Did I mention that I had two beautiful kids. My babies and I used to spend a lot of time together, taking long walks in the park, eating ice-cream from street side shops, running along the beach and hiking through little known trails. My kids were a bundle of energy, quite low maintenance and were amused by almost anything that I did. The only time they ever gave me a hard time was when I would give them a bath once a month. Oh, I’m sorry, by “kids” I meant my two rather large and hairy dogs. They used to be the love and joy of my life. If you’re a dog (or animal) person, you know what I mean when I say that I loved my two dogs more than anything else in the world.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen my two babies for more than half a year. My ex-wife decided to keep them as part of the divorce. When you to talk someone about divorce, they always ask whether you had kids or not. “Oh, it’s always so terribly hard if you have children to go through a divorce.” I really wouldn’t know. My X and I thankfully never had any children, but we did have the two dogs that we treated like our own kids. What most people don’t realize is that it’s just as difficult to get a divorce when pets are involved as children. The question always comes up as to who gets to keep them. In our case, if I had fought the decision, the court would separate the two dogs and give us one each (US courts see animals as property, therefore during a divorce, they get divided equally). I for one thought it would be unfair to separate the dogs so I let her keep them.

Why bring this up now? Well, I found out yesterday that one of the dogs is going to have surgery on her legs today because she injured herself while playing over the weekend. I have all these thoughts going through my head like any parent would if their child was going to go in for surgery. The difficult part is that I can’t help but feel like I’m not there for my baby. What if something happens to her? Would she feel more at ease if I were there? I miss her so much. To me, this is the real sacrifice. When I initially went through with leaving everything behind to be with my cousin, people had warned me that the sacrifices I would have to make in return would be too much to handle. They mentioned things like not being able to speak to my parents or not being invited to family events and weddings, losing my house and everything that I owned. It’s funny because giving all that up was not that difficult (although I must admit that not being able to talk to my dad has been really tough). Although physically and financially I may have less than I had before, it’s worth it because I’m with someone I really love and enjoy sharing my time with. Every time I look at her, I am reminded of why it was worth giving all that up. But the one thing that I can’t help but miss are the dog.

I don’t know when I’ll get to see them again. I don’t even know if I have the option to see them at this point. I find myself asking even if I had the option, would I want to see them? Why bring back all the feelings, especially for the dogs. I assume it’s hard enough that they haven’t seen me all this while, but if on top of it they saw me and I would have to leave again, I think that might really hurt them even more.

So here my pointer for the day folks...if you’re in a position where you really want to be with someone, the way you really know if that’s the one true person is if you’re willing to truly sacrifice things that mean the most to you, in order to be with that person. Despite the fact that I miss my dogs terribly, there isn’t a doubt in my mind as to why I left everything behind. Although it’s hard, I think my life was much harder when I was not able to see or be with her on a daily basis. If you want something so badly, make sure you’re willing to give everything else up for it and have no regrets.

For now, my thoughts and prayers are with my baby. I hope her operation goes off well!

Another day in the life of the Disowned Desi!