...I'm surrounded in my room with nothing but boxes, empty bookshelves, and assorted nick nacks that my room doesn't really look like a place someone lives in. Ah yes the joys of packing! I think you kinda reach a point during it where you say, screw it I'm done with boxes, TIME FOR GARBAGE BAGS! So there are a couple garbage bags worth of clothes that I have "packed". In this time of good-byes and farewell's it makes one reflective of all the things that have happened in the past. I'm sure that tomorrow I will be writing something a bit more introspective on the whole process, but for the past 15 years, aside for four years in college, I've lived in Charlotte. It's definitely has grown on me. At first I couldn't wait to leave, but now I really am sad to be leaving.
Through all the friendships and life lessons, it's hard to come to the realization that this is going to happen at 7am on Tuesday morning. I'll be in a Uhaul truck with my brother and we'll be making the seven hour drive to DC, moving my stuff into my apartment, and then decompressing the best way we know how! And through all the friendships that I have made throughout the years I think the one that I will miss the most is with my dog, Bogey.
...there was probably a moment sometime in October of 2009 when things weren't going that good for me personally. It had reached a point where every weekend was nights out till 3 am, drinking way to much, and not really knowing what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Things were reaching a very low point and honestly if I had continued in that spiral of what I was doing I don't think I would be running right now, going to DC, or even keeping the friends that I have now. At this low point when things looked bleak, when every morning was one waking up and just feeling...so ashamed about everything I had my dog with me. When I went to bed and when I woke up he was there for me.
My parents got him during Christmas of 2003 as a gift for my sister. I was still in college and didn't think to much of the dog. It wasn't a manly dog, it was a Maltese. It was dressed in bows. I don't remember to much from the winter break, but I know that I didn't interact with the dog that much. It really wasn't until Spring Break when I came home and was trying to write some term papers when the dog got attached to me. I would sit at a desk downstairs and try to write something about doctors during the Renaissance and the destruction of Agent Orange on the forest in Vietnam, but they weren't really taking. So I moved to the couch in the hope that a new location would spur some intellectual discovery, and instead I ended up with the same luck as before. But what changed was that Bogey started to look at me, started to wag his tail, and started to get impatient at me when I was at the couch. I honestly didn't know what he wanted. I didn't think he needed to go to the bathroom, and I didn't think he was hungry, so I picked him it. It was the beginning of a friendship. After I picked him up he immediately went into my lap and sat there. And then he immediately got impatient with me when I didn't pet him. He started to whine and made some sort of whipping noise. WELL FINE DOG! I thought I was just being nice and didn't realize that this created some sort of bond with him.
Then over the summer when I moved back and was some sort of hot shot with grand illusion's of taking a year off, getting into grad school, and then going to Europe the dog didn't really fit into my plan. And then something weird happened. Whenever we let him go upstairs he would go into my room, which was strange. It happened so much that my sister decided that I could take care of the dog from now on (or she just got bored from doing it). It didn't really bother me all that much. I was studying for the GRE, waking up at 10, and making plans to do all these really cool things in a couple months. Sometimes the plans that we think are going to happen don't and what we think is ruined turns into a blessing. Fast forward to the new year, I had applied to eight or nine graduate schools and got rejected by all of them. Well that's not entirely true. I got partially rejected by one, NC State. I could attend the graduate school as a post-baccalaureate student (not a grad student) for a semester, they would evaluate how I did, and then determine if I would be accepted as a full time grad student. Well I thought that was some sort of low blow and I didn't take the offer. I never told anyone this. I always wondered what would have happened if I went through with it. I don't think I would have been the person I am today if I went to school then. I think my life would have been vastly different. I think everything that I am now, who probably be the complete opposite of what it is now. I would have probably still ran, but only done the standard three miles a day approach.
