Blind Hope: An Unwanted Dog & the Woman She Rescued (4 page)

BOOK: Blind Hope: An Unwanted Dog & the Woman She Rescued
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On the long drive home, with her new dog settled on the seat next to her, Laurie looked through the windshield with a blank stare. She didn’t feel elated or satisfied. She didn’t even feel like a good person. Instead, she felt confused and numb, sad and empty.

The dog, although underweight and weak, had resisted getting into Laurie’s car. Several times she tried to turn around and run back to the trailer. Frantic, she clawed through the sandy earth as she fought to leverage herself against being placed into
an unknown vehicle. Lying on the seat, she panted in nervous gasps. Every time Laurie reached over to console her, the fearful dog squirmed away from her hand.

This dog doesn’t even want to be touched
.

Her large and wild eyes darted in every direction, as she tried to find a way of escape.

The stress of leaving the only home she’s ever known must be triggering her anxiety
. A new thought occurred to Laurie.
I wonder if she thinks she is going to die now
.

Laurie looked at the terrified dog, whose only response was trembling submission; the canine dared not look back. At that moment, something inside Laurie changed. Drop by drop, like melting ice, compassion for the frightened dog began to flow.

Wow, this dog has struggled for a long time. She has fought hard and survived so much. I don’t really know how yet, but I can provide her with another chance. I know I can give this dog a new start, another try at this life. I can do that. I know I can do that
.

As Laurie drove, juniper and sage rushed by in a swirl of monotone green. Their blended fragrance saturated the sultry heat. Laurie glanced over at the dog and sighed. She knew there was only one reason she had decided to rescue this homely, starving, foul-breathed creature.

I wish I could say I am keeping this broken girl because I instantly
fell in love with her. Perhaps, in time, that will come. I made the decision to bring her home because she needs my help. She’s so thin and neglected. I couldn’t leave her there. I couldn’t look the other way and convince myself that she would be okay. I couldn’t walk away … and do nothing
.

She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead and tried to untangle her thoughts from her emotions.

Drop by drop, like melting ice, compassion for the frightened dog began to flow
.

Laurie despised the fact that she chronically lived in a place that was dictated by her feelings. She resolved to move beyond her emotion, beyond the teetertotter of what she felt versus what was true. The truth was simple: this dog needed her help, she could give it, and she chose to. Emotional quicksand had enslaved Laurie for too long. Now she wanted to base her decision on what was needed, not on what she needed to feel.

To confirm her decision, Laurie repeated her conclusion:
I’m helping this dog because it’s simply the right thing to do
.

Ever since she was a little girl, Laurie had carried a heart full of vast and vivid dreams. She always had a clear picture of the
person she wanted to be and what she wanted to do. She hoped her life would stand for something greater than herself. With the untarnished innocence of a child, she adopted her generation’s aspirations to be happy, beautiful, and prosperous, to raise a family and change her world. Laurie loved children and teaching and hoped to combine those two elements in her future. What she wanted to do for humanity would matter. It would make a difference. She would make a difference.

What she wanted to do for humanity would matter. It would make a difference. She would make a difference
.

With those ideals firmly established, Laurie never could’ve imagined that twenty years later she would be so far from the aspirations of her youth. Her heart had become the source of a turbulent, unceasing churn of doubt. She was beset with feelings of uncertainty and constant questioning of how her life could have strayed so far off track.

From an outsider’s viewpoint, Laurie had it all. Raised in a loving home, she worked a respectable job, maintained an active social life, and attended church on Sundays. In contrast, her view from inside proclaimed the truth: she was profoundly lonely. Inside the bare walls of her life, beyond the scrutiny of all others, a young woman wandered alone, lost in a desert of isolation.

Nearly all her adult life had been consumed with the pursuit of fulfillment, worth, and love. In a give-and-take world, Laurie soon learned that if she wanted to feel valued and loved, it was going to cost her. Her desperation to fill these needs was matched only by her vain attempts to satisfy them. Slowly, her resistance to stand against self-destructive habits caved in under the weight of their promised consolations.

In an effort to quell her insatiable desire to be valued, accepted, and loved, Laurie gradually relinquished her moral code. She fought less and less to retain a place of virtue. Instead of pursuing her dreams, she yielded to the destructive flow of drifting downstream. By doing so, every new twist in her logic led her to make one detrimental decision after another. Each destructive choice ushered her deeper into the hollow wasteland of loneliness. Outwardly her childhood ideals had become her self-fulfilling prophecy. To others, she looked happy, she looked beautiful, she looked prosperous. The truth of who she was lay barren and buried deep inside her.

