Birthing Pains

Regaining my freedom is easier to talk about than to do, as evidenced by today's gut-wrenching decisions. The long-time volunteer who was supposed to train two new volunteers today, called and cancelled 2 hours previous to the start of her shift. The previous week she had told me to make a longer to-do list, so, of course, I had a long list, 2 new people on my hands and other plans. I had already started out the day still sick myself, so certainly didn't feel up to doing the work of two people, plus this was supposed to be my vacation from training and dealing with people. First I cried. I cried long and hard, after scooping up Floyd for comfort. Then I had to make decisions. I knew what I wanted to do, but the gut-wrenching part is battling with what I feel I should do. Shouldn't I take advantage of people wanting to help? One new volunteer was supposed to drop off an application. I didn't even feel like answering the door, much less seeing people. I did not think she would be a long-term volunteer, based on the phone call from her mom, so decided I wouldn't waste my time. When I called to cancel, I discovered she is under our minimum age anyway. The hard part, though, was hearing that she wants to volunteer because she wants a rat. What a wonderful opportunity it would have been...to train someone on how to take good care of her rat. But, I decided, I will never get time for me if I jump on every opportunity sent my way. The other new person was interested in caring for rats and doing office work. I can't see my desk due to the big stack of office work. But training takes time and there is no guarantee anyone will stay. So I called and cancelled her, too. Possibly having her here today would have made the difference between my getting a cage clean or not. But today I chose me. I chose to spend my day alone, follow through with my plans and hope tomorrow I feel like tackling the list of chores from today. Painful, but peaceful.

Finding Peace

I finally found some peace tonight, in what to do with The Rat Retreat. It came in the form of an old, unopened email that was filtered by mistake. The email, about the suffering of rats as live food, started a fire in me that got me writing. That writing led me to remember that I have a degree in communication. Then I recalled that the degree was very general. I took mostly journalism, but also advertising, public speaking and marketing classes. I learned how to sell with words. Why have I never used that degree in a job? I went back to school to work on art, which was my minor. So I am an educated, trained artist and writer, running a nonprofit without a salary. When I applied for the 501(c)(3) I chose not to hand over the rights to my artwork to The Rat Retreat, so my son could inherit...my son who owns snakes that eat rats. Are you getting the picture? I sat down with my rat of wisdom, Irene, and talked this out tonight. I will give over the rights to my art, so The Rat Retreat will have all the proceeds...same with writing proceeds. In return, I will draw a salary. I am on social security, so can't make more than about $900 a month anyway. For all the hours I put in here, I deserve that. That was the major point I had to get myself to...is that I deserve to draw a salary. Where the salary will come from...who knows? I don't think it matters. I believe it will all take care of itself. I needed to reach the point of believing I deserve to be the first person that draws a salary from The Rat Retreat. I also needed to overcome the fear of handing over the rights to all my rat-oriented artwork. I've already given everything else of myself to this cause...kind of silly to hold onto that one last thing. My focus has been too narrow. I have been very concerned with the rats in our sanctuary, then the rats in our area. With my focus on writing and art, I can help the domestic rats of the world. As someone recently commented, I need to do what I do best and let others do what they do best. Someone else will be better at running the day-to-day work of The Rat Retreat, but that is not my concern. It's up to the same God who put me here and gave me these skills, to bring in the people with the right skills for those jobs. Until then, we will get by as best we can. But my refocus of energy will certainly bring us a happier atmosphere to work in. Now how to communicate this to volunteers...you see me, but I'm not really here?

Sick Days

Days like the past few are when I really feel like I should give up, for the sake of the rats. I've had a virus...simple thing for people who are relatively healthy and only taking care of themselves. But with my health problems, I get complications. Even vomiting can put me in the hospital. For the past 3 days, the rats have only gotten half of their medications. It has been all I could do to get that 1 dose to them. No way I could do a cage or water bottles. Today I managed meds and folding laundry, which was exhausting. I have had so many people promise me the world, "I'll be there whenever you need me." "You won't be able to get rid of me." Where are they now? They quickly disappear when they realize it is real work, not just fuzzy snuggles. My comfort for today is that they are still alive. Yes, two more of them need to go on meds, but, for now, they are warm, fed and clean. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? If I quit housing The Rat Retreat, who will? What will happen to these homeless rats? Over the years I've had people tell me I had no business doing this with a disability. I've had nasty emails when an expert found I was taking shortcuts in dosing meds and many, many people telling me how I should do things differently. Where are they now? I sure haven't seen them here twice a day...ready to hand out meds! Maybe therein lies the answer...keep doing what I can, and am willing to do. Even if I want to spend more time on art and that leaves less for the rats, at least they've got something no one else is offering. And when someone else rises up to take my place, I'll gladly give it over. Meanwhile, I need to come up with a good phrase for all these "helpful" people.

