Willie's Story (Part One)

I found my soul mate just the way my mother told me I would — when I wasn't expecting it. 

In fact, when I first met Willie (who is the unequivocal love of my life), I was young, irresponsible and a little overwhelmed with all of the new duties that came from total independence — I had just moved into my first-ever apartment and was balancing school, work and household chores.

While I knew I wanted a pet eventually, I wasn't planning on getting one any time soon. It would be a mistake; the timing was all wrong. I was too exhausted.  

Plus, I wasn't home very often because I was employed as a student journalist. The pay was low and the hours were long. If I wasn't spending long shifts in the office, I was chasing down interviews in the field. I often worked 14 to 16 hours with short or no breaks. I'm a bit of a workaholic. I get a real rush from doing my job well, and I love my career field. On the down side, my work schedule limited my non-work activities. 

And even with all of my hard work, I wasn't making very much money. 

I could barely afford my bills and groceries every month. Budgeting was a real struggle for me. My apartment is very small and my rent doesn't cost much, but because I didn't have any savings and my minimum wage pay was capped at a certain number of hours, I could barely afford my bills. In fact, sometimes I didn't make it in the black. Sometimes I had to go hungry to make it, and even when I didn't, I wasn't eating nutritious, well-balanced meals. I was eating what I could afford, which was a lot of canned soup and frozen corndogs. This was before I learned about the miracle of ACH refund money and my life got easier.

In short, I was struggling to take care of myself. How could I even think about bringing someone else into my mess? I wasn't ready.  

But someone else was — and in the end, adopting Willie was the best mistake I ever made.