6 The Lovely Crisis: To Be Connected to Everything and Nothing At All

From the beginning I found it easy to connect to animals. I was drawn to every kind of creature but none more than dogs. Dogs seemed to have than sense of knowing the perfect timing for everything but still made the most clueless blunders, completely ignoring and missing social cues of the people around them. They could melt hearts while having a knack for upsetting everyone in an instant with their beautiful oblivion. Full of inconsistencies and fiercely loyalty. On one hand they might lay all day at the foot of a sick human or another time they would zip away in the blink of an eye if they had a chance to eat a treat or a small woodland creature. They knew just when someone special to them was about to come roll up the driveway or walk through the door. However, occasionally they also would be discovered sleeping on a bed that was forever off-limits or with their paws up on a counter trying to get at the food taunting them. They modeled the kind of short term memory they evoked in their owners. They could incur the ire and wrath of a human whom they loved and seemingly always be loved by that human despite both of their flaws. The relationship between human and dog seemed to be the most ideal example of unconditional love. I wanted to be a dog.

new loosely related thought

Despite a steadily growing feeling of disconnection and anxiety since I was in my early double-digits, I had a deeper connection to everyone and everything from the earliest memory. Young, old, male, female - everyone fascinated me and I was curious about how they all worked and who they were. Through trauma, brain and hormone growth, and simple loss of childhood innocence, I began to feel "other than" for the first time. From around the same time, I sought through drugs and alcohol, through relationships and sex, through racing and dulled states of mind, through physical denial of pain as I slammed into the world, I sought to feel that oneness again. I realize that it was once natural to feel at peace with person or animal, with cold and heat, awake and dreaming. Counterintuitively although their were glimpses of this state through my later explorations, I got closer and further from the truth at the same time. (more expansion needed) I am now going back to that original state of being with a few more scars and rainbows of wisdom than I had when I first felt oneness. With clarity and grounding, I am feeling that peace little by little once again.