Woodrow Wilson observed, “If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.”
I had an opportunity to examine my conscience a number of years ago on a trip to Bloomington, Indiana to visit Marsha’s parents.
It was there I was introduced to a Yorkshire terrier named Dusty.
Dusty was a straightforward little guy with an uncomplicated pysche. He operated with no mixed motives or hidden agendas, no conniving pettiness or petulance.
Dusty was always just Dusty, clear in what he wanted, when he wanted it.
He was the same with friends, family and strangers alike. If you sat down he’d leap onto your lap and assume the “please scratch me” position.
Dusty was comfortable living in his own skin.
This little Yorkie wanted nothing more than to be who he was created to be.
I wondered at the time, could the same be said of me?
It seems to me a great part of my young life was spent…
- pretending
- preening
- posing
…in search of a different person than I was born to be.
As a kid, I think I lived with a bellyful of anxiousness, always thinking I never had enough of this, that or the other thing.
Then, when I was 13, I found my cure in the form of two 16-ounce cans of Colt 45 beer. Bingo! My anxiety disappeared. It felt like I found the answer to all my problems.
I chased that high for the next 22 years.
Whatever pretend world alcohol served up, I became its captive right up until it nearly killed me and my days of pretending came to a screeching halt.
It was then I began to learn what Dusty knew all along — there never would be any happiness in my life if I didn’t learn to find it in my own skin.
You don’t pretend your way into paradise.
I spent the next three years in search of a dog’s life.
Strange as it may seem, I actually practiced during that time just being Pat.
When I finally found some comfort living I in my own skin I ventured out in search of Pat Moriarty’s new life.
In 1988 I took the job as Development Director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre and soon ran into my first test of whether I could, indeed, live in my own skin.
I was scheduled to present to the board my fund raising plan for the year.
My old self would have come to the meeting all dressed up in a make believe persona.
On this day I had no such make-up. I showed up just as I was. So when I bounded up to the lectern, I…
- unexpectedly
- unintentionally
- irrevocably
…announced to this august group of Seattle’s finest:
“Hi. I’m Pat Moriarty and I am an alcoholic.”
Just like I’d done a thousand times before at AA meetings — but this was very much NOT an AA meeting.
So how did I explain myself after such an introduction?
I didn’t. I just burst out laughing.
At myself.
In moments, everyone joined in the laughter.
Bingo! I was finally free of my pretentiousness. I had made myself the butt of my own joke. It was just about the freest thing I had ever done. I felt I’d been reborn in my own skin.
In the words of Dorthea Dix, “We are never truly happy until we learn to laugh at ourselves.”
My inadvertent slip of the tongue gave me an opportunity to bond with a group of men and women at a whole different level.
When I finished laying out my plan for the year all they wanted to talk about was their own stories of friends and loved ones who’d gone public with their addictions.
I’d finally found my way into a dog’s life. That unwitting mistake marked for me the death of pretentious Pat.
So you can see why dear old Dusty found a place in my heart — a perfect example of why a life of happiness naturally follows a life rooted in something as simple as “be who you are.”
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” — Will Rogers
Just a thought…
Pat
💐
Here Mark Pearson shares a song, reminding us it’s NEVER TOO LATE to become who we already are.