the marshmellow encased in steel.

i wonder sometimes if people think i am heartless and cold or if doing what must be done in rescue has some how depleted any softness of heart.
but the fact of the matter is..i do what i do here because i have a marshmellow heart.
it breaks me to see suffering and pain. it hurts me to see unhappy and unloved. i bleed when i see them feeling like they just do not fit anywhere in this fucked up world. or when they feel like they are not worth anything to anyone.

sometimes i cry, but not very often. tears do not get anything done. mostly i just stretch myself and every resource we have further to try to help another one.

i have 2 jobs to do..the first is to make their life better than what they were living before. and the second job is to make sure that when their life is over that they go peacefully, are free from fear and suffering.

i have at times failed miserably at both. and those failures weigh heavily on my soul...i never forgive myself.
but as the years go by, i have gotten better and the failures are fewer.
but they still occasionally happen.

i live in fear of that but i will not let that fear get in the way...i will keep trying to do the best that i can.

people need to understand this about me..it is not a game or a competition about being the greatest or the kindest or the one with the most feelings.
i don't give a fucking shit about that.

i care that they are happy or at the very least... content. i care that they find some joy or feel loved every day. i care that they feel like they have a place in this world and that they are important to someone.
and i care that when they take their last breaths, they were not alone and leave this world free from fear.

if all of that comes together for them, then we did well and i am content with that.

this heart can't afford to be soggy just so folks get that i care.
this heart lives, breathes, sleeps and occasionally weeps with these animals.
and not once in almost 20 years, has it ever gotten easier.