On the inside, Laurie was dying.

Thus she began a personal search for anything that would fulfill her, anything that would give her vacant existence meaning. First, Laurie bought into the lie that if she were thinner, then she would be closer to society’s standard of beauty and worthy of everlasting love. Sadly, the result was not fulfillment
but utter imprisonment. Laurie became a slave to her image, her weight, and a gnawing obsession with food. She dragged the shackles of a distorted self-image.

Needing to flee her confused and troubled heart, Laurie ran. She focused on escaping to a new place where she could make a fresh start. Her actions looked to those around her like a glorious, innovative chapter of adventure and travel. Surely, gaining an education abroad, exploring luxurious locations, and dining on exotic cuisine would boost the bottom line of her value as a progressive woman. With each move, she hoped to find the perfect place where she would finally fit in, where she might be freed from her plague of loneliness.

When it came to building friendships in these new regions, Laurie understood it was only a matter of time before she was discovered as a fraud. She didn’t know how to be a friend or live selflessly for others. In each new place, she realized it would be only a few months before her previous mistakes and selfish breakdowns would overtake her once again. Her ability to sustain a lasting relationship was always undermined by the false exterior she huddled behind. She was certain that once people glimpsed beyond her thin veneer, they would be disgusted by what they saw. To spare others the loathing and her own self the shame, she made it a habit to move on before anyone really knew her. Laurie repeated this
shallow, transient practice for several years to keep from facing her broken past.

With each move to a new location, Laurie allowed herself to be pulled into different and sometimes alternative crowds. She often mimicked those around her by forsaking who she was in exchange for what she believed others wanted her to become. For a brief phase, she imitated the glamorous crowd but was flatly rejected by their self-entitled ways.

It was nearly effortless for her to find a niche in the earthy spiritual-energy group, but their strange self-righteousness eventually drove her away. Laurie also stumbled into the angry, rebellious crowd, where no one was ever at fault. Here, her moral code slackened even further as she adopted the easy habit of simply blaming others for what she didn’t want to change. By doing so, she never had to take responsibility for her own destructive choices. It wasn’t long before partying and promiscuity became a normal part of Laurie’s life. In a sad moral bargain, she believed that if she hung out in trendy places and could show her peers that she was hip, funny, and engaging, maybe then they would accept her as a friend.

The price of becoming a valuable woman climbed to ever-increasing heights with every new boyfriend she allowed into what was left of her parceled-out heart. Every relationship began with the same euphoric high, driven by a false hope that
this time it would be different. But it wasn’t different. Each relationship ended with the same crushing low, hallmarked by a greater sense of emptiness. Each failed liaison left Laurie with less of herself and more of the wasting disease of loneliness that devoured her very core. Her ever-changing life as a chameleon, trying to become the woman each man dreamed of, was costing Laurie her soul.

Although her facade remained glossy, intact, and beautiful, Laurie’s skillfully hidden true self always felt churned up, troubled, and empty. Because the attractive approach didn’t satisfy her, she even tried a short season of its polar opposite. Complete trashiness became her trademark. She dressed in tight, revealing clothing and wore heavy, dark makeup. She matched her internal pain with external piercings in a desperate effort to disguise her constant fear of rejection.

All of Laurie’s efforts to fill her heart with love, value, and purpose brought only fleeting moments of relief. She was starving, and everything she tried to feed herself brought only a savory aroma, merely enough to make her stomach knot and her mouth flood with the anticipation of something real. But nothing she could produce was real. She was terrified to take an honest look into her own soul. She felt certain that if she did, nothing would stare back at her but the bottomless, empty gaze of an emotional refugee.

The sum of Laurie’s endeavors to bear her brokenness left her with even greater wounds. Every self-promoting effort to restore her shattered heart resulted in greater devastation. All her frantic and manipulative cries for help fell upon the deafness of her peers. Everything she did to rescue herself failed. So she did the next best thing. She became a master of deception. There was no smile or angry expression she couldn’t hide behind. Sadly, the soul she was most deceiving was her own.

Even though the world shouted, “This is as good as it gets, this is all there is,” Laurie knew that she wanted something more. She struggled to hold on to the hope that perhaps there was something more. There must be something more.

There must be something more
.

BOOK: Blind Hope: An Unwanted Dog & the Woman She Rescued
11.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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