Therapy: 6 Month Check In

Therapy is honestly one of the most amazing things I’ve been doing this year. I’ve been learning so much about myself and so much about life in general. If you’re even on the fence about trying it, just know that therapy has helped me in every aspect of my life and continues to do so on a weekly basis. I’ve been going since January and since then so many of my relationships and my outlook on my life has improved vastly. I want to share one of the tools I’ve received in therapy with all of you as a glimpse into one aspect of how eye-opening therapy has been for me and can be for you, if you give it a try.

My therapist gave me a sheet of “Unhelpful Thinking Styles” which I’m certain all of us can say we have done or are currently doing.

1. All or nothing thinking: Sometimes called ‘black and white thinking.’
For example–“If I’m not perfect I have failed,” or “Either I do it right or not at all”
I have a tendency of thinking this way in a few aspects of my life. If a guaranteed “win” or success story was not attached to something in the past, I avoided it. Nothing in life is ever absolute, so working on accepting this was definitely challenging for me, but I’m getting to a point now, where I’m not focusing on failure but instead focusing on the possible success, even if it isn’t guaranteed.

2. Mental Filter: Only paying attention to certain types of evidence. F
or example–Noticing our failures but not seeing our successes.
It’s so easy to key in on something negative in our lives because it has such a great impact. Something positive can linger but something negative can ruin our whole god damn day and make a day that was pretty good suddenly sum up to a shit day. This is an issue that I feel I need to hone in on and resolve situationally. Did it suck not to get into grad school when I applied? Yes. However, that was not my path right now. I was meant to do what I am now working on and it’s as simple as that.

3. Jumping to Conclusions: There are two key types of jumping to conclusions—
-Mind reading: imagining we know what others are thinking -Fortune telling: predicting the future
None of us really know what is going to happen nor do we always know what other people are thinking. It’s safe to say, we shouldn’t assume we know things that we simply do not. I am working on this as I tend to assume a lot because it makes me feel in control of things even when I am not.

4. Emotional reasoning: Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true.
For example– “I feel embarrassed so I must be an idiot.”
I have a lot of feelings and at times I have had issues interpreting them. Am I crying because I can’t handle stress or is this feeling happening as an emotional reaction to a situation that is triggering these tears? I used to identify crying as a weakness. Showing emotion and not being able to control myself was weakness. This, of course, isn’t true at all, but before I believed it true. In therapy, I can honestly say I cry at least once every other week. Afterward I don’t feel embarrassed or weak, my therapist helped me understand that emotions are valid.

5. Labelling: Assigning label to ourselves or other people. F
or example– “I’m a loser,” “I’m completely useless,” or “They’re such an idiot.”
Now, a while back I wrote this entire blog post about labels and how they belong on jars, but since then I have been more vocal about my judgments. Not always in a joking way as I always had before. I find myself more and more, labeling people, calling them careless or irresponsible if I feel it suits them. I’ve argued that I am merely analyzing situations and people, not labeling them, however, there have been times when they were not constructive labels, just mere judgments. It’s a struggle daily, since I am hard on myself and label myself many things daily. As I work on being easier on myself I am also learning to refrain from passing judgments among those who it is not my business to judge. (Exception: Donald Trump is a horrible president and is running this country into the ground. Fuck that guy.)

6. Overgeneralizing: Seeing a pattern based upon a single event, or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw.
For example–“Everything is always rubbish (their word, not mine, I would’ve just said shit), or “Nothing good ever happens.”
I, identify as a dramatic person. You’re labeling! Yes, but I have a point, so, it’s okay in this situation…I’ll talk to my therapist and work on it next week, get off my back! Anyway, so considering being dramatic, I use hyperbole in almost every sentence I speak/write to add the emphasis. I need not only to make a point but to make others laugh. Should I work on this? When I overgeneralize a neighborhood due to the things in my immediate view? Yes! The other times when I say my job (whose name I will not say because god knows corporate will find this blog somehow and sue me for talking shit about them, even if it’s just a dramatic/funny version of the truth) is a place WHERE LITERALLY ALL DREAMS GO AND DIE, I will continue, because it makes people laugh and I like laughter, so there.

