My Parents Finally Got a Dog. All It Took Was 30 Years and a Pandemic.

(Vogue via MSN) “Dad says we can get a dog!” I see these words pop up on my iPhone in mid-March and crack a wry smile. “Sure he does,” I think, knowing full well it will never happen. “I can have a husband, or a dog” has been my Mom’s party-line for their entire marriage. Five years after our last cat passed away, my dad had declared the pet-ownership phase of his life over–– after all, who can resist the golden-age unshackling of no kids, no pets, no mortgage.

When I recently told my parents (as a joke) that I’d move home if they got a kitten, I was accused of blackmail, so it’s hard to take this sudden change of heart seriously. “Great!” I text back nonchalantly before returning to yet another episode of Schitt’s Creek. “Let’s do it.”

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Here in New York City where I’ve been socially distancing for the past 57 days, it’s hard to imagine what life will be like at the end of this. Which gets to the heart of my, and so many other people’s anxieties at this current moment: What comes next?

In her brilliant 2019 book, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, Lori Gottlieb writes: "We tend to think that the future happens later, but we are creating it in our minds every day. When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists." There are millions of presents falling apart right now, and that means a lot of futures disappearing along with them. But what if there’s a way to add something wonderful into the future that never would have been there otherwise?

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I may be 30, single, and living with my parents, but I also have my first dog, which never would have happened had 2020 not been the year that hell froze over. There is so much uncertainty right now, so much we don’t and can’t know. I am still terrified of what lies of ahead–– of getting sick, my parents getting sick, losing my job, not finding another apartment I can afford, not seeing my friends for months or years, not knowing when I’ll be able to date again; a future in front of me that is a lot less filled-in than it was seven weeks ago. But that future now includes a goofy three-and-a half-year-old lab-mix who rescued us as much as we rescued her. How wonderful is that?

(Read More) https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/my-parents-finally-got-a-dog-all-it-took-was-30-years-and-a-pandemic/ar-BB13NAf4