Terrible At Relationships

I’m terrible at relationships, and I’m blaming it on Mud. He didn’t cause my issues. He just forced me to face them. The cause is, well, I’m not 100% sure, which, come to think of it, is probably the first place to start.

When I think of a cause, I keep seeing flashbacks to a Sunday in early September when my father and I went to check on a piece of property we used for hunting. I was 13, maybe 14 years old.

When we arrived, the land owner and friend of my father, was in the barn working on a piece of equipment. We parked, I said hello, and when they started talking business, I headed into the woods and went looking for persimmon trees.

After an hour and no persimmons in sight, I got thirsty. I headed back for some water. As I reached our 98’ Explorer, I saw my father – 6’3, lean, glasses, blue jeans – still talking business with the land owner. Always business.

I could overhear some of their jargon in the background…

“I’ll call Tommy on Monday, and we’ll get it re-zoned.” He said in his direct, assertive tone of voice. “He owes me a favor.”

They noticed I walked up but didn’t say anything, so I lightly interrupted. “Hey, is the car unlocked?” I asked.

Not deflecting from his “serious” grocery store development conversation, he reached into his pocket and pressed the unlock on the remote as I walked around and popped open the tailgate.

The scene was hard to describe. Our two English labs, Czar and Emma, were laying sprawled out, tongues fully extended and desperately gasping for air.

“Czar!” I called out. He didn’t move a muscle but it got my father's and the landowner's attention. They rushed over, each picking up a dog and laying them on the ground. The landowner ran to his house, grabbed the ice tray from his freezer, turned on his garden hose, and returned to us. My father took the hose and wet the dogs down. All while barking orders like he knew what to do. We loaded the dogs and rushed them to the nearest emergency vet.

Later that night, I tried to talk to my father about what happened. I was still a little shaken up and confused. “It was an awful mistake,” he said, “and I don’t ever want you to talk about this to anyone, ever again.”

And I never have.

Czar and Emma were tough dogs. They weren’t going to die from somebody forgetting about them in the back of a 98’ Explorer. They immediately forgave my father.

It didn’t take me long to realize why my father didn’t want to discuss it. Shame.

Never learning to navigate emotionally difficult situations is why my father can never face his mistakes. When we don’t understand how to properly navigate the traumatic moments in our life, we develop our own map to guide us. With the most famous roads being silence and isolation.

We think we’re strong enough to out will our past if we pretend it never happened. We try to hide behind money, power, drugs, food, sex, you name it. But when we hide our shame, we give it more control. When we wear our emotions and become vulnerable about our past, we invite others to do the same.

Mud has every reason to be mad at the world. But he’s not. He can let things go and seems to love admitting when he’s wrong. Even today, he tore up an envelope I needed to mail out. He just wagged his tail with paper hanging from his jaws. He knows, that although he makes mistakes, he is still lovable. It’s the mistakes that make us humans and dogs. Why do we love rescuing dogs, but we so often forget to rescue ourselves? Do dogs have unconditional self-compassion?

Mud's ability to see the beauty in his past has made me come to terms with a good chunk of mine.

I’m terrible at relationships. And I got no shame in admitting it.

That certainly seems like the first place to start.