Hi and I apologize. The disease is Covid, I’ve been down with it all week, and you know everything seems a little more impossible when you are exhausted, feel bad, and can’t go anywhere.
In the meantime I was already feeling behind, as I always do, as a long time survivor of severe adhd, but missing a week of paperwork, admin work, schoolwork, and money making work and I can’t help but feel utterly defeated.
A sweet foster mom said something recently like: but you like having all those dogs at your house right? I think we were talking about in a perfect world where we weren’t killing animals because no one in their immediate vicinity wanted them. I was thinking OMG NO. No no no no. I don’t want a house and property full of dogs! Growing up and in college (the first two times) I was the party hostess. I loved having friends over, heck I loved having friends. We were the party house until I got deep enough into rescue to give up on living room furniture altogether. This is because I cannot handle the fact that we kill animals because no one wants them. That’s it. If that stopped I’d have a decent home and it would be filled with friends and family all the time (as long as they forgive me for putting every relationship I’ve ever had on the backburner for animal rescue)
I miss the days of running rescues or even shelter programs for others. That was so much easier. Why? Because I could ask for help without feeling like I was asking for myself. My adhd time blindness makes me believe if I put just a little more work in, just a little more cleaning, just a little more admin work, just a little less sleep, just one more side gig, I can do everything myself and not have to ask for help!
Pay all the bills, keep the space clean, do the paperwork, woman the events, do my schoolwork and we will be fine! However, as it turns out, I can’t. I do not have the vitamins that Corey had in Empire Records when she said, “there are 24 usable hours in every day”. If you don’t know, shame on you, go watch Empire Records.
Anyway it turns out I am wrong. I cannot do it all. I can barely do it some. I need your help. We have volunteers but no Captain for the first shift tomorrow, and we have a Captain and a single volunteer for the second. Will it be me captaining for shift #1 and volunteering for shift #2? Then how am I supposed to make up for this paycheck I’m about to spend on today’s vet bill much to the chagrin of my electricity bill (gets turned off in 3 days), my car note (already 20 days late), the rescue’s pharmacy bill (just over 3k) and my water bill (we had a leak so it is $900 and kind of amazing they haven’t turned it off yet).
A friend of mine, who also hates asking for help and single handedly runs the shelter in a parish that does not care at all for the companion animals in need, messaged me this morning sobbing because she was bringing animals to be euthanized. Not sick. Not aggressive. Just because the city says she has too many (she does) and she has to start euthanizing. We took 9 dogs from her yesterday but it’s not enough. Never enough. Wednesday she had to do the same thing, but one dog jumped out of her truck, ran back into the shelter and back into his kennel. He’s with me now. Do I need another dog? No. Does every single dog that was on that truck deserve a chance at life? Yes. But she couldn’t bear to put him back on the truck so we have one small light in this swirling pool of darkness. One little, too skinny, cross-eyed, sort of brindle sort of merle goober, now named Macgyver who is guaranteed to be heartworm positive, filthy, with cuts on his head from breaking out of his kennel on the truck, in-tact pit mix.
I’m feeling hopeless. I need to do less. I need to find more people to foster, to donate, to just keep the damn pets they commit to, and don’t breed them! I am not asking for the world, but maybe a little bit of compassion, a little bit of kindness towards the living, breathing, feeling creatures we share our planet with.
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