Begging for Love

I’m just about to start Chapter 7 of The Penny Book, as I am affectionately calling it. The real working title is Slow Down: Lessons on Life from a Dog Named Penny, but that might change as it evolves. What’s interesting is how I am discovering what the book is about and what each chapter really means…as I write it. I’m starting each chapter with a general idea of a particular incident that happened, like the time she was attacked by a neighborhood dog and had to have stitches. Or, the time she was acting so strangely, we thought she'd had a stroke. She hadn't, by the way. (Those are Chapters 4 and 5, FYI.)

I’m noticing how much easier it is to write this book than the first, my memoir Wreckage. Of course, writing about a traumatic childhood with multiple family members involved is challenging. Telling my truth while respecting others’ privacy and feelings is a difficult balance to strike. So, I guess it makes sense that writing Wreckage was difficult.

Working on The Penny Book is simpler, in that it’s a story about one dog and (mostly) two other people. There’s no unfinished business or interpersonal awkwardness. Penny will never read it, so there’s no concern about point-by-point accuracy or whether my perspective reflects reality. It’s her story, as I understand it and as I’ve made sense of it.

One of the differences that has been standing out to me – a key difference between Penny’s memoir and my own is this: She didn’t strive. She just was. She didn’t have to try to…(fill in your own blank)…and I loved her, maybe more deeply than some humans I know and love. (But don’t tell them!)

I’ve been reflecting on how she never begged for our love. If she wanted pets and you weren’t available, she’d go to the next person. There was always someone around who would love on her. She didn’t worry or wonder about the other people or us she was close to, like her many “aunts” – friends and dog sitters who took care of us when we couldn’t. For all the anxiety and neurosis of a rescued dog, once she knew she would trust us, she did.

This is very different from my own experience with trust and, in turn, love.

For years (decades, really), I TRIED SO HARD to convince my stepfather to love me. I, almost literally, begged for him to accept me, to love me, and to be able to communicate that to me.

He never could.

Later in life (too much later, I’m afraid), I had the realization that he wasn’t really worthy of all that begging. To be blunt: He did not deserve my love. Yet, I contorted my psyche, twisting myself into knots of angst, trying to win his.

Penny would never do such a thing.

When I started writing The Penny Book, I knew her life had taught lessons that I thought others could find beneficial. I knew there were gems of wisdom in the things I learned from her. This particular lesson, though, was not on my radar.

It is now.

So, from Penny to me and from me to you, I offer this: Don’t beg for love. If you're not finding it where you are, look somewhere else. There are plenty of people out there who will love and accept you just because you are.

You deserve it.