A French bulldog and a terrier

I’ve been traveling around the French island of Corsica, situated in the Mediterranean Sea, and I’m currently staying with someone who has two very old dogs. One is a 12-year-old French bulldog, and the other is a 15-year-old white and brown Jack Russell terrier. They are very good friends.

The Frenchie had a stroke a couple of years ago and nearly died. It left him with a permanently crooked head, and his back legs don’t work very well, so he has to drag them along as he walks. He farts a lot and he snores really damn loudly.

The terrier’s head isn’t crooked, and all her legs work, but she has her own set of problems. For one, she’s nearly blind and deaf, so she walks around bumping into things and scaring herself all day. Her whole body shakes, and sometimes she freezes and drops to the ground for a couple of seconds out of the blue. She also has something funky happening on her back feet that I haven’t looked at closely because I know it’s something I won’t be able to unsee.

Neither of their bladders are very predictable, they both smell their age, and right before I sat down to write this email, I cleaned up a pile of poop in the kitchen. I’m not certain of the culprit, but my money's on the Frenchie.

For as many issues as these dogs have, they don’t let that stop them from living happy dog lives. They eat, drink, walk around (I use the term “walk” loosely here), play with each other, go to the bathroom, bark when they see other dogs, enjoy lots of pets, and are greatly loved by their human. The Frenchie even hauls himself up and down the stairs, dragging his back legs behind him and grunting with determination all the while.

These dogs are not perfect.

And they are just as worthy of love, care, compassion, honor, kindness, and being seen as any other dog out there.

Many of us think that being perfect is a requirement for being worthy.
But we have it backward.

When we have the courage to be imperfect while having compassion and kindness for ourselves, we make a way for worthiness to enter the cracks and find its way into our tender hearts.

Your imperfection is part of your magic, and you are just as worthy of love, belonging, and happiness as anyone else. Open up that big, beautiful heart of yours and let yourself in.

Molly