7. Disqualifying the Positive: Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another.
For example–“That doesn’t count.”
“I haven’t traveled or done shit with my life.” I probably say this at the very least once a week. Then someone will reassure me and say, “So, that 40,000 debt you have in student loans was for fun or did you get a degree out of it?” Oh, that’s right. I guess I did do that. Then another more annoyed voice would say, “Didn’t you just get back from Tahoe and are going to Mexico later this year for the second time?” Well, yes but I want to travel more! I have done the things I claim and complain that I haven’t, but I’m just indulging in the negative for the sake of doing so. It’s so sad how easy it is to take for granted all the things I have been able to do that many others can or have not.

8. Magnification (catastrophizing) & Minimization: Blowing things out of proportion (catastrophizing), or inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important.
This one is tough because doing both these things comes incredibly easy for me and quite possibly most people. There are many things at work and even at home that I tend to blow up. Things that are just the way they are and they aren’t even worth getting upset or worked up about. However, with things that compromise my integrity or put me in tough situations that upset me, I tend to play it down to diffuse the situation. I’ll give my own example, a work friend drunkenly hit on me and I said it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. It was a big deal to me and bothered me for several days after. It’s unacceptable, but I made it a small thing because I didn’t want to create friction. Finding a balance with both is tough, but doable I’m sure if you want to work on it.

9. “Should” and “Must”: Using critical words like ‘should’ or ‘must’ or ‘ought’ can make us feel guilty, or like we have already failed.  F
or example–If we apply ‘shoulds’ to other people the result is often frustration.
I have a hard time with this as, ‘should’ and ‘must’ are two words imbedded in my vocabulary. I always talk about all the motherly things my mom ‘should’ be doing and all the productivity I must do to be worthy of something. These words set us up to fail and believe that others have failed us using this type of language.

10. Personalization: Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault. Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault.
    This is huge for me. I take blame for almost everything that I am involved in. Remember that story I told about a drunken friend hitting on me? Yeah, I blamed ME. “I shouldn’t have stayed in the car after dropping him off while he vented to me about his issues,” or “Maybe I had been too nice.” After this reflex of taking blame for the situation at hand, I then snapped out of it. Forget that, I didn’t do anything wrong. I always talk about my boyfriend, me and this kid see each other like once a month and I was encouraging him to call his girlfriend the whole time he was venting to me. So, this taking blame BS is getting old. I’m working on taking responsibility for MY actions, not the actions of others. Don’t even get me started on the blame I take in my relationship with my mom. That one is definitely tough, but again, our lives are a work in progress, we just have to show up.***Therapy has this stigma attached to it and I hope to be a part of ending that in our society. It starts with the individual. Before my friends would whisper therapy when talking to me about it, like it was a bad word. They’d vaguely address asking about therapy all sheepish, “How was your, uh, doctor’s appointment…” I, of course, raising my voice a little, “You mean therapy? It’s been going fantastic! I love it and I love my therapist.”

    It’s important we share that we are in therapy with those close to us, hell even those not close to us, because it could change the way we see therapy. It could help someone who is worried what people might think of them if they were in therapy or shared that they were currently seeing a therapist. I used to be this person. Constantly worried what people would think if they found out I spoke to a professional. The truth is, more people are understanding about it than you might think. We all have issues, some big and some small. If anything, I feel like people reach out to me more, and have a respect for me because I’m not embarrassed about it. There is no reason to be embarrassed. We all need help occasionally, and in my case, I needed help working through family issues and ended up getting to know myself so much more.

    I used to think, I’m moderately competent and good at research, I can fix my problems all by myself. The truth is therapy has helped me in a way that I couldn’t have really helped myself. In therapy, I would be talking about something that occurred recently that had a negative impact on me, something I wouldn’t have gone into depth with but did because my therapist asked me to and I discovered something about myself I had not realized. That happens a lot in therapy for me. I’d be talking about something and come to the realization of something I hadn’t thought of before or connected the dots to.

