Living in the Moment

 

Living In the Moment

From the heart of a dog.

For me the moment is now, I have no idea about tomorrow, and yesterday has gone.  I know it’s different for you because you need to prepare for tomorrow and for all the tomorrows yet to come, but they are in the future and yesterday will not come again.

I am the one who does not have the anticipation of things such as holidays, Christmas, long walks. I only know about them when something happens to trigger off memories, such as a Christmas tree – that’s a huge giveaway - packing cases, putting walking books on, then I can get excited whereas you knew when they were going to happen. In some cases you have been happily anticipating them, whereas I am in the dark until it happens, but then I don’t have the stress you have and sometimes I think stress may be part of your excitement – I don’t always understand human emotions, I feel them and I try to do the right thing for you, but you seem to have so many of them.

Sometimes I hear you crying softly into your pillow on a night, and I know that nothing has happened to make you cry, and that you are bringing up past memories. In the same way you think about things that made you really happy when you were a child and those thoughts make you laugh. I can understand wanting to laugh but I can’t understand wanting to be sad.

I don’t bring things into my memory at will, I have triggers. You may look at a photograph and smile as the picture jogs your memory with a thought of the past. My mind works a little like that but I don’t know what the memory is, I just know it brings happiness, fear, or pain. I may see someone wearing a certain garment, smelling of a perfume or saying familiar words, and for a moment I think I know that person, and I may feel really happy. I will soon realise that whoever it is they are not a part of my past and I will move on. But you will now feel so sad for me as you worry if I am truly happy with you. Another time I may see a person or a certain colour of car or hear a noise that instils fear into me, I may even try to run away. I don’t know what has happened in the past, if I could speak I could not tell you, but I will know that my memory trigger has warned me that this has caused me pain and fear in the past. Of course it’s not the actual thing itself, it’s just my memory looking after me – just in case! Once past it I have moved on but you are now so worried, wondering what happened to me, how you can protect me, am I still suffering? The answer to that is ‘yes’ I probably am because you are holding on to it, worrying about it and getting upset and stressed. So when I am letting go you are holding on.

I try to understand as much as I can about you and if I could speak to you I would say you are lucky because you can make happy memories last forever, but the price you have to pay for that is memories that make you so sad. But maybe I am the lucky one as I can let go, you can hang on to your happy memories but I need you to let mine go so I can keep going forwards.

Barbara Sykes

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