My ejector seat.

My home has always been a sanctuary for me. I love making it a peaceful, beautiful place, where I offer healthy, tasty meals, where I practise meditation and do all the little things to make it clean and comfortable and beautiful and relaxing. Before this year, I could never have imagined feeling uncomfortable at home. It's my base, my nest. It's my family's base and nest. These days, however, it's a relief to escape from home. As soon as I do my chores, I try to get out, just to escape the presence of our puppy. Life with the puppy has improved in only one way. I no longer have to clean up pee and poo all day, since we installed the doggy door. All the other bothersome, tiring and utterly depressing activities still exist. Watching my floors get muddied up with every in and out trot of the puppy to bark incessantly at the neighbour's dog outside, makes me give up on the idea of cleaning when it gets messy. Listening to the incessant barking makes me give up on the idea of peaceful surroundings. Having to shut doors behind me wherever I go in the house, keeping the puppy restricted to one puppy-proof room and having to spend most of my time in that room, to stop her from whining and scratching at the doors when I go into other rooms, makes me give up on the idea of personal freedom. Having to control her every time someone comes to the door, makes me give up on the idea of pleasant exchange with others who come to the house. Having to control her each time I step outside, from barking at the neighbour's dog, or the neighbours, or any other sound/person she encounters, makes me give up on enjoying my surroundings when outside. I can only think that getting this dog was my sub-conscious mind trying to project me out of this home, like an ejector seat in 007s get-away cars, into the outside world. My subconscious was trying to tell me that it was getting too comfortable at home. Everything was too peaceful, too calm and lovely. Because now, home sucks! I never felt like this when the kids were little. I could never understand women who went back to work even when their children were still so little, not for financial reasons, but because they couldn't handle the drudgery and isolation of life at home with babies. Now I understand them. I understand them completely and I cannot judge them for making that choice.