    Remember that puzzle-line game as a kid where there would be a series of dots on the page with numbers next to them to help you form an image? Sometimes it would be a giraffe or some complex statue. Think of your life as the dots and right now you don’t have the numbers, or maybe you have some numbers but not all of them. Therapy, are the numbers on the dots, there to help you connect and make sense of the image in front of you (your life). This is what therapy has been for me, helping me connect those dots.

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    WRITTEN BY: Estela

Ripple Effects

For the first time, I got to witness a ripple effect of human kindness and it was beautiful. I was on my way to return an Amazon package at one of those Amazon lockers you sometimes see in a Safeway. I originally made the arrangements the night before and was going to be in Menlo Park anyway, so when I arrived I was going to go in and then right out to go to my therapy appointment. Now, I’m going to give you a bunch of details that seem unnecessary but it’s because every little thing that may seem insignificant is all happening for a reason. I was supposed to take the first entrance into the Safeway, the one I usually take, but a BMW that would slow down and speed up and the exact same time as I tried to switch lanes, kept that from happening. I ended up having to go around and entering through the back entrance of the plaza, because of this I ended up parking a lot father. I saw a little boy walking with a box as I got out of my car. He was talking to a hipster looking couple who were nodding and almost shooing him away. He was making his way toward the end of the parking lot, when I noticed he was carrying a box. I could tell he was selling something, so I walked over and asked what he was selling. Sheepish and polite, he answered, “Chocolate bars for at risk youth.” It was about 85 degrees and he had a t-shirt and jeans on. He was squinting at me from the blazing sun, trying to cover his eyes. I asked him if he could give me 5 minutes, that I needed to drop off my package and get cash. He said, “Okay,” and watched me walk away. I looked back, “I’ll be back. Wait for me.” He gave a half smile and turned to other incoming shoppers. I wondered in the moment how many times he was told that and didn’t see those people again. Not me. I was going to keep my word.

I went inside, walked over to the amazon locker and entered the code they gave me. I kept getting a “this code does not exist” message. I looked back at the paperwork, I had gone to the wrong place. I was supposed to have gone to the Safeway in Palo Alto, not in Menlo Park. I laughed in a realization that I was meant to be here, I was meant to buy that little boy’s chocolate. I should probably mention how BIG I am on the universe and, things happening for a reason. I truly believe things are put in place to keep you on a path meant for you and sometimes deter you somewhere else because you are needed elsewhere. With all that said, I grabbed a water from the mini refrigerator by the check out stand, and asked for $10 in cash back. I found him immediately, he was talking to a woman who was shaking her head no to him and back up toward her car. I walked over there and asked him how much the candy bar was. He responded, “Seven dollars.” I gave him the ten dollar bill and told him to keep the change. I handed him the water bottle and told him it was hot out here and the seal was still on the bottle. I grabbed the box while he opened the water and took a huge gulp from it. I asked him his name, almost breathless from the water he chugged, he responded, “Aries.” I smiled, “Aries. That’s a great name, that’s a fire element in the zodiac. It’s fierce.” Still timid, he wiped the water from his mouth, nodded and smiled.

The woman who had told Aries she didn’t want to buy anything had been watching us. In my peripherals I saw her run around the car to her back seat. Aries handed me the large chocolate bar with wrapping that was made to appear like money. The woman said, “Excuse me,” then apologized for interrupting and handed him a hat and some change she found in her back seat. She put the hat on Aries and told him he could keep it. Another man had been watching us too from across the parking lot. I noticed him staring at Aries as I came out of Safeway. I wasn’t sure why he was staring at first, curiosity as to what Aries was selling, or maybe the fact that there was an African American child in his upscale neighborhood grocery store roaming the parking lot. When he started walking over, I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, so I waited to make sure this man wasn’t going to make any trouble for Aries. He peeked in the box, “Alright, young man, what are you going to sell me today.” My heart fluttered at the big smile Aries now had. Sometimes we all need a push, someone to lead by example. That could have been anyone willing to show kindness to a stranger that could have started that ripple effect.

