My parents knew two things: germs=bad and manners=good. They plunged me and my sister into the giant above-ground swimming pool of Iranian cultural expectations and social graces until our fingers got pruney. And we didn’t just listen, we fucking obeyed. I experienced the purgatorial trap that second generation kids encounter: I was never enough of one thing. Not Persian enough or American enough. With no sense of self, I suppose self-respect would’ve been a magical tool. But while enforcing house rules, like standing up when an adult enters a room, my parents forgot to teach me how to stand up for myself.
My lack of confidence left a hole inside which I filled with all the wrong things—during adolescence it was school, in my teens it was food, and in my 20s it became men and booze. And when those wrong things ended? Enter: suicidal thoughts. It came crashing down one night, after someone who I thought was the one broke my heart and I had to meet that post-dumped version of “me”. Since the first boy at age 15 (who I didn’t even like that much) till now, the routine goes that my world crashes when someone breaks up with me.
I let my friends drag me to a party that night becaus
e I knew it was better not to be alone. While outside with a glass of wine, cigarette, and misanthropic ennui, a white puffy creature helped itself to my lap and licked its paws. I looked down at this weird dog-creature and my self-pity slowly began to evaporate-- and in its place: a puffball with black buttons for eyes was making me feel something positive. I won’t call it hope because that’s bullshit. It was new (because literally this was the first time a dog ever sat on my lap) and it was real (because it was the first time any living thing had touched my body for weeks). I didn’t know what was happening but I can attest that the empty feeling was gone.
Is this what animals can do? Was I so inundated with sterilization propaganda that I’d been robbed of this connection (and perhaps so many other amazing things) for years? What else were my parents wrong about (spoiler alert: almost everything). That night I learned the error of my parents’ ways and got my own brain and set of standards. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but that’s no god I want to believe in.
A few weeks after the party, I invited a scrappy Yorkshire Terrier into my life. I named her Eleanor Roosevelt to remember the words “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. How did I suddenly have the nerve to start sticking up for myself? Wanting better? Being worth it? Never had I understood the joys of motherhood until Ellen came into my life. I know this is not the same thing as a human baby. But considering my complete lack of interest in human babies because they’re gross, this is as good as it gets. And it’s pretty great. Women attest that motherhood made them stronger and more compassionate. That’s been my journey with this furrball.
I only thought about myself before, like what I’m saying, who I’m fucking, what I’m eating. Now I put a lot of this energy to...no, wait. I’m not going to write about how getting a dog made me into a goddamn saint. I’m still self-centered, but I’ve opened up parts of my heart sliver by sliver. The past has shown that I didn’t let people in because I didn’t know how to cope when they would leave. It’s cliche but it’s real. Ellen is the first--the very first-- unconditional love I’ve encountered. Things like vulnerability and the blanketed term “care” make sense now and my heart skips a little when she prances into a room. I completely let my guard down because I never had one up with her in the first place. Human rules don’t apply with animals. I couldn’t play games, shut her out, ignore her but secretly vie for her attention; I was just me. I loved without thinking about what I could get and I let her love me which is a first. I am valuable. She values me. Not only because I give her food but sometimes, yes, that’s why.
That’s how she gave me the option to get out of my own way. And wherever that empty hole was inside of me that kept me so meek as a child? She filled it. So, Eleanor and I sign off from my bed—in my pajamas, and definitely after I’ve had my bath. Some things don’t change. And that’s ok, too.
