The Man My Dog Thinks I Am

     Sometimes I get tired of trying to meet everybody's expectations. I have to remind myself that I can't be everything to everybody. I am far from perfect. The only perfect person that I know of was nailed to a cross about 2000 years ago.
     I am my own worst enemy when it comes to 'expectations". I expect more from me than I can deliver at times. There is such a thing as "good enough", but I sometimes forget that. Especially when it comes to my artistic endeavors. I will destroy a painting or drawing rather than let what I think is a sub-par work be seen by others. Part of the "it has to be perfect" mind-set.
     Where it came from I am not sure. My parents certainly did not criticize me if I did not excel in sports or school. They did encourage and praise, or at least my mother did. My father didn't give a lot of praise, so maybe I pushed myself harder in order to gain his approval. I was really too small to play football, but I did, hoping he would come to the games and see me play. He made it to one game and I watched as he walked away after I got clobbered by the tackle on the opposing team.
     It wasn't until my junior year in high school that I finally realized that he did not have the same faith in me that he had in my older brother. Maybe that is why he told me one night after he came home from another late night of drinking, that he only had one son that was going to make anything of himself, and I was not that son.
     Thankfully I had some good teachers in school that helped me to realize that I was not "Bill's son" or "Keith's brother". I was John, and I had been blessed with talents and skills all my own. I learned to use those talents wisely.
     I am married to a wonderful woman, who despite my faults, claims she loves me, although I probably fall short of deserving that love at times.
    I have four sons of my own that are following their own paths, without worrying about being like the other ones.
    These days, when I find myself thinking that I can't do anything right, and I start feeling a little low, I am reminded that I don't need to be perfect, just being me is enough. That reminder most often comes from one of my dogs. The dog in the photo here is Mandy, and although she is my wife's dog, she will follow me back to my art studio and just lay there, listening to me type, sometimes looking up to see if I am still there, and when I leave, she leaves, walking in front of me, stopping to see if I am behind her.
    Another dog is Natty, who is a little more agressive when it comes to demanding attention. I can walk out on the front porch and when I come back in, she acts like I have been gone forever.
     Neither dog demands much more than a kind word or a touch every now and then. Which makes me wish that I could always be the man that my dogs think I am.