Selling anything to strangers, especially at that age, is difficult. What is seven dollars, really? A venti drink at Starbucks with a breakfast sandwich? Next time you think about saying “No” or not giving someone the time of day asking for help, don’t. Just give it to them, just help them. Some people might argue, “What if it’s a scam, and the money doesn’t go where they say.” That doesn’t matter. What matters is you did your part. You helped someone. What they do with that money or help is not your business anymore. You can only hope the people you help really do need it and that you made a small impact in their life. I was supposed to buy that $7 chocolate bar from Aries, to give him water, and to potentially inspire others to help him out. I ended up at the wrong place, at the right time. So, next time you end up in the wrong place, don’t get upset, because it might be the right time and to positively impact someone else’s life, one chocolate bar at a time.

 

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

To Mexico We Go

I have lived in the United States all my life. My first time leaving the country was on a cruise to Ensenada, where a tour bus took us directly to the flea market where they were playing American hip hop. During the entire tour, a man who grew up in San Jose, CA, was saying how he retired in Mexico and how we Americans should be very cautious. He told us, the people here will overcharge us, will try to scam us and that we should keep our belongings in close proximity. It made me nervous. I mean, I was used to keeping my belongings in close proximity, but the fear of being in another country and potentially being robbed affected me. For starters, it put a limit on my drinking and I was so busy keeping on eye on my belongings I feel I missed out on sight seeing. I wanted to be completely aware and sober in case anything went down. Everything was fine on that trip, I imagine because it was a really touristy area. I had a great time, but I do wish I hadn’t been so worried the whole time.

In October, my mom, Henry, his family and myself are going to Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico. Henry’s family is very familiar with that area since they visit family around there all the time. I’m so excited we’re doing this trip, but I can’t help but be a little nervous. I think the media has corrupted my mind in believing that all of Mexico is like the wild west. People with guns and cartels throwing random heads on porches like a daily newspaper delivery. Most of the people I’ve spoken to who have been there say it’s beautiful and touristy. They also make sure to tell me not to wear anything that looks too nice or expensive. My clothes are pretty basic and I don’t have much to compare what is considered “nice.” I’ve never had trouble dressing down, so that’s a bit of a relief. Fortunately, Henry’s family are fluent in the language and can speak for us if we need help or anything. My Spanish is moderate. I can have a conversation but I might stumble or not know how to say certain things. I’ve been told I translate too exact from English to Spanish, making my sentences sound like a Spanish Yoda. Fluent, I am not.
But I try. Hopefully, my accent will improve before then and they won’t think I’m a foreigner. Also, the money difference is nerve racking. Do they take dollars, or should I exchange some of my money for pesos?

To ease my mind I think I’ll read up on more about the city of Guadalajara and look up money exchange and whatnot. I should probably also learn how to say Guadalajara without sounding like it’s a tongue twister for me. That word just doesn’t sound natural when I say it.

Planning this trip has already shown me how naïve I am when it comes to traveling. I didn’t know American airlines (not the actual American airlines, but like Southwest, United, etc) were not an option. I had to look up out of the country airlines, which makes sense, but I just didn’t think of it at the time. It’s easy to get stuck in this little bubble of home. Hopefully this trip will help me gain some experience in traveling out of the country even if it’s just a few hours south of here, plus I’ll finally get the stamp on my passport I so desperately wanted all my life.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Ultra Violent Light

History repeats itself.

There are things that aren’t right. Things that don’t make sense.

My mom was pregnant with me when Rodney King was beaten by Police. No one knew what was next. No one knew the type of violence that was going to continue to erupt and how widespread it would be. I was almost a year old when the LA riots happened. Everyone thought it was the end, but it wasn’t. It was just the beginning of a shift in our society. However, it seems that we are right back where we started.

How do we overcome racism, prejudice, and inequality? We start with ourselves and the people around us. The system is broken, and we live under that system. What can we do? We fight. We fight with our success. We fight with our refusal to allow the racism and the abuse. If you see something wrong, you raise your voice, you say something. We must band together against the injustice. We want what’s right and when we don’t get it, it’s natural to be angry. Harness that anger, because it is what drives us. Use that anger as the steps you need to make change. Put that anger and passion into your school work. Get that diploma, get that degree, work for the government and work on changing it. We CAN change it, we just have to get in there. We have to educate.

