Our last blog detailed a journey I’m glad to say I am more than halfway through. If all goes well, my release date from all restrictions is February 1, 2017. I am off all pain medication, and I took my first solo drive yesterday. I am beginning to see some normalcy slowly trickle back into my life. Again, I am completely humbled by the continued outpouring of love and encouragement. Thank you!

And then, there’s Louie! Louie was as traumatized as I was through this journey. He had to adjust to my being gone for two weeks; friends coming and going, walking and feeding him, playing with him, all while he constantly watched the door with the hope I would walk through it any minute.

Now that I’m home and he’s learned to trust my erratic movements with a cane, he seems to have settled back into some interesting habits: growling at people who come to my door (even his dog walkers) and jumping on the couch to sit directly across from me (better to watch me, he says).

One evening, a friend came by to take Louie for a walk. After they finished and she came in to sit with me for awhile, he ran into the house, checked on me, and then ran upstairs, where he ran the length of the hallway several times. Then, I heard a big commotion, and from where I was sitting, I could tell what that little rascal was doing. He was getting into my clothesbasket in my bathroom and taking all the clothes out of it, having no consideration whatsoever for the amount of time it took me to get the clothes into that basket.

His continued motion, which was evident even though he was a floor above me, indicated he not only removed the items from the basket, he was also rolling in them—all of them! Some time ago, I explained to Zig, our trainer, Louie’s annoying bad habit of rolling in the dirty laundry. I assumed it was because he wanted to surround himself with my smell, weird as that is.

But Zig assured me that was not it at all. Louie was getting his smell on my clothes, showing his dominance over me. WHAT? Now that is a really annoying bad habit that makes me realize we are back to square one. There will be no dominance of Louie over me.

But this is not surprising. When it takes all my energy to walk from the living room to the kitchen, disciplining a dog is not high on my list, especially since we’ve been through this before. The pressure was off of Louie to behave well, and when the pressure is off, he reverts back to his old habits.

That is so like us. A while ago, I wrote a blog about something I learned from my time with The Ken Blanchard Companies about the dynamics of change. One dynamic is that when the pressure is off, we revert to our original behaviors. Well, the pressure was definitely off, and Louie was back to some of his old habits. We will need to spend time correcting that. But rather than lament, I reflected on what this means as far as my recent journey and getting “back to normal.”

Finally being able to drive did give me a sense of life getting back to normal. Getting off medication, walking better, and looking forward to some normalcy were great goals for recovery. But did I really want normalcy to be my goal?

Not this time, not this year. I am going to be intentional (keeping the pressure on) about breaking past the norm to live a well-meaning life by doing the following:

• pruning activities, objects, and even some relationships, all to devote precious time to what matters;
• being kind in thought, word, and deed, whether people deserve it or not. I don’t mean just merely being nice (and sometimes superficial and phony), but being authentic and loving—speaking truth in love and showing those who differ from me, or have differing viewpoints, the compassion that only comes from faith in God;
• taking time to listen in order to learn—and not rushing to the next project;
• being still and having plenty of margin in my life;
• laughing more; and
• dancing (okay, that one is normal for me, but now takes on an even more special meaning). I will take time to dance more with my grandchildren and even my adult daughter because that’s what DiStasi kids do. My niece Sara is getting married in September, and she has promised we will dance the night away. That is my goal for 2017.

Be intentional about breaking past the norm. Life is too short and too easily interrupted for us to stay stuck in the status quo. And you are never too old to take that first step to crashing through the “same ol’, same ol’.”

As for Louie, we have some work to do. As I have been writing, he slipped into my laundry room and pulled out a dishtowel. He is so bad. I know he has a large fan base of people who love him, but this annoying little habit just makes me shake my head. I suppose being intentionally kind starts now with little Louie DiStasi!

Click the cover to order Louie’s Leadership Legacy book.