out of love with him.

 

We aren’t having any more children — my little boy completes our human Three Musketeers. But the furry friends? We’re excited to keep adding them to our family.

 

So, in conclusion, some people are surprised that I’m so enthusiastic about getting a dog. My cat-loverness is pretty well-known. But when you fall in love, you just know. You don’t care what other people think and you don’t worry that your friends won’t like your choice. You do what feels right. And tomorrow night, my life will be all the more complete with this little guy in it.