My furniture is covered in fur and paw prints. Too many of my belongings now have a nibble taken out of them. If I could fertilize the manure, I’d have a gold mine. It’s too many mouths to feed, and I dream of the day my floors are clean and I get my dining room back.

But at night—when it’s 11 p.m., I can’t sleep, and Murder, She Wrote hums in the background—

Queenie is curled into the tiniest ball on the couch, farting. Just like any other woman: too insecure to fart during the day, but gale winds at night.

Hank is impossibly huge, measuring roughly six feet, his gangly legs draped off his “chair.” Finally asleep after twenty minutes of me screaming, CHAIR.

Baby Monty shows his age by using all fifty pounds of himself to curl into my lap—yipping at first, now mouth breathing, mooning his balls.

Stoic Max is two feet away, resting but alert, ready to prove he won’t let anyone step out of line.

And they’re mine. All mine.
Maybe someday they’ll call somewhere else home, but for now, we are a little family.

They’re my problem. My burden. My chosen responsibility.

I think people too often confuse that.

Out of love, concern, or worry, they take on the stress, pressure, or weight—forgetting they can leave at any time. And out of what they view as love, they create another burden I’m expected to fix.

I’ve spent a long time confusing that. Thinking that pressure was my own feelings.

But at the end of the day, when I’m alone—and everyone has blissfully forgotten the problems they held so tightly with concern—I’m left awake, wondering which feelings are mine and which were projected onto me.

The Island Theory:
You can visit someone. You can spend time on the island. But you get to leave burden-free—while that person can never leave.

So for now, I’m honoring the promise I made:
You will have a loving home until you find yours.

Maybe that’s a promise I needed to make to them so I could commit it to myself. A silent agreement.

You will find yourself here.
You will love yourself here.
You will be yourself here.
You are safe here.

With every action I’ve taken lately, I’ve asked myself:
Are you doing this for you, or for someone else?
Is this because you want it—or because you want to prove you can, you did, you could?
Are you seeking your own validation, or someone else’s?

I’m only just beginning to answer those questions.
If I have months, or years, or decades, I’ll be glad I sought the answers.

To my ever-abundant, growing village:
You’ll be safe here again—once I know I am.

For now, it’s me and the dogs.

I’ll ask you this:
How are you spending time on others’ islands?
What are you leaving behind?

I hope it’s love, care, and understanding—and that you leave the island a little better than you found it.

For now my island is inhospitable to anyone other than me and the dogs. A safe place for all of us to figure ourselves out. No pressure, no stress, no burden.

Until it rains again, and I have sixteen paws to dry off, and absolutely lose my sense of clarity. ✨💗