wounded warriors

i have been in the swirling vortex of rescue for a long time..i have been angel and demon and many things in between.
and sometimes i am not sure which is more painful...being vilified as the incarnate devil or falling (or getting pushed) off the pedestle and wrecking my halo and wings.

i have been called a bitch, a charlatan, a hoarder, a horse killer, a liar, an egomaniac, a control freak and a cheat. others have said i am a saint, a hero...

what can i say? people sometimes like to stick labels on me.

the thing is even tho those kind of things sometimes really hurt me or set me up to fail...i know none of them even remotely correctly defines me.

and here is the other thing..i see many people in rescue/animal welfare get mortally wounded or sucked into the bloody gladiator ring..sometimes they run or limp away, sometimes they strike right back tit for tat with a baseball bat.

and it is all so pointless. all of our softness, all of that strength that could be used for changing the world and making it a better place, we waste, we toss it away by getting our knickers in a knot over what negative things other folks say or trying to perpetuate the wonderful myth that we are in fact the best-est of all.

with all of the angst filled energy that i have wasted over the years, i probably could have built 10 more saints. it took me a long time to learn how to suck up the crap, examine it, let it simmer and sting for a bit, then shake it off and get back to work. as for the accolades...well, i have learned that what i did wrong was more valuable as a learning tool than what i did right so i take the praise with a hefty serving of salt.

so here is my well earned advice for myself and everyone involved in rescue...be your own judge, jury and fan club. try really hard to do rescue right for the animals not for yourself or anyone else and take the time to learn from your mistakes. be the person you want to be, and don't waste time just saying it, and don't even try to be pretending it..that is going to get you eventually slaughtered!
pay attention and be grateful for all opportunities to learn that are around you whether you are learning from someone's successes or from their mistakes. we can learn from both sides of the rescue fence.

judge yourself and the work that you do and make yourself do better when you need to. but never accept anyone else's definition of you... good, indifferent or evil. you are the very best and most accurate judge of you.

we may sometimes be warriors with painful wounds but we don't have to let our wounds fester and kill us with their poison....we can just let them heal.

don't worry too much about what others say or think of you..good or bad, chances are it is not the full story. most of us are not devil nor angel in rescue..we are just human.

hugs to wounded warriors out there, clean the wounds as they come and have a good supply of bandaids to keep you going.

(and in case you are wondering why i am awake at 2 am, its because those damn dogs are freaking bed hogs!)