We can kill, we can burn our cities, we can continue the violence, but that’s easy. That’s the easy, quick way to get the attention and change you desire. It’s been done before, yet here we are. Reasons keep appearing to cause protest. And until this is no longer the case, we should keep protesting, peacefully, in the masses. But most importantly, we should be making our way into positions of power to make a difference. You don’t need money to make something of yourself, you need drive. That fire in your stomach you feel when you see an injustice. When you see people struggling because of the color of their skin, and you want to be the change in the world, let that drive you to success. We have to stay focused on the bigger picture now. We can’t make real change politically, widespread until we flood positions of power.

Be someone who was known for fighting against prejudice, without violence, even when this feels like the hardest thing to do. Remember, it was even more difficult for those before us to do so, but they did. Martin Luther King Jr., was one of the most powerful men in history and you can be too.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

Organizing Time

There aren’t enough hours in the day.

I’m sure you can all relate to this in some way. A normal day for me has to include the following:
Walking my dogs in the AM
Making breakfast
Prepping lunch and snacks for the work day
Commute to work
While at work
-Eating
-Research for our wellness program
-Creating emails to send for my wellness research
-Walking on my first break
-Reading on my last break
Yoga/Workout
Commute home
Working on my blog
Walking my dogs in the PM
Making dinner
Do dishes
Clean
Catch up with friends and family
Talk to Henry
Prepare for the next day

Repeat.

This doesn’t include those nights laundry has to be done, grocery shopping has to happen, visiting friends and family or going to an event.

With all that said, we can agree that there is just no possible way to do this and still maintain positive energy and happy. Shout out to the parents who do all this with kids and have 10 kid related duties added. The things I named above are things that need to happen everyday, and making this list was just as stressful as doing the tasks. It’s hard to find a balance while trying to squeeze in things you do for yourself when the list of what you have to do is overwhelming. However, when I put it all out on paper in numbers, I discovered something interesting.

Have you ever tried mapping out in hours what your week looks like?

I did and what I discovered was incredibly helpful for me when it came to organizing my time. There are 168 hours a week. Try mapping out your time the way I did below.

Time Commitments That Cannot Be Changed:
40 hours of work
8 hours of commuting
56 hours of sleep (with 8 hours of sleep everyday)
10 hours of eating time
7 hours of exercise
______________________________
118 hours of obligated time

Now, do the math to see how many hours you have left after subtracting your commitments from the amount of hours in a week.

Free Time/Unused Time
50 hours give or take a week

What am I usually doing in those 50 hours that I feel I don’t have any free time to do anything I love?

Probably on social networking apps, watching Netflix, reading emails, or scrolling through Pinterest for longer than I should.

These things aren’t bad when done in moderation, however, I tend to binge most things I do.

So, my plans are to put my 50 hours toward things that are productive but also make me happy. Things like: writing, coloring, reading, organizing, and doing face masks (because we all need a good face mask day every now and then).

So before you tell anyone, I don’t have any free time, crunch the numbers and see how much free time you actually have. You might be surprised.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

The Grass is Greener

Moving took a huge toll on me. It took an entire month for the process to finally end. Between working and trying to keep other aspects of my life in order, I was struggling to balance everything. So much that I took a leave of absence from one of my jobs. Now that everything has settled down and I finally feel like I’m getting into a routine.

I’ve been wandering around my new city and it is definitely something I’m not used to. I didn’t realize how many differences there could be in just a 12 mile radius. Every city gets it reputation. Everyone noticed the wide eyed stares you’d get if you tell people you’re from Oakland, though, much like Hayward, both are slowly getting new reputations (like being gentrified and becoming a nice place to live). Newark’s reputation was where “the rich people lived” for us in Hayward. Newark is a pretty pricey city to live in now, and was pretty expensive to us low income kids who grew up in Hayward. I remember being a kid going to play mini-golf in Newark and there being so much open land around there. Hardly anything but a few new residential areas being built, selling at $350,000, while brand new houses in Hayward with a golf course were selling at $250,000. That’s a big difference, and it all had to do with who was buying where, and people with money, were buying predominantly in Newark, keeping the prices up. Now, they host offices for Stanford, start ups and the median price of home values in Newark is around $700,000.

