That Time We Almost Adopted a Costa Rican Dog... Together.

In 2016, Well Collab Acupuncture started as Acupuncture of Tarrytown: a collaborative project between two best friends who had weathered living together in a railroad apartment in Brooklyn and figured… we could do pretty much anything together, after that experience.

I’m one of those people who can have a lot of acquaintances but only a few really good friends, so when I met Erikka, I just pulled out Apple Maps to see how far we lived from each other, and could me and my dog make it over to her house on a walk. I have two sisters and when I meet a sister, I know. I knew Erikka was my sister.

So back to it: what’s your address so we can take my dog on walks together WHAT’S SO CRAZY-PERSON ABOUT THAT, SIS?

For those of you who ever did virtual work with us, or never saw our office when we first started out, or maybe you’ve never even met either of us: it may seem a little weird to you that there’s a blog about a friendship.

But really, even today, close relationships are what this business is founded on, so for the uninitiated: when we were in business together, me and Erikka were constantly being asked about our friendship — since it was so reflected in our office space and in everything we did. (Now, the office space is unhinged and completely me. When Erikka moved out of state, people noticed changes and I, crazy eyed, would be like, “I have no one to say no to all the color…”)

From 2016-2020, we were constantly reminded of how our office was a reflection of our relationship, and a reflection of the ongoing work we did with our clients. Someone even said to us, “Wow. It’s like you guys are roommates and this is your home.” Yes, exactly the vibe we were going for! Acupuncture of Tarrytown was our girl cave!

We still think it’s important to honor, all these years later, because the mutualistic and symbiotic nature of this particular friendship was the true bedrock of the business model and it still brings me back into focus when things get blurry. Every small business owner has the thought, “Is this really worth it?” And every time, I’m reminded of why I do what I do, and how it all started. 

OK, SO WHAT ABOUT THIS DOG? LET ME PAINT YOU A PICTURE. 

Two women in their early 30s (me and Erikka, circa 2013) go on a girls trip to Costa Rica during a break from grad school.

To a surfing camp — where neither really intends to go surfing, naturally, and really what they (we) want to do is just lounge on the beach and sit in the sun and drink good coffee in the morning and strong cocktails in the evening. 

We saw Rosie on a warm and humid tropical day, with the equatorial sun rays beating down on us, having just started out our day at the beach. The ocean water was warm and the slope out to the sea was a casual invitation at relaxing into nature, and it was just pretty much perfect. 

AND THERE WAS A STRAY DOG. Me and Erikka, Petfinder junkies that we still are, were enchanted.

Rosie was  kind of hurting from her very-obviously-having-just-given-birth situation, but she was also super into her relaxing day at the beach. And we were like “same girl, cause our finals were brutal” and we all kind of hung out in the same space together for a bit.

We named her Rosie and since we’ve always been drawn to and had the desire to hold space for The Mother Within (even if it’s a doggo), we felt a kinship with her.

She was a little scraggly thing, maybe her fur had been white in a former life, she looked like she needed some care, and for all intents and purposes, to us colonialist Americans, she was homeless!

Alone and collarless on the beach. She just gave birth. She obviously had no home. (Turns out she did, and her name actually wasn’t Rosie, and now being a mom myself I'm a little jealous that the-dog-who-we-will-forever-call-Rosie got to go to the beach without her pups.)

The homeless dog adopter within both of us was activated and we immediately discussed over coffee what adopting a foreign dog and sharing her would look like. We started out so excited: we had 2 big dogs at home already, and how cute would this little yorkie mix be with our two big bozos?? 

LET ME BACKTRACK A BIT TO REMIND YOU OF THE RELEVANCY OF THIS ANECDOTE.

The type of medicine that we practice and the work that we do is rooted in the theory that change and transformation are not only possible but anticipated and required.

Imagine constantly being stuck in the same loop of your life.

It’s fine, or maybe it’s not.

Maybe you’re deeply unhappy.

Or maybe you’re lost in the status quo.

Or maybe you see glimpses of joy and something different for yourself but you “can’t” act on it.

Or maybe none of the above; you’ve never even thought of it, and what even are these words that you’re reading?

Or maybe you do the same thing over and over again, not getting optimal results (like, say, adopting dogs), but you do it anyway because that’s your habit and that’s your pattern and even if it’s meh-to-bad, it’s still what you know and there’s comfort in that. (At time of editing this in 2024, I have 3 dogs and we literally almost took home a stray last week, so I’m well aware that patterns can be hard to break…)

THE POINT IS THAT PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR ARE ENTRENCHED.

They are literal, real trenches in our brains.

