The lesson I still need to learn

There is a quote I read somewhere recently, that basically says, if the same thing keeps happening over and over to you, it is because you have not yet learned the lesson you need to learn. My lesson is apparently embedded in a couch.

It is too late, and I feel too tired to try to piece it together now. The lesson or my couch. Yes, that couch. The new couch. The couch the dogs luxuriate on during the day while I am at work. There is now a big piece missing from the top middle cushion. Apparently, our younger dog's days of couch chewing are not over.

Perhaps, he began chewing today while looking out the window from just the right spot, resting his head there. Chewing. Watching the squirrels gather up the seemingly limitless number of pecans from our yard and carry them to far away trees in other doggy kingdoms. Idly chewing.

Perhaps.

Perhaps he was mad that I only played Frisbee with him for 5 minutes on my lunch break, when I came home and let him outside to explore the wild fringes of our back yard. Was it his fault that he was tempted away from the Frisbee by whiffs of exotica? He had to determine certain crucial things in his limited time outside. Sniff. Was that a cat that had stopped, four hours ago, in the corner of our yard? Sniff sniff. The black one or the striped orange tabby? It takes time to deduce these things, and you have to have the nose for it.

Whatever the reason, the couch ate it, in the end. To make matters worse, the hair of the dog that bit it lay flatly upon it and did nothing to help.

And I discovered, upon arrival home from work, that I apparently still had a lesson to learn about life that the universe felt could best be taught to me by a couch. My new couch. The one that yesterday was king of its domain. Sitting silently unscathed in my living room as I wrote about my recently departed, chewed upon old couch, whose own glory days were long past.

I think this time the lesson a couch is trying to teach me is one about forgiveness. Forgiving my furry, adorable, little black and white rescue dog for chewing part of the new couch. Forgiving myself for being mad at him. I am working on both of those tonight as I write this.

The couch is just a thing. I repeat this like a mantra in my head. The couch is just a thing. And a soft, dark chocolate throw blanket covers up the chewed away spot quite nicely, as it drapes across the back of the couch. And my dog provides unconditional love and affection and daily moments of laughter and entertainment.

I know what is more important here logically. I like to think my heart knows it too.

I'll wait to see if the couch believes me or if more lessons are yet to come.