My Weekend Mornings
At the beginning of the year, I set a goal of volunteering. I have been living between Port Townsend and Tacoma for the past 2 1/2 years and I am feeling disconnected from both. In Port Townsend I have my home. I have my minis and my bestest friends. I have my gym and my favorite walks. I have my girls nights and my family dinners. Tacoma is my weekend escape. I have quiet and trashy tv. I have my partner and my house. I have happy hour and errands. But the chaos of being neither here nor there has left me feeling a little lost and ungrounded. So I thought long and hard about what I should do to volunteer. I started with my strengths, I love to walk, I love to be outside and I am very strong. And then I thought about what I wanted. I wanted to commit to a few hours on the weekend. I wanted to be around people but also give my social battery some recharge. I wanted to feel good about my time and connect with my community.
There it was. The first thing I found ended up being my perfect fit. I am a volunteer dog walker at the Humane Society in Tacoma. I get to check all those boxes, and as someone who loves their to do list, that is a success in and of itself. The dog walking community is the best community. We all come from different everything. Our ages, our jobs, our families, our lifestyles, we fill just about every box. Our reasons for showing up are even more diverse. This wasn’t a community I had to try to fit into, this was a community that had a slot waiting for me. And then there are the dogs. The ones you fall in love with at first sight. The ones you never want to walk again. And the ones you end up adopting because your heart just can’t see their eyes peering up at you anymore.
I’ve got all my strengths fulfilled. I get to show up, I get to be outside and I get to walk. But I suck. I am nowhere near as comfortable and confident as the other walkers (and no I am not looking for complements). I am challenged every day I am there. I fail a lot, I make a lot of mistakes, and I forget little things like calling “dog coming out” sometimes. Little mistakes might not sound like a big deal. But when you are in charge of a dog who might be stressed out, who might be sad, who might be confused why they are at the shelter, their safety and comfort is serious. Little mistakes can make those feelings worse or put them in a bad situation. So not being good at this is something I can’t accept. Every day I have to learn from these mistakes. Every day I have to ask for help and allow people to help me. As someone who strives for success, this has been eye opening and humbling. The patience and camaraderie between our walking community allows me to leave each shift feeling proud of myself. Not because I did so amazing, but because I was fully supported when I was with a dog that was pulling too hard, or a dog that ate my entire bag of treats, or a dog that I could’t get out of a play yard. I fail and they give me a reason to show up the next day. I stumble and they lend a helping hand and a cold brew coffee.
The biggest challenge for me is the inconsistencies of the dogs. We don’t want to get to know the dogs. We want all the dogs to get adopted and not be there for our next shift. I do really well with predictability and clear expectations, neither of which is present with the dogs we get to take out. As a walker I enter the kennels of these ever changing dogs. I have to read body language and respect the nonverbal cues of the pups. Sometimes it is scary, but a lot of times it is pure focus and absolute quietness. I get to a kennel, say my hellos and throw some treats in. Once I enter that kennel, time stands still. I could be in there for 30 seconds or three minutes, I have no idea. My focus is the present, there is no regrets from yesterday or worries about tomorrow. There is no to do list or dinner plans. I am focused on that moment and it is blissful. I never knew time could stand so still and be so peaceful at the same time. There can be dogs barking and people talking. There can be shit on my shoes and slobber all over my pants. But its a quietness that washes everything away. These mornings with the pups are teaching me to let it all go, even if it’s just for a few moments.
I don’t know if I will walk dogs forever. I definitely won’t be adopting another dog anytime soon…I think. Right now, there is no other place I would rather be on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The discomfort and nervousness I feel is so good for me. It shifts my focus from trying to be the best, to being better than I was last weekend. My strengths are still there but I am seeing some personal challenges I never knew existed. Stepping outside of those comforts is giving me a gift I never knew I needed. The gift of being uncomfortable. I am learning more in this space than I have ever learned when I leaned towards my comforts.