So much to do, so little time. I always feel so inadequate at my job. I can never do enough. We will always miss something, always fail somehow. There are SOOO many ways to improve our policies and there have got to be ways to keep the animals safer, healthier, happier, and more adoptable. Wauys to screen for people who really shouldn't be adopting. Ways to be better, closer to perfect. We are always treading a thin line between lying (through omission of direct facts) to potential adopters, and scaring them away. If I tell someone, well, the cat bites, plain and simple, they are less likely to adopt the cat than if I say "the cat is friendly and playful and affectionate, however, she can get a little nippy sometimes if you pick her up" I have to make the people understand the animasl, and yet still be interested if the animal would do alright in their home. We need to keep better medical records, we need to spend soo much more time socializing and training both cats and dogs. We need to be better at interviewing people who are surrendering animals, and people who are potential adopters. We need to be better at training our staff and our volunteers. We need to be more on top of ordering supplies and equipment. We need to not get tired, and not get run down and burnt out. We have so much room for improvement. And yet, I feel so bone weary just thinking about everything we need to do. Everything that we can't do, because there are days when not everyone works as hard as everyone else. Where we all feel that someone else isn't pulling thier weight, and so how can we possibly take on more on top of it. If we could get our heads out of our ass's, and all work together a little better, I think we could do a bit more. And we work together fairly well. We get along well. We don't fight, we don't bicker, we don't harbor ill feelings towards one another. And yet, we could do so much better. If only we could pull it together. If only we had more time, more training, more energy, less stress. I feel so bad and so overwhelmed with trying to organize everything, with wanting to organize everything. And I wish I could get everyone else to feel the same... well not the same. But to have the same visions of greatness that I have. The visions of being not a mediocre shelter, not a decent shelter, not a good shelter, but an amazing shelter. They do exist, amnd I want us to be one of them. We have the potential, and for some reason we just aren't reaching it. I want it so bad I can taste it sometimes... and yet, with no support from family or friends, even on just an emotional level, and some lack of cooperation from coworkers at work, I just can't do it. I hurt too much to do it. And for that, I feel guilt. I can't have people in my life who refuse to support my job. The symptoms of burn out are alwayus strong enough on their own, without having someone telling me that I should quit, or I should work less, or I shouldn't have done this or that, because its not fair, or where is someone else to do it, or because they don't think its right. How am I supposed to stay even remotely sane if someone is constantly making me feel bad for what I put in at my job? Hell, that a good part of why I had to move out. My aunt used to get mad at me, mad at the shelter, even when it didn't really affect her. I don't like to think bad thoughts about other people, and very rarely do I think bad things about others unless someone else puts the idea in my head first. Even if its completely justified, I will not benefit from thinking that someone else is not working hard enoigh, or that the shelter owes me. All these thoughts do is run me down more, and run down my coworkers more, because they then have to deal with whatever bad feelings I can't cover up. Life is too short to be angry all the time. Anger wears us down, makes us tired over time. Anger is usually very passionate, which can be very exhausting. And you can only do so much good being angry all the time. And in the end, what does it matter, if you didn't enjoy it? One more, Happiness is not getting what you want, its wanting what you have. hmmm very interesting. And very true.

