From Panic! at the Disco to Panic! at the Dog Park
As I write this I am 32. For the last couple years or so I've done what they call "getting my shit together." This, after spending the better part of my post school years being a charmingly labeled "lost boy." (More on that in other stories). I got a full-time job and did well enough to where they saw it fit for me to eventually lead others while handing me a decent paycheck. So I wear the clothes and speak the language by day and maintain what is the "real" me by night. I sometimes catch myself waxing poetic and regurgitating old cliches about motivation and development, and then gag almost immediately while taking solace in the fact that I haven’t adopted a cell phone holster. Seriously, there are few things more vapid and cringe worthy than quoting the cliched wisdom of others as your only recourse to motivate other people or “stand out.” I don’t care, if being a yuckster is your grand plan for visibility, then I probably hate you. I digress...
I think for me, it was the moment I ushered our beloved adopted dog Huey through the threshold of our overpriced and overly gentrified Atlanta apartment. Gentrified mind you, in a way that you can only find in the ATL. Now I know what you’re saying, but what about kids! Shouldn’t it be kids! It’s having children that changes us! Kids kids kids blah blah blah. I’ve seen this show, I want my money back... I'm kidding of course. I like kids just fine. We like kids just fine. We just don’t LOVE kids and that decidedly goes against a personal motto of mine, which states “love it, or leave it alone.”
A little backstory on Huey: We adopted him from a shelter in Atlanta in 2020 at the age of 4. He was newly with a foster when we found him and were able to meet him, then subsequently bring him home for a trial run. (A quick side note, the fact that you can just test drive prospective adopted pets is emotional terrorism at best and I’ll leave it at that). For me, it was love at first sight. I was ready to sign the papers as soon as he came up to me, face happy and tail wagging, looking to hang out next to me. What can I say, I'm notoriously easy… For my fiance, well she was a bit more skeptical about the whole thing and wanted to see how things went over the next week or so.
Now, one could say Huey is a bit socially awkward and anxious. He is also incredibly smart with a big personality. Equally, he is protective of his loved ones and our space as we would come to find out. He seemed to be trained in the basic sense, knew how to sit, lay down, and let us know when he had to go to evacuate the bowels and/or get some fresh air. All seemed well, so we signed the papers about a week into his stay and that was that. He was a part of the family. Now, back to the socially awkward and protective bit… We lived in a sprawling compound-like apartment building in the city of Atlanta, or ITP for you locals. This building came with a dog park right below us, a dog park for a lot of residents with a lot of dogs of all varieties. This does not mix with a protective and socially awkward dog, with shades of anxiety who proceeds to go into this yelp/whine/bark hybrid thing almost instantaneously at almost every dog and blurry shadow of a person he sees. Although he was never vicious, he was most assuredly "that dog." I could tell this particular reality made my fiance nervous. Nervous enough to constantly worry about what the neighbors thought and to enlist a dog trainer, for our otherwise sweet and playful pup. The trainer helped, I will admit, but it wasn’t a cure for that particular tendency. Collectively, we just had to love and accept him as he was and start from there. This was unconditional love. This was active love.
To be completely honest, he was a lot like us. Outside of the aforementioned peppermint schnapps of legend, we were both anxious and a bit socially awkward individuals who only welcomed the company of others when we had the mental energy or comfort level to do so. He also needed us as much as we needed him, if not more since he was in fact a dog. I can’t say the same about anything or anyone else, not even my fiance. She’d be fine without me. Some might even say she set the bar a little too low where yours truly is concerned. But not him. He was now the center of our world and we and we were responsible for making that world a healthy and happy one. And for him, a guy with history unknown and who's been through it, we were now his only world. I've played packed venues, given speeches, tended packed bars, managed sales teams etc etc, but for me that brought a whole new level of pressure and responsibility.
So that was it, the lightbulb moment of acting like fucking adult for once. Sometimes the most unexpected situations are the ones that reward and change you the most. Gone were the days of being the cool kids, stumbling through the latest ill conceived hook ups, and reveling in the afterglow of the “best. night. ever.” over greasy food and semi-cold beer. It’s not even the endorphin rush of screaming out your favorite songs or in my case, playing them, at the latest concert of your favorite band that takes you there. No.
It’s going from Panic! at the Disco to Panic! at the Dog Park.
Mark A.D.