god only knows what people actually think in their heads when they travel thru here? it staggers the mind. and if i am honest i must admit that therein lies the crux of my exhaustion during the hiring process. long time readers know i struggle against the crazy stigma...the crazy cat lady, the puppy hugger, the one who must be a saint but is certainly odd.
Queen of the Damned ... I mean Dogs
and it always comes down to a few simple comments..."you actually live here?" .... "all of these dogs sleep in your bedroom??"..."you really are a saint."
ok folks..i can hear between the lines..insert crazy for saint.
and it is hard.
average and normal, everyday people could so much more accept AND respect what i do..if i lied and said i lived up in the hideaway suite (of course i would have to kick out colleen for that lie to fly very far.)
the animals would not be happy if i did really live over there but i would look better and truly more respectable if i just moved my ass out of here.
and honestly again?..sometimes i would be happier to not live with a million and half hairy (or hairless) peak frean cookie freaks. i would sometimes like to put myself to bed some nights without a bunch of bed hogging company too.
i do believe that saints only works as well as it does BECAUSE they have a human " family" member who lives with them every day of the year. it may not be ideal in any sense of the term but it is a helluva lot better than the alternative, which is they are alone in a human-less building for 12 hours or more a night....they might as well be in a kennel somewhere.
AND i did not create all of these homeless old animals....normal, average, every day folks did that all on their own....all i did was try to pick up the peices on a bunch of tossed away lives.
half of my head gets this fact very well...the other half gets all freaky over strangers walking thru my life every day of the year.
i have never desired sainthood...i do not crave to be any animal whispering guru...i really don't want to be the god of broken animal rescue....and i do not want to be crazy or weird or odd or eccentric either.
and so what do i do?...i live in a god damn fishbowl where anyone can see right in...how freaking stupid is that?
the animals don't have to deal with this...everyone thinks they are not only pretty damn cute but pretty damn lucky too. the staff and the volunteers don't have to deal with it either..they all go home at the end of the day.
this one is my cross to carry and some days that cross is pretty damn heavy..like during open houses, tours, national television interviews, and when looking for someone to replace angelina. (who is pretty damn irreplaceble)
someone once told me (and they were a total idiot) that it was not the end result that was important...it actually was the process that was the most important thing. that is such bullshit..the end result is what IS...the process is just what may or may not be.
who gives a shit about maybe's....i want to get back to what is...and then i won't worry so much about crazy because there really is nothing crazy about either them or me....well...except for phoebe, reggie and kodi...i do believe that crazy is floating pretty damn close to those three.
Oh, I dunno. I like dogs more than most people I know. So living with dogs (& the other animals) all day sounds pretty good to me.
Besides, no matter what some people think, you're obviously making a difference to the animals. That's all that counts.
And if everyone got to live out their passion in life, wouldn't this be a better world?