I Was Bitten by a Dog and Learned a Few Things About Life

 Good morning, and happy Friday.

Today started with me getting bitten by a dog.

To be clear, this was entirely my fault.

I might as well have dressed up my hand like a T-bone steak and presented it to a very muscular, highly committed canine. I had the good sense to leave my own 17 year old Pomeranian outside the dog park fence, because I did not want her to get bitten, but then entered the dog park myself to grab a plastic bag.

This is the kind of decision making that builds character.

The dog lunged. There was blood. A fair amount of it.

The owner, understandably, had no idea what had happened. And for reasons I am still unpacking, I smiled, said nothing, and acted like everything was completely fine while actively bleeding.

I think it was a combination of embarrassment and empathy.

Embarrassment because, well, this was avoidable.

Empathy because my own dog has been known to occasionally chomp on someone, and I did not feel like ruining this man’s morning with a full incident report.

So I walked away, cleaned it up, put on a bandage, and told myself I would keep an eye on it, which I fully recognize is not the gold standard of medical care.

I may be a bit of a risk taker.

Which, in some ways, feels consistent with the night before.

Last night was one of those nights that reminds you why you love where you live. I was out watching the Brazil - France match with a group of people I have come to know here. Brazil lost, which, as I learned, is not ideal. But the night itself was fantastic.

Somehow, I continue to make friends in the most unusual ways.

My Portuguese is slowly improving, although there is a non zero chance that what I am interpreting as progress is actually just the cumulative effect of caipirinhas and confidence. Either way, there is something really special about connection that does not rely on perfect language.

You find ways to understand. You read tone, energy, presence. And over time, those relationships grow.

And lately, I have been thinking a lot about that, about how relationships do not just happen, they evolve.

The people I have met here in Brazil have become incredibly important to me. Not just because of how we met, which is often random and unexpected, but because of how those relationships continue to change and deepen over time.

I have realized I want to be intentional about that. To hold on to the people who matter, even as relationships shift. To invest in the ones that feel meaningful. Because they do not just happen. They develop.

That idea has been on my mind even more as I think about tonight. I am looking forward to spending time with someone who has become important to me. There is a significant language barrier between us, and somehow, it does not really matter.

Which, if you think about it, says something.

At the same time, there is another layer to all of this that I have been sitting with.

Grief has a way of showing up when it wants to.

For the most part, I have felt okay. Functional. Steady. Even optimistic at times. But I also know enough to know that feeling okay does not mean fully processed.

So yesterday, I made the decision to begin looking for a therapist. Not because things are falling apart, but because I do not want to leave something this important to chance.

And then, in a bit of timing that only life can deliver, I came across a text message that had been sent to me a month ago.

I had never seen it.

It was from someone in my old community. Well intentioned, I believe, but based on an understanding of events that was incomplete. Parts of it were simply not accurate. And reading it, even a month later, hit harder than I expected.

For a moment, I felt pulled back into something I thought I had steadied. Frustration. Sadness. The urge to explain. To correct the narrative.

But then I had a realization.

For an entire month, that message existed, and I was completely unaffected by it.

Because I did not know it was there.

The only thing that changed was my awareness. And with that awareness came a choice.

Do I engage? Do I try to rewrite someone else’s version of events? Or do I accept that not every story needs my participation?

I chose to let it go.

Not because it did not matter at all, but because engaging with it would not change what had already been true for the past month.

And in a strange way, that realization ties all of this together.

A dog bite. A soccer game. New friendships. Old wounds, some literal, some not. And a quiet decision to take care of myself in ways that matter.

Life has a strange way of mixing all of these things together. It can be messy. Absurd. Unexpected.

Sometimes you are making meaningful human connections across languages and cultures.

Sometimes you are bleeding in a dog park pretending everything is fine.

And sometimes, you are reminded, at exactly the right moment, that healing is not something you leave to chance.

So here is to strange timing.

To getting help when you need it.

To friendships that form in unexpected ways.

And, apparently, to getting bitten by dogs.