Small World in Self-Improvement, 2018

A few weeks ago I was walking my dog on the trails in the park that is literally right across the road from my apartment complex. I basically zone out until I come across another family that either has A) a kid or B) another dog. In case A, if family has said kid, I get nervous because my dog loves kids, but parents don’t always want their kids running up to my 60+ lb dog and if kid does run up and parents don’t want said kid to run up, it can be awkward as I tell the kid “Sorry, my dog doesn’t want to be pet today”. That is almost always followed by the kid asking “Why?” and the parents saying “Come on, ____, lets go!” In case B, I have to move my dog to the side of the trail, to let the other family + dog pass, because if its my dog passing the other dog, a scene can ensue. He’d much rather stand on the side of the trail in between my legs while the other dog wanders by.

So I would say 2-3 weeks ago, I was zoned out, not in the best of moods, hoodie on with hood up and walking my dog on the trails. All of a sudden, I see a “family” (and I use that term loosely because FB stalking has informed me that her hubby lives in ID and she is no longer wearing a wedding ring), come towards me on the trail because they are walking it in the opposite direction I was. They only registered in my head at all because there was a 3-4 year old looking girl with a mom and (a.....boyfriend?), and I was ready for situation A to occur.

As I made sure the scenario of a child running up to my dog and having “mom” freak out wasn’t going to happen (my dog ignored the child and the child just stared at my dog as we walked past), I noticed the mom looked a lot like my therapist, but I was pretty sure I was just imagining things. She (and....boyfriend?) were holding Starbucks drinks though and my therapist ALWAYS has a Starbucks drink with her at the office, so I thought the resemblance was uncanny. Plus, she said she moved to the next county over and they have A LOT of parks over that way…I couldn’t see a reason why she would come back to the town I live in to walk the trails right across the street from my doorstep. The mom (and....boyfriend?) ignored my dog and I as we walked directly past them. My dog didn’t even register their presence.

Which brings me to last night’s session. My therapist was like “Oh I meant to tell you that I saw you walking with your dog at a park. I was there with my daughter.” and at that point I was thinking “Please let it not be the park where my dog sang the song of his people when he noticed I was swimming in the water!” and then she said the name of the park that is across the street from where I live and it all came back. I was like “That WAS you?!?!” She said it was, and I told her I thought I was just imagining things. And then I couldn’t help myself, I had to pry, and I was like “Was a guy with you too? Or was it just you and your daughter?” I had to A) honesty check her and B) see if she was going to refer to him as a hubby or boyfriend. She confirmed a guy was with them and didn’t refer to him as either hubby or boyfriend. I repeated that I thought I was just imagining things and had pretty much forgotten the whole thing. Which is the truth.

My last thought about that whole scenario is “Thank goodness she didn’t have her dog with her!” She’s mentioned she has a Shih Tzu. My dog hates small dogs. Dogs the size of miniature horses though…he’s cool with those. My dog probably wouldn’t have made a great first impression if she’d had her dog with them.

I’m so nosey though. I wish it was socially acceptable for me to pry into the presence of the unremarkable dude walking with them and the fact that they were in the town I live in and the town she used to work in before she switched jobs to an office 30ish mi away. I also wish I had paid more attention. But then again I probably would have noticed that it was in fact my therapist and that would have just been awkward. It totes wasn’t awkward until she brought it up last night.