gatekeeping

when you are caught out in a sudden down pour, 4 blocks from your car and no umbrella in hand, you really only have two choices..stop and wait under cover somewhere until the bucketing rain ends, or run for the car and get wet.

rescue is kind of like that.

I do not know which choice is better, they both have their merits and flaws. I guess you have to decide in the moment which option today would be best.

I do however believe that which ever option is chosen on any pissing down rainy day, you better be prepared to pony up and accept the consequences for whatever decision was made.

the other thing to keep in mind is...that rain was not specifically sent to target you and get you wet...its just one of those shit indiscriminatingly happens things. as individuals, none of us are important enough for the entire universe to conspire against.

I get bone weary tired in rescue, I sometimes get blogged down in crap, occasionally I wallow in frustration or sadness but I do not ever burn out. that is because I see the big picture in this....and stuffed wall to wall in that frame is homeless senior animals.

burnout is the result of wanting, needing, craving something to acknowledge or save us. could be recognition, could be some pats on the back, maybe someone(s) to live thru and share the bad days with us, or just someone who truly does understand. maybe we just need a break or a rest, or are praying for miracles or the magic pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the super lotto max. maybe we fill our minds with those elusive IFs..if only, if someone, if something, if anything could please just happen.....the IFs become some kind of lifejacket mantra in the seething ocean of this. but it is this striving for something somewhere outside of us that lights the torch that fries us in the end.

everything we truly need to get up when we fall, to take the next difficult step, to move ourselves forward away from the pain or sorrow or loneliness of where we are.... is right there inside us.

we just have to reach down and grab it.

we all find our own ways of coping, of getting thru the unexpected storms but we also have to find ways to get thru the constant daily emotional drudgery of it all.

I learned a long time ago...I am responsible to me. I set the standards I operate by in life..life does not dictate those standards to me. I will have good days and bad days and days inbetween without any kind of magical miracle waiting to reward or make it easier for me.

these animals demand this acceptence of reality from me...they have already paid their full dues, they have suffered their losses and pain and I opened the gate here to THEIR rescue.

my rescue comes on the day I decide I am done and someone takes over the gatekeeping for me.