Hearts Still Care

I am preparing to move again.

Not just homes — but histories.

The new place at Yari Road sits with a strange tension in my mind. On the surface, it promises something better: more people with pets, more visible dog lovers, perhaps a more forgiving outdoor space. And yet, even before arriving, I can feel the resistance.

There are already rules. Pets cannot use the main lift. They must use the service lift.

I understand where this comes from. I have seen this mindset all my life — where certain bodies, both human and animal, are quietly assigned lesser spaces. Where presence itself becomes something to be managed, controlled, redirected.

And so I know this will not be a peaceful adjustment. It will be daily negotiations. Small confrontations. The quiet exhaustion of having to assert that my dogs belong — not just in my home, but in the world outside it.

Zuri is used to a garden. To open play. To a kind of freedom that roads cannot offer. Roads frighten her. And I cannot explain to her why her world must shrink, or change shape, or become something she must learn to endure.

I already feel the edge of that future. It sets my teeth on edge.

And yet, strangely, Yari Road also holds a past. A different one.

My dogs were once raised there. There is memory in those streets too. A sense — perhaps imagined — that they belonged there in a way they never quite did here.

So I stand between two uncertainties:
A past that holds love, and a future that threatens resistance.

And then there are the homes I have already left behind.

Amruttara — where I lost Bonzo, Rolfe, Diana. That space no longer exists. It has been erased, replaced by a tower. And now I return to that same ground, as if grief has been built over, but not removed.

Raj Mahal — where I lost Zoe. A home I will never step into again. Some spaces become sacred only after they are lost.

And here, in Savera, I lost Zach. And now Xena.

Perhaps they never truly settled here. Perhaps they carried another memory within them — of Yari Road, of a different beginning. I don’t know. I only know that this place holds their absence now, and it echoes.

And in the middle of all this is Zuri.

My living child.

I am taking her back to a place that once held life, but may now hold conflict. I ask myself: will this be good for her? Will she find ease, or will she inherit my unease?

And then, quietly, another thought presses in.

I want to bring home another puppy.

But where do I raise her?
In a place I am about to leave?
Or in a place I am not yet sure will accept her?

There is so much love in me. It does not diminish. It does not quieten. It simply waits — looking for somewhere to go.

And alongside it, there is something else. Not quite fear. Not quite anger.

But the knowledge that love, when it steps into the world, is often met with resistance.

This move is not just about space.

It is about whether love will be allowed to breathe there.