Hello,
It's me,
Joe,
The Autistic Buddhist.
Before listening to this session,
I would recommend that you listen to a previous session of mine called Delayed Acceptance.
Delayed Acceptance was a session about my previous dog,
Kenya,
And this session won't make a lot of sense to you unless you listen to Delayed Acceptance first.
To continue,
I now have a new dog.
Her name is Nova.
Although the name Nova in ancient Latin means new,
I didn't pick that name for that reason.
It was a much more mundane reason than that.
But moving on,
My decision to get Nova after Kenya died was made one day a while ago when I was having a conversation with my partner.
I was feeling quite sad that day,
Still thinking about Kenya,
And while talking to my partner about that,
I broke down in tears and said,
I can't take this anymore.
And my partner processed that with me,
And I then said to her afterwards,
I miss Kenya too much and it just keeps hurting and hurting.
So my partner suggested I get a new dog.
And I agreed.
Because I thought that my new dog,
Nova,
Would replace Kenya,
And that's what I wanted,
Another dog to emotionally replace my previous one.
But I learned that that's not how it works.
Nova is very different from Kenya.
She's more sociable,
Playful,
Curious,
And a little bit of an attention seeker.
I love my Nova very much.
Nova lives with me at home,
But she also lives with me in my heart.
I interact with her many times a day,
And people say we are inseparable.
But my pain and grief regarding Kenya is still very much alive.
It has subsided somewhat,
But it's still there.
All I need to do is look at some pictures of her on my cell phone,
And I'll start to cry.
In my life,
I have never understood the dynamic where one person is in a long-term,
Dedicated relationship with another,
And then one of the partners dies,
And the other feels grief and loss,
But then eventually finds a new partner and moves forward.
I have always seen that as a betrayal.
Simply put,
If you loved your first partner,
Why are you now with another?
But my perspective on that has changed dramatically,
Because now I understand.
Now I have a greater appreciation of what love means.
In the past,
I thought love was like counting out coins,
One at a time,
Distributing them in a slow,
Measured way.
One,
Then two,
Then three,
Then four,
And so on.
That was my perspective of how love is given out.
But now,
At least for me,
Love isn't like that anymore.
It's like having a small garden of beautiful flowers,
And watering them.
You water them in an unmeasured,
Unrestricted way,
So both you and them can grow.
Nova is a flower in that beautiful garden which I water regularly.
And that one spot in my garden in which a beautiful flower named Kenya once grew,
I water that empty space as well,
Because although that flower's gone,
I still love it very,
Very much.
Thank you for listening to this session.
I hope it was of benefit to you.
Goodbye.