We actually practice behavioral patterns, day in and day out, by just doing the same ol’ same ol’.

We have unquestioned and unconscious patterns of thought that we engage in daily, multiple times a day, and it may feel like nothing to just have these random thoughts, but it very much is something.

We are practicing. All the time.

So I guess that’s why this story about the dog has stuck with me all these years. When we were riding our “potential” high (aka getting a dopamine hit from what could be), patterns of thought and behavior that we were good at doing were easily coming out. 

And yet. 

Something small, but gaining in strength, was steadfast in its insistence of being heard.

We’d had enough individual practice at doing-new-things to be able to have a collective shifting moment: let’s pause and think if this is actually a good idea. 

And so, we heeded that new small voice. Reality started to sink in a bit. I’d just started dating someone (his name was Mark… and now he’s the other acupuncturist here…), and I knew it was going to be serious (again: when you know, you know).

What would happen if and when Erikka and I weren’t living together anymore?

What’s interesting is that we were both resistant at first: we were so practiced and conditioned in our patterns of thinking that the new practice we’d been working on — change, if it’s not right for you; that thing that was steadfast and calm in its insistence in being heard — was at first drowned out by our loud and rowdy old practices. 

Because our little life was pretty perfect. But it was also safe. We’d been doing the same “exercises” and we had certain “muscles” that were really strong, and we felt, you know, fit.

But we both understood that the magic of our friendship was in its power to unearth the capacity for each of us to do great things, to learn new things, to practice, and those new exercises weren’t going to be accomplished by living together forever in a railroad apartment.

If we hadn’t been sitting at the table with someone else who bore witness to this interaction, maybe the growth would have escaped me.

It reminds me of the time when I was working out a lot and doing exercises that were new, and hard, for me. But also, I could waaaaaaay more easily pick up my almost 70 pound dog, when previously it had always been a struggle. So, sometimes you don’t see how strong you’ve become, because it gets folded into who you are. Trenches are dug, your worldview changes, your brain changes, and those changes just assimilate and parade around as you until one day, they are you.

After we’d finished hashing it out and had flexed our new brain muscles, our friend looked dumbstruck.

Erikka and I made the hard decision to not try to adopt Rosie (which is good cause lil’ lady already had a home, and a different name which I have chosen to not remember, because ROSIE WAS SUCH A GOOD NAME FOR HER).

We discussed things maturely and openly and honestly — like, way open, saying out loud ways we could see resentment building because of this — and went over difficult and triggering topics that were potentially hurtful and could have caused a fight and a rift and maybe I guess even ended a friendship. 

But instead, we held space for our feelings. All of them. The excited ones. The scared ones. The ones that wanted to do the thing that probably wouldn’t be great and the ones that wanted us to not do it out of blind fear. And we also acknowledged what the reality could have (and most likely would have) looked like, and decided that it was best to not embark on this endeavor together.

The reaction of our bystander friend is really what I remember, and it is a reminder of why we are in this together and why we are so strong at what we do.

We. Held. Space. 

We each had conflicting feelings running through us and I’ll tell you right now that anyone who’s ever adopted an animal knows the exhilarating feeling of potential with a new pet, so we were riding that high hard.

But that? That was connected with old patterns of thinking and behaving. And in learning new things, we made a different choice. 

This was an example of how we’d gotten so good at this that it no longer was like work to us. Potentially triggering things were noted, but not activated.

And to our unintentional bystander, it was like a feat of evolved human emotionality, which we thought was funny because we also would crack fart jokes that only 12 year old boys would find funny, so the juxtaposition was pleasing to us. 

But we also saw a great value in this.

We actually taught someone that a conversation that contains opposing viewpoints in it can be productive. She didn’t know that.

And we still do find great value in that, not just for interpersonal communication, but also for the medicine we practice.

We see people all the time who are a jumble of too much of this and not enough of that; who are happy and sad, up and down, high and low.

We can all be a jumble of contradictions and being able to hold space for someone to dump those suckers out in order to just sift through them a bit can be a great gift to offer someone.

Lay it all out, know that it is ok to be your own Walt Whitman and to be large and contain multitudes. And when the humanity of that becomes overwhelming, know that there are practices you can engage in to calm any frenzy that comes up. 

Know that you can want the dog and that you can leave the dog, too.

You can love and be frustrated.

You can be up and down. 

The real feat of human emotionality is in the fact that it is not mutually exclusive. You need not go from one to another, and there often isn’t a clear “ending” to feeling a certain way because in reality, we are existing within all emotion, all the time. 

And this can be a painful reality but in true fashion, friends, it is also a gift.

It just needs the space.