It Happened This Way: I Fell In

Fall In Love With A Dog, And In Many Ways You Enter A New Orbit, A Universe That Features Not Just New Colors But New Rituals, New Rules, A New Way Of Experiencing Attachment.

So It Persists, For Many Of Us, Hunger Channeled Into Some Internal Circuitry Of Longing, Routed This Way And That, Emerging In A Thousand Different Forms. The Diet Form, The Romance Form, The Addiction Form, The Overriding Hunger For This Purchase Or That Job, This Relationship Or That One. Hunger May Be Insatiable By Nature, It May Be Fathomless, But Our Will To Fill It, Our Often Blind Tenacity In The Face Of It, Can Be Extraordinary.

Academic Achievement Was Something I'd Always Sought As A Form Of Reward. Good Grades Pleased My Parents, Good Grades Pleased My Teachers; You Got Them In Order To Sew Up Approval.

I'm 38 And I'm Single, And I'm Having My Most Intense And Gratifying Relationship With A Dog. But We All Learn About Love In Different Ways, And This Way Happens To Be Mine.

Dogs Possess A Quality That's Rare Among Humans -- The Ability To Make You Feel Valued Just By Being You -- And It Was Something Of A Miracle To Me To Be On The Receiving End Of All That Acceptance. The Dog Didn't Care What I Looked Like, Or What I Did For A Living, Or What A Train Wreck Of A Life I'd Led Before I Got Her, Or What We Did From Day To Day. She Just Wanted To Be With Me, And That Awareness Gave Me A Singular Sensation Of Delight.