Looking in From the Outside

The end of the day suddenly approaches and I begin to tidy up. After I’m done in kitchen, I make my way to the living room. I pick up after my dog and begin to put away the remains of her toys. Everyday she somehow manages to get every single toy out of her basket and carelessly tosses it across the room. As I finish putting her toys up I look over at her snuggled into a ball on our new chair. The chair is a decorative piece, not meant for comfort. She’s claimed it as her throne. How does a dog claim it? Not by becoming territorial. Not by ‘marking her spot’. She just has decided to break it in. I bring my face closer and run my finger against the bottom of my chair. Two holes are beginning to grow and threads hang all along the bottom. Upset, I demand Kahlua to get down and she obeys. There they are, the discolored marks along the cushion from her paws. I start to look around the living room. There are smudges on the first window pane. Our couch has scratches from her late night hyper-ness, otherwise known as the ‘zooms’ in our house. The marks on the wall from her leaning against it while she stands because she’s a bit lazy when it comes to standing. I’ve finally come to a realization.

I enjoy a tidy house and taking care of my belongings, but at some point you are the only person who really knows why things are the way they are. Someone could come into my house and look around and notice the clumps of dog hair gathered at every corner of my house. They might notice some of the scratches on the couch while sitting down in my living room; however, it’s the things that they don’t see that matter most to me. They might not know that the hair is from multiple belly rubs a day and that the scratches are from our play sessions. They don’t know that the accent chair their sitting in is her chair that she perches up on all day to wait until the moment we come up or that the smudges on the window are from her curiously observing the outdoors. So, I’m not going to stress out about cleaning after her spilt water every time she takes a drink or every new mark I find. I know why my place is like this and that’s what matters.