With this setback things changed a bit, but the one thing that never changed was how the dog viewed me. Always waiting by the door when I would come home. Always getting on his hind legs, having a high pitch bark, wagging his tail. It's the little things like this that I'll miss. No grand announcement to let everyone know that I have returned. No familiar face to welcome me back. Sometimes on a bad day seeing the dog made everything better, and even though the dog may not have had a big brain he could tell whenever I needed a pick up. There's been times when I've come home from a race and ran quite poorly, I would pout a bit, take a shower, then sit in a chair to watch some TV and it was so reassuring, so stress relieving, to have Bogey in my lap. Maybe he was trying to cheer me up? Maybe he just wanted to see me after some time apart? I don't really know but it always cheered me up. I think back to that October, I ran the Lungstrong 15k. This was a moment when it was getting close to rock bottom. I was getting a bit out of control. I ran a race where I really didn't want to be there. I really didn't want to talk to anyone afterwards. I ran to Jetton Park and sat on a bench overlooking the lake for nearly thirty minutes. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought about a lot of things at that moment. It was a pretty dark place. It got to the point where I wasn't going to do it and I went home. I got home and felt miserable about everything. Feeling of regret and letting people down filled me up. I felt for the first time that I had no joy in running, I didn't feel anything in the race, and I broke down in the shower. I ended up watching TV and Bogey was there. I put him in my lap and just drifted away to a better place. Maybe it was the healing power of the dog, but I was able to let go for a little bit. All the worries that I had, all the frustrations dissipated. I started to feel better.
...I don't know when it reached a point, but it was along the way when I started to call him, my dog. It wasn't my parents or my sisters, but my dog. I took care of him, feed him, basically owned the dog. And being with him for nearly seven years I was able to know his quirks and personality pretty well (and I think the same for him to me). I knew that he was a tough dog to anyone he saw walking, but if they came close to him he would either back off or bite them. And there lied the problem. As a dog that looks like a prissy cute dog people would want to pet him, but I would have to tell them "uh you don't want to pet him, he bites". I couldn't take him out when another dog was outside because he would flip out, start getting hysterical, and any chance of going to the bathroom was out the window. Another quirk was that he would have something that I called "nightmares" when he would sleep. Little yip-yip-yip when he was sleeping. Or that he couldn't jump up on the chairs or sofa in our TV room, that he had to be picked up. Maybe that's why he got called the Prince, but he was a spoiled dog and acted that way.
When I got the job in DC I kinda realized that looking at the hours that it was going to be hard to maintain a dog. It was one of the things that I really tried to find someway to work around. But I also knew that I had to be fair to Bogey. I couldn't leave him by himself for nearly nine hours everyday. It was just something that wouldn't be right for him. He would bark constantly and I think he would start to get depressed. Of course with the decision not to take him, I haven't really thought how hard it would be on me. One of the few constants in my life for the past seven years, someone that has slept in my bed for nearly six years. It's gotten pretty hard for me to accept that I'll be leaving him and maybe not seeing him for a while. There was one point a week ago that I started to get a panic attack right before I went to sleep. I didn't think my sister or parents would know what to do with Bogey. I had him on a strict regime of when he woke up, ate, went to the bathroom, and when he walked. It was a routine that I knew and didn't think anyone else could do. I started to freak out and thought about staying in Charlotte. But I kinda realized the next morning that this is for the best.
...it was sometime today or maybe yesterday but he knew. He knew that something that was up. He knew that I was doing something big. I could see it when I walked around. He looked at me with a look of sadness, his tail was tucked in between his legs. I think he knows that something big is about to happen. And did I really think that this would happen in my life? That a dog would be my best friend? I didn't really plan on it. But in someways he's been there for me through the good times and the bad times. When things were going good for me and maybe I was a bit overconfident he was there. And when times hit a low level, when I didn't think there were that many people who would want to talk to me or even be associated with me, he was there. After going my separate ways in coaching I went out, which became a common theme, my parents weren't home and I was planning on going full tilt. I left my dogs at home. I put Bogey in the bathroom, locked the place up, and went out for the night. Through all the drinking that night and then waking up the next morning, I had a deep sense of regret. I felt so bad for leaving him (and another little dog) in that room. I got home and let them out, and the feeling that I got made me feel better. It was the weekend when I stopped coaching and the look on that dogs face that morning, when he shouldn't have been that happy at me, but he was really hit me. I knew that I had someone with me for the rest of my life.
When I go to DC I'm going to be missing a lot of people, friends and family. It's going to be a new adjustment, new places to run, new places to get use to. It will be weird going to bed and not having my dog jump into it, walking up and curling up next to me. It's just something that has to be, but not something that I want to see happen. I am going to miss my friend, Bogey.
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