Though, only a few cities away, there are major differences between Hayward and Newark beyond cost of living. I’ll begin with the stores. They are seriously so much better. They’re larger, they have more variety and the people who work there are incredibly helpful. I’ll provide an example, Grocery Outlet. The Grocery Outlet in Newark has a large variety, is organized, and their staff is eager to assist you. They have a lot of things the Hayward Grocery Outlet didn’t have, like outdoor plants, cheap name brand skin care, dog supplies, household items, and plenty of food options. Newark’s dollar store is probably one of the nicest dollar stores I’ve ever walked into (along with the one in Turlock, which is huge). Okay, last one because this isn’t an advertisement for corporations. Big Lots. This place has a huge variety of furniture (outdoor and indoor), household items/decor, food, and skin care. The one back in Hayward closed down a while ago, but I remember the shelves half broken, barely hanging on and tiny children’s tricycles flipped over in the middle of the aisles. Now, not all of Hayward is that chaotic, but so far, it has been nice not to be around even the slightest bit of chaos.

Another thing I love so far about this city. The parks. They’re safe and there’s lots of them. Within a 5 mile radius, there are 6+ parks. It’s insane. They are all beautiful, spacious and my dogs love it. It’s so peaceful here, especially in the mornings at my apartment complex. There are so many tress and pets.

There are so many things I feel comfortable doing here that I just didn’t when I was in Hayward. I walk around the neighborhood with my dogs and no one bothers me, or follows me home. I don’t get stopped and asked where I’m going. There hasn’t been any disrespectful cat calling. People in Newark just say hello and go about their day. I open the blinds and windows without worrying about it. No one stops outside our patio or windows to stare in. I go to bed and don’t worry about my car being vandalized or broken into.

It’s little things that have made me more calm, relaxed and less neurotic, since living here. My plan was originally to only live in Newark for a year, but I really enjoy it here. So, time will tell what the future holds and where I’ll be. The high cost of living here does carry a lot of weight on my decision but we’ll see how it goes. For now, I know I’ll enjoy this year here in my little sanctuary.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

New Roles

A lot has changed in the last few months. I moved out of the hood and I’m working on a new career path. But one pretty exciting thing I want to talk about it my new role at my job as a wellness ambassador. It sounds a lot fancier than it actually is, I don’t get compensated extra for it, but I’m pretty excited regardless. As a wellness ambassador, my role for my department is to ensure that people are aware of the resources our clinic has in place to deal with wellness issues. By wellness, I mean stress management, mental-physical health, nutrition, time management, burn-out, etc. It is also my job to help my team achieve their wellness goals.

So far, I’ve already made some huge changes in my own life for my own wellness. It wouldn’t feel right telling a coworker they can’t stress eat while crumbs and dust from my morning donut glittered on my uniform. I decided I would take this role very seriously and get as many people excited about it as I could. Our four focus points for wellness are: Fitness, Nutrition, Sleep, and Stress management.

I sent out emails, provided advice based on my own experience, started a Pinterest board, started a wellness board at the office with advice and inspirational quotes, and I’m organizing events for it. We have a 5 mile hike next week at Mount Tamalpais and a Healthy Rainbow potluck at the end of the month.

Word spread fast. Enough to get the attention of other departments and management. Meetings were scheduled, discussions were had and now my ideas are going to be the foundation for other wellness ambassadors in the clinic to use. Supervisors who didn’t know my name before, were thanking me for my work. It was definitely a humbling and exciting experience.

I really love organizing things and though it has been a lot of work, I’ve been really enjoying it. This week I brought gluten free, additive free, protein and probiotic enriched brownies with less than 6 grams of fat. Next week, baked churros, because let’s be honest, in a stressful work environment we all need a little sugar to get through the day, so why not some heathier options for us, right?

This link is for the pinterest board for wellness, feel free to check it out, it’s a compilation of advice taken and put in one place for fitness, nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

https://www.pinterest.com/beautifullifee/uha-wellness

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WRITTEN BY: Estela

A Dog Life Long Lived

Losing a pet is hard. Last week I had to put down my 16 year old dog. It was past her time and she went peacefully.

