For the last two weeks, all of my brain power has gone to one thing: Rosie.

Rosie is my 9-week-old golden retriever puppy, and she is the cutest, most precious puppy you’ve ever seen — and that’s not just a parent’s biased opinion. You should see the reactions we get when we go to Home Depot. We bring peace and joy to all the stressed-out home owners.

As cute as she is, she’s also a lot of work. A LOT of work. I don’t have any children, but being a first-time puppy-owner must be similar to having a newborn.

Before they’re born and officially your responsibility, you spend hours researching techniques and learning how to take care of them. After some time, you think, “I know this will be a lot of work, but I have an idea of what I’m getting into.”

And then they’re home with you and it’s night number four. The crying just won’t cease. You’re also about to cry out of pure exhaustion. You hysterically laugh at the younger, so-naive you who thought they knew anything at all.

For me, the most surprising part of the puppy stage is that I’m not just training Rosie, I’m training myself. I’ve never trained a puppy, so I need training on how to train.

My YouTube is so full of suggested dog training videos after my “how to crate train a puppy” and “why won’t my dog stop barking” searches. I also need training on how to give myself grace, because there have been (and there will be) many moments when I wish I was better.

When we first started crate training, Rosie would go into the crate and think, “I go in crate, now I bark. I don’t stop bark until I leave crate.” I will admit I lost my cool a few times over the ceaseless barking. I raised my voice and hoped if I got louder and meaner, she’d understand that I wanted her to stop. I don’t think I’m the only person who’s tried that route, but it doesn’t work. (Okay sure, with enough repetition and energy spent, you can use fear to control your dog. But in the long run, you’re only hurting your relationship with the dog and teaching them to fear their world, instead of enjoy it.)

All it resulted in was me feeling sick over those moments. That’s not the person and owner I want to be. (Thankfully, McCann Dogs has a YouTube series on crate training that addresses the barking by teaching the dog to enjoy their crate and know how to calm down inside it. 10/10 recommend). I had to come to terms with the fact that I messed up, ask for help, and do better next time. I needed to give myself grace.

At my core, I fear messing up. For example, even though I talked about getting a red golden retriever for years, after we made the decision to get Rosie, I was full of nervous questions: What if I can’t handle her? What if she interrupts our lives and we feel like we made a mistake? What if I can’t love her enough?

If you’re thinking, “Ma’am, she’s a dog. It’s not that deep,” unfortunately, it is that deep because these questions plague me beyond my pet. I ponder them when I consider having children.

It’s taken me years to realize this, but my biggest fear is being out of control. It’s why I don’t like riding in cars when I’m not driving, why I hate sitting in doctor’s waiting rooms, and why the thought of bearing a child sends me into fight or flight mode.

But I’m learning that in life, you don’t have any control. And if you want to experience love and adventure and joy and passion, you sure as hell can’t fight for control at the same time.

I think about this C.S. Lewis quote a lot:

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

If we’re going to love anything – a pet, a partner, a child – we’re going to mess up and we’re going to get our heart’s broken. We’re going to be out of control along the way. The only other option is to let fear steal all that’s good in your world. What a shame that would be.

So, I think I’ll choose to love. I’ll ask for grace when I mess up. I’ll ask for grace for others when they hurt me. And I’ll learn to love being out of control, because that means finding joy in early morning puppy zoomies.