A friend asked me recently if there was any one single thing I love about my life aside from my love for  Maria, and I said yes.

I said I was finally learning to be me, and to love being me. It took a long time to get there.

I told her if there is no one left on the earth who will speak to me or read my writing or see my photos, I will never give up being me.

I’m afraid people will have to take it or leave it. Every time I write about my dogs being sick or trained, somebody does leave me, usually in a great huff.

Being me and accepting me is important, one of the most important things I have done in my life. A life-saver in fact.

I’m afraid I can’t give it up, not even if it just means putting a ramp up when Red needs to come out of the car because people are telling me too, or putting a carpet on the ramp when one is not needed.

This is the reality of the shared life in America. Nobody is unscathed for long.

Red is progressing well with his ramp, it was too cold to train much today, but he stood on the ramp, moved up it a bit before stopping and looking anxious.

With some encouragement, he did get up onto the seat, and then, climbed down to the floor and slid comfortably down without the ramp. We are making progress, day by day.

This being America in 2018, there were the usual and instant conflicts about my decisions. Many people were upset that I did not make Red walk down the ramp as well as up, many more were upset that I did not add carpeting or other forms of matting onto the ramp so Red might be happier climbing.

This perennial conflict with some of my readers –  but mostly from outsiders who live on the outer regions of Facebook – follows what it now a ritualistic pattern.

We all seem to know the script, it never changes.

On the Internet being intrusive and dismissive is now seen by many as an entrenched right that gives people power, and that they will fight for. It’s probably pointless by now to challenge it. That doesn’t seem to stop me.

I got the usual flurry of messages beginning with “I know you hate unwanted advice, but here goes….” Each one grates. I may not have done a good job explaining that these intrusions are distracting, and undermining. I am a person who likes to make his own decisions and mistakes, that’ show I learn. Perhaps this is the Dyslexia, I can’t say for sure.

I have often been called crazy. Might be true.

As this script unfolds, some people are enraged at my making my own decisions,  someone always calls me a name for disregarding all of this unwanted advice.

The first this time was Arlene – she was new to me – who posted this message on my blog comments: “I’m so disappointed . I have to stop following you. I love your writing but I find that beneath your eloquence lies a mean spirited bully…A true sign of maturity is knowing when to say nothing.”

Arlene and I have different ideas about maturity.

My idea is that maturity comes when we can  respect the differences, wishes and emotions of others, not blow them off because we don’t agree or just feel like it.

My grandmother taught me that this was rude, and she had better manners than most of the people who tell me what I should be writing and saying and doing with my dog.

I am sorry, Arlene, about making you unhappy,  I really am, but if I was a mean-spirited bully, I think I would have heard about it before now, maybe back in my middle school schoolyard when I was regularly pummeled and made to surrender my lunch money.

I did message her and reassure her that people who huff off seem to recover and heal from me and prosper. They rarely return, so I presume they find happiness.

I know the script by heart. The angry people leave, and are never heard from again, I imagine the find somewhere else to go.

Then next chapter in the script calls for earnest and hand-wringing messages pointing out that these other messages are well-meaning and intended well, and I should either shut up about them or thank people for caring. They assume I don’t know the difference between well-meaning people and people bent on telling me what to do and how to think. Those are insulting in their own way.

I have tons of friends and readers who disagree and challenge me all the time, none of them would tell me what to write or how to think.

I have never been called a mean-spirited bully before, although I have been called a lot of names Just last week, somebody called me “vicious.”

I suppose it’s a step forward to be on the other side of the bully thing for once.

I could, of course, shut up about this recurring issue, and honestly sometimes I do. Is this the Dyslexia? Some benign kind of autism?

The truth is,  I can’t always shut up about it, because the issue is too important to me.

I am happy to be disagreed with, but not patronized or ignored.

This happens so regularly that I have nothing new to say about it, and people have nothing new to tell me about it. It’s feeling older and staler to me, and perhaps that will lead me to just ignoring it, which is what works with true bullies.

I see this has to do with human nature, a new kind of ritualistic compulsion that neither side can quite escape or turn away from. Perhaps I will one day figure out how to be the better person and transcend it.

But not at the price of being me.

My dog is my dog, and I am me.

I have often wished that I could be someone other than me, and so have a lot of other people,  but at age 71, that does not appear to be likely. I won’t lie to you, (at the very least, and whatever my many flaws, I will never lie to you.)

But I do keep the bottom line in mind, always. Red is healing quickly, doing well, getting all the rest he needs. He’s off all medications, eating heartily, by mid-week he will be climbing up that ramp.

I consult daily with my vet and her staff, and they are very happy with the treatment Red is getting and the decisions I am making, and the training I am giving him.

I am genuinely sorry if that is not good enough for some people, but that’s the reality of how I live. Curiously, more people are reading me than ever before, perhaps me is doing something right.

I need to write it because it is bothering me. Simple as that. I choose to be open about and write about it, rather than hide it or stew about it. I don’t care to lie about my feelings or be silenced by strangers.

That’s me. I am vigilant about protecting me, I worked to be be me.  I would be lying to you if I said you will ever find anyone else here on this blog.

I thank the good people who stick it out with me, and wish those who can’t bear it godspeed and happiness somewhere else.

Arlene made the right decision for her.