I still remember being at home sitting on the porch with my mom. It was a cool spring afternoon when my dad pulled into the dirt driveway. In his hands was a small black ball. It looked, to 10 year old me, like a basketball so I jumped up and thought he had bought me the basketball I wanted from Toys R Us that could glow in the dark. When he handed it to me, I realized it was a puppy. I cried out in even more joy then before.

“What’s her name?” I yelled out in Spanish.
“Name her,” he responded.
“Umm, Baby!”
My mom chimed in, “Why don’t you get to know her first, she looks like a Lola.”
“Nooo. She’s a Baby, like Baby from Dirty Dancing!” my eyes bugging out.
“Her name was Francis,” my mom corrected kindly.
“Nooo. Everyone called her Baby.” Her name was in fact Francis, and Baby was a nickname but I was stubborn and was set on Baby. My dad spoke up, “Let her name her whatever she wants,” he stuck his lips out while nodding, “Baby, is a good name.”

Her dark little eyes looked back at me very solemn. She hardly moved.
“What’s wrong with her,” I asked, noticing she wasn’t like other dogs I’ve seen on TV who ran around and were active.
“The people she used to belong to beat and abused her.”
My mom looked up from the puppy after having already sat down. “Did you steal her?”
My dad did that face again where his lips pushed out and he nodded, “I didn’t steal her, I saved her. I saw them hitting her for no reason outside and when they went back in I called her over. She was hesitant to come near me but I gave her some food I had in my pocket and I picked up from the yard.”
“So, you stole her?” My mom stood at this point.
“They were abusing her.” My dad declared.

They argued for about five minutes while I pet and talked to Baby. I told her no one was ever going to hurt her again and that I would love her forever. My mom must’ve finally came around because she knelt down beside me and began petting her too. She was mine and I was ecstatic.

I took pictures of her on my disposable camera, I dressed her up, I bathed her and I taught her how to sit. It didn’t take too long before she started opening up, being hyper, barking at strangers, and sleeping at the foot of my bed. I had a bean bag chair she always liked to be in whenever I was watching a movie in my room or playing with my leap frog gadgets. She’d look at me with her big brown eyes, her little ears perked up ready for me to call her over to me. When I did, her tail would wag like crazy and she’d make herself comfortable in my lap.

As she got older, she got bolder. She would dig holes under the fence and run away. Apparently when she did, she got into some trouble and by trouble I mean my 1930’s version of saying she got pregnant. We didn’t spay our dog because we thought she’d bite the vetrenarian since she hated strangers. Plus, we kind of wanted to see if she would have cute children. However, we didn’t expect this unplanned pregnancy. However, a few months later when she had her first litter we were so happy. They were all adorable and huge; I’m talking, half her size and there were four of them. She was a trooper with that pregnancy. She took such good care of her puppies. We kept them a while and eventually a few people we knew would fall in love with one of them when they came over and we started to giving them to people who wanted a puppy.

After her first litter we decided to get her spayed. We took her to some hole in the wall place and “got it done.” I might as well tell you now, it didn’t get done. They said they did it and at the time we were too ignorant to look for a scar. A few weeks passed and she and the neighborhood dog ended up running away. They were both picked up by the SPCA and they told us after an exam she was pregnant. As you can imagine, we were pretty confused as to how that could be possible. We looked in the backyard and found a hole Baby and the neighborhood dog had made on the side of the fence. They apparently had been seeing each other in secret and doing the deed. Seriously, they had some Romeo and Juliet thing going for them, which in retrospect is pretty damn adorable. We asked the SPCA to check if she was spayed because we had documents that said she was.  She was not, according to them, so, we waited until she had her next litter. We were worried. Another four puppies that size only 11 months after the first litter. We didn’t want her to be in pain or to struggle.

