My Dog Broke My Leg
To help me manifest the life I was afraid to have
It’s about 3:30pm on a very cold, blue-bird sky Sunday in January 2019. My husband and I are out in the Chugach Mountains hiking a favorite trail with our dog, Lukas, who adopted us just over a year prior. Lukas is running off leash, the goat bell around his neck clanging brightly on so we can hear his location as he dashes into the brush following his nose. (BTW - I’ve always loved black and white cows so the fact that I have a black and white dog with a cow bell is not lost on me as one of life’s great synchronicities.)
My husband and I are talking about my career. Actually, I’m defending why I haven’t put my recently earned accreditation as a Certified Heart Animal Soul Professional Communicator to more use. I have a website, he reminds me, as well as social channels all set up and ready to promote. Plus, with both of our jobs in advertising, marketing myself is easy peasy, he says. If I hate my day job so much - why don’t I put more time into doing what I love?
The excuses begin to flow out of my mouth like melting snow in the direct Alaska sun. For every reason my husband serves up to kick-start my business, I smash it away with logic as to why now is the not the right time, and that psychic work is different, all the while providing “proof” that I am trying to do more - all of which is not true and I know it.
As I grow increasingly frustrated with this fear-rattling interrogation, I find myself standing at the base of a hill looking up at my pup who is wagging his tail furiously from the top. It has thawed and frozen over the last couple of days in Anchorage and the hill has a glassy sheen of ice on it. I admire how handsome Lukas is, standing on that hill of white ice, outlined by the cloudless blue sky just as he hurls all of his 65 pounds of glee down the hill, sliding directly into my right leg. And because I have cleats on, my foot doesn’t move which causes my leg to give way unnaturally. I crumple to the ground.
And it seems I cannot get back up.
And we’re 1.5 miles from the trailhead.
And the sun is setting - it’s getting colder - there is no one around.
It’s a long story on how we made it back to the car and to the hospital (with the help of my snow skirt, a tarp, rope, several mushing dogs and two fat-tire bikes) but we do. There, I find out I have a fractured tibial plateau requiring surgery scheduled in two days time. The funny thing is that during this entire “adventure” I never once feel pain. Instead, I know instinctually that this had happened for a reason.
Fast forward 4 years to now.
I find myself out on a trail with Lukas, worrying about the hour I stole for this hike. It’s an hour that I thought I couldn’t afford to take. Lukas had felt otherwise, consistently nudging my typing arms with increasing roughness until I agreed that we needed to be outside.
As soon as we stepped onto the trail and into the sun, Lukas began to remind me of how, through the years, I had wished my life to be. And with every image and memory that he sends me, I began to see how much has come true since he broke my leg.
Working with animals (check). Being home with my dog all day (check). Helping people grow into themselves (check). Having daily mystical and spiritual conversations with inspirational people (check). Finding the courage to write (check). Becoming a teaching assistant for the school where I received my second and third certifications. (didn’t see that one coming! and check!)
“Wow,” I said, humbled. “I always knew you broke my leg to get me out of that burn-out job. I hadn’t realized all the other changes you’ve helped me make since. I never believed I was capable of this - and now - look at us! I get to take a break with my dog and go back to work, talking with other animals, with you at my feet. Thanks, buddy, you really have helped me come a long way.”
“Just wait and see what’s coming next!” he replied.
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