One of these days, I'm gonna love me, and then I will feel the joy of sweet release... One of these day I'm gonna love me, and maybe at last I will find some peace... And then I will smile a little, and maybe even laugh a little but... one of these days, I'm gonna love me.
Yesterday, and all morning long I had things that I just felt the need to get down, get out. And at the moment, sitting here in the library, I can't remember for the life of me what one of them was at all. Its like a name or a word, on the tip of your tongue, just behind some wall in your mind, that you can't quite get around. I can't even begin to feel it out. The rest of the stuff, I feel I talked through most of it on my way here. And most of it is stuff I have been over before, multiple times anyway. I just keep going back to the same things. I beleive this is what we call... dun dun dun... Issues. Hahaha. I know I need to get control of my life, my thoughts, and my emotional well being. I have moments where everything seems to be a-ok, and I wonder why I ever thought I was crazy, and then I hit the opposit end of the spectrum, where I feel so overwhelmed by feeling so nuts, so psycho, that I wonder when they will lock me up. And I can go from one side of the sanity fence to the other in a matter of ten minutes. Yesterday, for instance, I was driving home, thinking I felt almost just ducky, quite alright, when now, looking back on it, I had been fighting off demons only minutes earlier, and then resumed fighting, opr more accuratly cursing and giving into the demons when I reached my apartment. I hate food, or actually, I hate the fact that I am a slave to the numbing effect food has on me. I need to get control of this thought, this feeling, and learn how to not only get around it, but how to deal with it, and how to make it cease to exist in a healthy way. Not in a "I am the master of building fire/destruction proof boxes in my mind to put things in" way. And I know I have to stop putting everything off. Oh I will get a life tomorrow. I will eat healthy tomorrow, I will start walking tomorrow, I will be organized tomorrow, I will be ok and happy tomorrow. I will love and be loved tomorrow... Just let me have today to wallow in myself and be alone and lonely and miserable. And in a really bad moment, its not tomorrow, it will be monday, or on the first of next month... what am I fucking insane that I want to wallow in my own world of misery and pain for another day, week, month??? Sometimes I wonder. I remember being lonely. I mean, I am lonely now, and I know probably half teh people I talk to are probably lonely. But there is a big difference between being lonely, and being Lonely. The difference. The lonely that I am now, it really sucks. But I know I am not the only one. And I know that I am atleast liked, if not loved byu family and a friend. Before, I was alone. Completely. I would come home to my family everyday, but I thouight they didn't like me. I was a thorn in their side, ,merely someone to be tolerated because they were obligated to tolerate me by blood. And as for friends, I had none. I had a few aquantences, and I had a few online people that I talked to. But as far as a best friend, a real buddy who I could hang out with, and do fun things with, and relax with, they were non-existant. For about 4 yrs there was nothing tangeable. I was a hermit. I pushed away anyone who might have become a friend, even in pretending not to. I joined a school club, was in it for two years, and again, managed to make aquantinces, but no friends in the club. I guess I finally decided I couldn't be like that any more. Because I couldn't handle it any more. I hurt far too much of the time, and all I had to do was talk about someone being happy, or see other people in my classes being happy with their friends to have to actually work to not burst into tears. Things are better than that now... I think. I always want more though. I want to be part of the group again. And this, all of this, was not what compelled me to get out of bed this morning to write. I still am clueless as to what it was... because it hurt, and I can't seem to work up the nerve to dig it out. *sigh* and so I continue in this often mundane existance... always wanting something to be exciting, thrilling, a good story to tell around a campfire, something to say so there aren't too many awkward silences when I try to talk to someone.

Animal loving girl ironically mauled by cow she was trying to befriend
Thats what the headline for the newspaper almost said about me today. Haha. Where I am living now there are a few barnyard animals. They have a horse, a cow (with large horns), a few goats, a ram, and a Llama to name a few. Well today I wanted to go visit the horse. I had to go through the yard that contained all of the other formentioned animals. The Llama is very friendly, all of the animals are said to be friendly. So I get into the yard with all of these animals, and the only one near me is the llama. Thats all well and good. I am keeping a hand on the llama so he doesn't sneak up on me quickly, and because he is following me across the yard. The goats all get out of my way, and as I come around the back of the barn, the cow is standing their next to the horse fence. I say "Hi Betty Davis" because that is the cows name, and she turns and rushes at me!!! I don't know if she was doing like elephants do where they will do a fake charge if you are bothering them, or if she meant to come get me or if she was just being friendly, but I wdasn't gonna stand around and find out. So I naturally run about 10 steps in the other direction, and then stop the panic and turn and put a hand up and say "woah Betty, easy girl". She stops and just looks at me. So I now get behind the llama, so she atleast has to get through him to get to me, and then slowly work my way out of the yard. It took me like another 10 minutes to manuver out of the yard because I had to stay facing the cow, and watch where the llama was as well. When I finally got out of the yard my knees where shaking. LOL. I think I will wait until the landlady is out in the yard with the animals before I try that again. Oiy. Lol it was so freaking funny. All I wanted to do was go visit the horse, and maybe pet the cow and the llama a little. The landladies told me that it was ok for me to go back there, and that everyone was friendly and everything. Jeepers.

Ok so I am still sick. Ugh.