The night she went into labor we hardly slept. My mom and I kept petting her, bringing her water. I couldn’t really see what was going on, she wanted to give birth in her kennel and it was dark. We went to bed once we saw they may not be coming until tomorrow. The next day I woke up early and ran over to her kennel. I stuck my head in and saw two puppies. One white puppy and one brown puppy. I called my mom to come out and see. We led Baby out of her kennel with treats so we could check out the new puppies. We noticed this time she was overly reluctant to leave, but after several minutes she ended up coming out. The brown one was lifting her head up and down, eyes shut, searching for her mom but the white one was still on its side, not moving. I reached out and wrapped the brown one is a towel and then I touched the white one. The puppy was cold. I panicked. I started crying and told my mom. She picked the puppy up, wrapped him in a blanket. She started to cry, then kept petting him, trying to warm him up but he was gone. We let Baby back inside. She ran to the kennel and she looked all around for her children. We showed her to her puppy who was yawning a strange noise and we let her sniff the puppy that didn’t make it. I could tell she knew the puppy was gone. She sniffed and licked the puppy a lot, as if trying to wake him up. We called someone and they took the puppy. After a few days of feeding her new puppy, she seemed back to normal. We ended up naming her puppy, Olive. We also decided to keep her, we felt it was pretty traumatic to lose a puppy and we didn’t want to take anyone else away from her.

Baby continued to be mischievous with Olive following suit. It was the end 2011 and Olive was almost a year old. We took Baby and Olive to the vet and asked about spaying both of them. After blood work was done for Baby, they said Baby was at an age where it might not be safe to spay her. They just told us to keep an eye on her because she could get pregnant, even at this age.

She was 10 years old when we found out she had managed to get pregnant again. At this point we had no idea how it happened. She was hardly outside and there were no holes in the fence. We had absolutely no clue how it could have happened. We figured once we saw the puppies, we would be able to somewhat determine who could potentially be the father. It was pretty much a ridiculous episode of Maury at our house that summer. The puppies arrived in November, 2015 and there were four again just like her first litter. One was white and three were brown. One boy, three girls and all were healthy. The house was full and we decided that if people offered good homes for this new litter that we would be open to giving them away.

An older man my mom met through her job had lost his dog of thirteen years and was looking for a new companion. He wanted a young dog that could keep him young. He happened to want a boy and we had one for him. Once the puppies had been eating solid food for a month we gave the male puppy for the older man. He was grateful and sometimes we drive by his house and will randomly see how big he has gotten and how happy the man and the puppy look.

My buddy in college has Baby’s other child. He gave her to his girlfriend as a Christmas gift and they love her to bits. I’m fortunate enough to see pictures of her on his social media accounts, flying with them to Cabo and cuddling in a cabin in Tahoe. She actually has actually done more traveling than I have. She’s definitely living the higher life with the finer things.

And then there were 4. It was my Baby, Olive, Samantha (the smallest of the bunch even though she was the biggest when they were born, and Gorda (the runt of the litter who is now bigger than her mom). Just one little happy family.

In 2016, Baby was diagnosed with two tumors and one of them was cancerous. I noticed her slowing down a lot in early 2015, I just assumed it was from the pregnancy. She was less eager to go on hikes with me and walks. She had to stop a lot and she just wasn’t as active. Even after her cancer diagnosis she still seemed really happy. It wasn’t until after Christmas that we noticed a huge change. She slowed down significantly. It was sad to watch and we knew she was getting to a point where we needed to have the talk. My mom and I had discussed euthanization for a month before we let it get so bad that Baby was in pain. She could no longer go to the bathroom, she barely ate, her legs would randomly give out on her. It was bad. We waited too long and we shouldn’t have. We kept thinking we would just know when it was time. We had kind of known, but ignored it and she had to suffer at the end. It was completely avoidable and if you can take anything from this blog post, I advise you don’t wait too long like we did.

It was honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but it needed to be done. I hope when it comes time for your pet, you don’t let the way you feel get in the way of what is best for your pet. She’s gone now and she isn’t in any pain anymore. I’m so glad we got to spend 16 long years with her. She was a loyal and loving dog–friend. We had her cremated and will be receiving her ashes in an urn sometime soon. Her memory lives on with us and the stories we have, like how we would spend all this money on a bed for her and she would sleep 4 feet away from it like a weirdo. Her memory lives on everytime we see her children bark at the mailman or strangers, just the way she did. With her children resembling her so much in their actions it feels like she’s still here, so we’re lucky. I hope any of you who have lost a pet can be as lucky as us. Either way, you’re not alone.

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WRITTEN BY: Estela