For Better or Worse...

I am 22 years old and feel like I've been through a lifetime of emotional turbulence. There have been so many people walking in and out of my life and treating me like trash in the process that I had accepted the notion that indeed, I must not be terribly important or worthwhile.

All of this changed when I met Aaron. Never for a moment have I felt unimportant or unloved. I am definitely the most important person in the world to him.

However, every once in awhile, I remember the turbulence of the past, and my self-esteem/self-worth starts to deteriorate. I dwell on what's been-what could have happened-what did I do wrong to make everything so horrible?

And then there's Aaron. There he is with all of his love and patience and I have to tell myself to remember that all of that bad stuff is over now, and here I am with him, and nothing else matters. Nothing else matters because we are in this crazy fight together, for better or worse, until we're looking over at each other with wrinkled faces and gray hair from our separate rocking chairs on the front porch of the home we worked so hard to build.

I have to remember that everything that happened to make me feel so horrible about myself is over now. It's behind me. It has nothing to do with who I am now. And I have a partner who will stand by me and remind me every second of every day how wonderful he truly thinks I am until I can finally feel the same way about myself.

I am so very lucky.

Animal Rights vs. Animal Wrongs

Many animal rights activists disagree with the notion of owning animals as pets. These activists argue that animals should not be "owned," but they should be allowed to live their lives as nature intended--in the wild.

As an animal lover, I disagree. I don't think that in this day and age that animals such as dogs and cats would be able to survive "in the wild" because "the wild" doesn't really exist anymore. The world (or most of it, anyway) has become very urbanized, and dogs and cats have been domesticated for too long to revert back to being "wild."

What is the solution? Well, there is already too many unwanted pets out there who can't take care of themselves on their own due to the over-domestication of dogs and cats. I think the solution is to prevent these unwanted pets by spaying and neutering as many pets as possible.

So what I'm sayin' is...spay or neuter your pet. I guess I'm sort of a hypocrite because we haven't neutered Rasta yet...BUT he is only five months old. There is a place in Brenham called "The Connie Clinic" that performs spays and neuters for $50-$60 dollars, depending on the weight of the pet. I think we're going to go there after we move over the summer...and when we have an extra $50 to spare :)