Why life is better with our pets beside us
Have you ever awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of paws tippy tapping relentlessly on the floor next to your bed? And then, when you open your eyes to the dark room, you see your dog standing there, mouth open, tongue hanging out, staring at you with rare urgency. Ah, you think. They have to go outside.
In that moment, instead of feeling frustration over the 3 a.m. emergency bathroom break, I encourage you to ask yourself just one thing: How lucky am I to be the entrusted caregiver for this being I love so dearly?
It may seem funny, but those 3 a.m. wakeups won’t last forever — much like the couch cuddles, the car rides, the park days. And for that reason, we should cherish them. Not because they’re perfect or picturesque, but because they’re fleeting and because they’re quietly doing something much bigger in our lives than we often give them credit for.
When you really think about it, so much of life with our pets lives in moments that would otherwise pass unnoticed. The pauses between obligations, the quiet stretches of a day, the walks we’ve taken a hundred times before. Left to our own devices, we might move through those moments on autopilot. But with our pets beside us, they become something else entirely.
Our pets have a remarkable way of transforming the ordinary. A sunbeam on the living room floor turns into a destination. An old, dusty meadow becomes the best place they’ve ever, ever been, and watching them race through it, completely overcome with joy, makes us see it differently, too. Through our pets’ eyes, the mundane becomes monumental. And through their presence, time slows just enough for us to feel it, too.
Our pets mean so much to us because they reframe moments in time from meaningless to meaningful.
They don’t do this intentionally, of course. They’re not trying to teach us anything or offer us lessons — they simply experience the world with openness and unbridled enthusiasm. And by loving them, by sharing space and time with them, we’re invited into that way of seeing, too, if only for a moment.
Pets are our constant companions through every version of ourselves. They’re there for the seasons that feel expansive and the ones that feel heavy. They sit with us in stillness, and they celebrate our return as if it’s the highlight of their day. Often, they sense our anxiety before we’ve even acknowledged it ourselves, meeting it with quiet closeness or playful distraction, gently pulling us back to the present.
What makes our pets so meaningful isn’t what they ask of us but what they give. They don’t judge how we spend our days or measure our worth by what we accomplish. They simply walk alongside us, witnessing our lives as they unfold. And in doing so, our pets become woven into our personal histories as markers of time, memory, and feeling in ways nothing else can quite match.
For me, every word I’ve shared here was shaped by Shadow. He was there across seasons of my life that looked very different from one another, offering the same steady companionship regardless of what I was carrying. When I look back now, I don’t necessarily remember those years only by what happened in them. I remember them by how they felt, and Shadow is part of that feeling. He didn’t change the circumstances of my life, but he did change how those moments lived inside me.
Pets don’t know what day it is or what year we’re entering. They don’t mark time the way we do. They only know now — this walk, this field, this familiar voice calling their name. And yet, somehow, pets become the way we remember time. We remember who was with us, who made us laugh, who curled up beside us on quiet nights, and who ran joyfully ahead of us through open spaces, reminding us how alive one single moment can feel.
As we step into a new year, so do our pets, blissfully unaware of the date but ready for whatever comes next — as long as it’s with us. Maybe that is the greatest gift they offer us as 2026 begins: another year of presence.
So take 100 pictures of your cat lounging in the sunbeam or your dog rolling in the grass. Sing them another silly song that works in all 38 nicknames you’ve given them. Use your PTO and take them on that adventure you’ve been noodling on. While the years move quickly, our pets are what give those years their texture, color, and meaning. The love they give us, and the love we give in return, is what makes every single day matter.
Wishing you and yours a very happy new year.
-Julie
