On puppy blues, ego death, creation versus consumption, and finding joy in the mundane

I have been rather quiet recently. You may have noticed. Real life has gotten in the way of my writing, and I have been deep in thought – and feels – for the best part of a month. Mental health is an undulating journey for me; the psychological weather has been stormy of late; and I’m still making sense of the repercussions.

In the first week of October, Patrycja, my wife, and I brought home our first puppy – Derek, the adorable chihuahua. Named after Jeter, the Yankee god of my youth, Derek joined us at 12-weeks-old, and the adjustment has been an emotional rollercoaster – the cutest, most heart-warming highs matched by the scariest, most unexpected lows.

In short, I have battled the puppy blues in recent weeks, and while often dismissed as pseudoscience, I can attest they are most definitely real. And men endure them, too, contrary to popular stereotypes. In fact, the confusing mess of shock, sadness and excitement ranks among the deepest emotional experiences of my life. Tears have trickled in the sleep deprived gloom, and finding the right words has felt impossible.

Firstly, Derek is amazing. Toilet training has been pleasingly straightforward, and he has taken everything in his stride. For such a tiny dog, he has a huge personality, and so much love to give. He has brought joy to our lives and permeated our family with incredible warmth. We would not change him for the world, and there is a sense of guilt in even broaching the upheaval caused by his arrival.

However…puppies are enormously challenging – no matter how sweet they are. I have never owned a dog before, so there was always an element of the unknown in this project. You can think you are prepared. Indeed, you can prepare thoroughly – in theory, at least. But nothing will ever feel the same as actually doing it. Actually taking responsibility for this little guy every waking moment of his life.

I read the books. I listened to the podcasts. I made notes and created a developmental spreadsheet broken down by weeks and core categories. And that learning has been useful, providing a foundation from which to work. But the need to adapt is paramount. Versatility is required when rearing puppies, and for an obsessive-compulsive planner like me – for a nerd who loves processes and efficient workflows and documented operating procedures – that has required a major philosophical shift.

With a puppy, things get dirty and messy. Things don’t work out. Plans go awry and setbacks derail momentum. Time evaporates. And for someone like me, an introverted geek who yearns for routine, transitioning to that new reality can be overwhelming and disorientating.

To me, the puppy blues are flecked by a sense of grieving for your former freedom and your bygone life. Undoubtedly, bringing home a puppy brings tremendous glee and a rare sentimentality, but if you are accustomed to lavish autonomy – especially if, like us, you do not have children – the loss of that no-strings manoeuvrability can induce an empty sadness.

That sadness is strangely familiar to me. The same feeling gnawed at my stomach when I transitioned to high school; when I settled into my first full-time job; and when I moved out of the family home. In that respect, taking responsibility for a living creature feels like the next step in my bumpy maturation. I’m 31 now, and clarity lurks beyond the murk.

To wit, caring for Derek has illuminated flaws in my attitude and approach to life. Selfish, privileged and indulgent flaws, as well. Overall, the puppy has put things into perspective for me – something I have always struggled with. Suddenly, I don’t have time for the more irrelevant gripes of modern life. That scandalous news story? Diminished. That podcast backlog? Downgraded. That sports meltdown? Dulled. Only the most critical things infiltrate my mind.

I have dubbed this struggle ‘puppy brain,’ and as a tangible example, I literally missed a Yankees playoff game on my birthday a few weeks ago. Like, totally forgot my favourite team was playing an ALDS game that night. It was only Derek’s second day with us, and the whirlwind of emotions – and urgent assimilation tasks – ate up my bandwidth. I was not overly bothered, though, to tell the astounding truth. Patrycja and I were floating in a surreal bubble, and the outside world seemed unreachable.

Though perhaps melodramatic, more than one acquaintance has likened this puppy stage – the good, the bad, the weary and the wild – to the nurturing of a newborn baby. Again, Patrycja and I have not experienced that, so we cannot fairly comment, but the demands of a puppy are vast, I can assure you. Between persistent worry, constant surveillance and trying to keep abreast of 101 vital socialisation cues, there is a lot to deal with. Derek’s growth, and the sunshine he brings to our lives, makes it worthwhile, but that does not discount the toil required to make it happen. A whole lot of effort underpins those fleeting moments of bliss.

I have certainly been more mindful since Derek’s arrival. More present, perhaps, than I have ever been. When sustaining something so precious sharpens your focus, you notice things that were once overlooked in the blur of inane self-importance. 

I have long grappled with a fixation on productivity and processes, a gnawing symptom of my OCD, but nurturing a minuscule fur baby has been truly humbling. It catalysed an ego death that, while disconcerting, has set me on a gentler, more compassionate path. After all, nothing punctures delusions of grandeur quicker than throwing a ball for a puppy who refuses to chase it.

As such, although I have struggled to write regularly, fuelling kinetic frustration, I have found small pockets of joy in the mundane trappings of everyday life recently. In the great normality. Humdrum as freeing elixir. 

Maybe I’m just getting old. Or perhaps the puppy has made me soppy. But in the void between cogent articles, as my muse has waxed and waned, I have actually enjoyed – and savoured – ordinary slices of workaday banality. James Martin’s Saturday Morning, for instance. Countryfile. Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh. The exceptional journalism of assuring bulwarks like Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet and Frank Gardner. Comforting YouTubers like Gary Eats, Hannah Ricketts and Tonio Guajardo. BBC Radio 4. Unspoken solidarity with other forlorn pet shop faces.

I’m incredibly aware of how pretentious these indulgences sound. How they reek of middle-class privilege – small saviours of stultified suburbia. But that’s where I am in life: eager to ring as much satisfaction from the stolen moments of hushed intrigue amid life’s unrelenting demands.

Maybe I’m losing my sense of self. Or perhaps I’m maturing into different tastes at a more relaxed and appreciative pace. Undoubtedly, I’m surrendering to the lure of normie consumption; realising that absorbing the work of others can free me from the obligation to create myself. 

I have often fallen into the trap of seeing my own published work as the only way to satisfy intellectual curiosities. If I didn’t write a piece about something – didn’t articulate a creative impulse – did I really know it? Or honour it? Or give it a footprint in my written legacy? And while consumption is often lambasted, I have seen recently how – at a high level, dipping in and out – it can satiate in private tormenting urges for public recognition.

This, ultimately, is a liberating realisation. I do not have to be superman. The burden of creativity is not mine alone. Take the crowd of 44,655 at that Yankee game I missed. Far less than 1% of that cohort writes about the team as an outlet for their shared passion. That does not mean they do not know a whole lot about the Yankees, nor does it preclude them from caring deeply about the team’s exploits. Not everyone has to be a writer or chronicler, and not every internal thought needs an external signature. Things can happen without us controlling them, predicting them, covering them or marking them. And for anyone familiar with my lifelong battle with creative OCD, that is a theoretical truth that finally has practical weight in my life.

I’m a recovering perfectionist, in this regard. While long understanding the theory of freeing oneself from self-imposed expectations, implementing that cathartic rubric practically has been a persistent challenge. Reality is not linear, I’m reminded, allowing for the metronomic output of creative work. Instead, reality is chaotic and unpredictable, demanding self-compassion as the only defence against insanity.

And so, while a practical lack of time has slowed my writing lately, a philosophical lack of clarity has played a part, too. I also recurrently struggle with creative triage, unsure what to do with an impulse or idea when presented with myriad outlets for its potential expression. Solipsism can creep in while attempting to parse meaning and construct coherence, while the temptation to quit – to stop thinking about it all and curl up in a ball – is ever present. Derek has smoothed those edges in my mind, reminding me to write from the heart as time allows while shedding performative pretence. 

Even the very worst human writing is superior to the very best AI slop, I have realised, and that has become a cathartic mantra encouraging me to eschew perfectionism and live free from labels. In future, I will simply try to write what roars out of me, as preached by Charles Bukowski, rather than feeling obligated to chronicle, or memorialise, or pontificate in the throes of intellectual vanity. I will try to live free from arbitrary, self-imposed labels – writer, author, blogger, journalist, creator, historian, columnist – and cherish what I do occasionally produce instead of fretting over what I do not.

And as for the puppy blues? Well, they are slowly easing. Patrycja and I are embracing a new routine while trying to stay grounded in the moment. You must pick your battles with a puppy, we have learned, otherwise you will burn out fast. You cannot exert yourself every time a puppy runs upstairs, nibbles furniture, steals laundry, has a toilet accident or leaps off the bed during nighttime zoomies. Yes, you should try to establish those boundaries, but learning to draw a line and care about select hazards that pose the gravest danger allows you to salvage some semblance of normal life.

If you are awaiting a puppy, get used to having a messy house. Get used to unfulfilled to-do lists and missed appointments and ad hoc pivots. Get used to not writing, or writing sporadically, and that being ok. That being real life. Because the pen will always be there, waiting patiently, when all the more important things are done. For me, Derek will be there, too, snoozing in his bed while I type my ephemeral urgings.