Soul Search

As I'm spending this vacation time searching my soul, trying to understand what I want, something came to light today that I've glimpsed before...I am shy. In high school, I used to cry before I had to go to school. My most telling photo of myself is with my books held in front of me, head ducked. I had a bad accident at 16 and found a way to hide my shyness so I could make it through months of high school with a broken nose and missing a front tooth. I learned to fake it and have been faking it since. Today, I am to take several pieces of my art to be hung in a local eatery, where it will be for sale. I've had work in galleries, but this is new. The owner sounds like a young, confident person, which makes me feel more shy. I actually cried about it. I feel extremely vulnerable. What if they make fun of me? Of my art? Tonight, I have to be at the opening of a show where my art will be displayed. That, too, is painful. I usually bluster with fake over-confidence to hide my true feelings. It makes me hate myself. I know I come across as rude and arrogant. Now I am trying to link this to running The Rat Retreat. Is this why I don't always get along with volunteers? Visitors? Adopters? Depending on how well I know the person, I sometimes dread their arrival. I dread having to make conversation. It's exhausting...trying to think of how to respond, especially if it's someone I don't know well or someone who I feel wants something from me besides knowledge. Knowledge is easy to give. I can reel off facts about rats and their needs, with ease. Once the questions run out, though, I don't know what to say. Once it gets personal, I clam up. I am afraid for someone to know me too well...just the facts, ma'am...that's all I can give. How does one run a business with this personality? Especially a business where you have to interact with people often?

New directions?

My mind has been churning the last few days with the question, "Art or Rats?" I visualize being in my studio, surrounded by paint and canvases with splashes of color. I think of my unused art supplies...pastels, markers, fabrics...and dream of projects I'd like to do. But I'm usually doing my dreaming with a rat in my lap, lapping medication off my finger. Then I try to imagine my house without rats and it seems empty, dead. "So I can have a few as pets," I tell myself. Then I imagine the calls I'll get from the humane society about the rats that will be put to sleep if I don't take them or will have to live closed in cages alone...without human companionship. How to live with that? My reading stack, since vacation started, has been largely business-related: Executive EQ, Parliamentary Procedure, books on running nonprofits and boards. I have been plowing through, a chapter here and there of each...it's been hard work because I don't find business very interesting. Today, though, I found myself in the library in front of the self-help section. Volunteers and board members have intimated that I may just have a problem getting along with people, so I was looking for a book to help. Emotional Awareness caught my eye. Then How to Win Friends & Influence People. Then a big yellow book, on how to choose a career based on your personality type, jumped into focus. I've done these tests before so was able to quickly scan to find my personality type: Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving. "Likely to be animal lovers... and need to have personal space." These are the two very conflicting qualities I have discovered in running The Rat Retreat. "ISFPs are action-oriented individuals." They are "doers." I want to help these rats and I'm very serious about it and dedicated to it. I cannot do as much for them without the help of others, but "ISFPs have no desire to lead or control others," wherein lies the problem. Volunteers expect leadership. Part of my nature and part of the thing that feeds my creativity is relaxing. I picked up The Art of Doing Nothing with the hope of re-learning that skill. Having so many people around, wanting to talk to me, makes it difficult. As I sat in the library pondering my dilemma, I saw another book Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life. Earlier I had picked up one on learning to be a senior citizen. I am only 55, but am permanently disabled, with a host of diseases and, for all intents and purposes, I am retired. Remaining peaceful, relaxed and low-key helps me to stay healthy enough to keep taking care of rats and doing art. "Maybe that is the key," I told myself, "to behave like a retiree." I started imagining a new kind of Rat Retreat. What if we had members, who paid a fee, were allowed to adopt so many rats per year as part of their membership, and were required to volunteer so many hours per year? After all, if The Rat Retreat isn't here, they will have to get rescued rats from other states, unless they happen to hit the humane society at the right time. And wouldn't people who care about rats, want to know they have a good place to live rather than being put to sleep? And wouldn't they want to help? The answer to those questions might solve my dilemma.

A Typical Day

Ok, there really isn't a typical day at The Rat Retreat. The path of each day depends on the number of volunteers, visitors, sanctuary rats, rats to be adopted and sick rats as well as whether we have an event. So it changes from day-to-day. I'll tell you about today, though. Rats are social and need company, but they live in colonies, so you can't just plop a new rat into someone else's cage. Hence, we sometimes have singles. Single rats ideally need from 2 to 4 hours daily of human attention. They don't get that in this place, but I try. First thing in the morning, I take my breakfast of a couple pieces of fruit, and single rat, Bear, to the sofa to eat. Bear hops and runs and snuggles and shares breakfast for half an hour. Then I do meds. We have 19 rats today, only 5 on meds, some are taking two meds. That's a low number, so morning meds only takes about an hour. Then a bath with Bear. While I do my morning cleansing rituals, Bear hops in and out of the water, and runs around the large bathroom, knocking everything over. That's another half hour. So on a good day, Bear gets an hour of my time. If a volunteer comes in, he may get a little more of someone else's. Next is trust-training single rat, Domino, who is not ready for Bear's level of freedom and human interaction. He still bites. So I will feed him some soft food off a spoon, then my fingers. He will eventually climb into my towel-covered lap. I have prepared for this with a bath and a clean, long-sleeved top, but eventually he will smell Bear and start with a warning nip. At that point, between 10 and 20 minutes, I will wrap him in the towel and put him back on his table. Any day could be different, because he's been neutered. As soon as it takes effect, we will progress to longer periods of time together until he, also, gets an hour. By then, I hope to have had a successful introduction with Bear to a group, because two hours a day with single rats is a big chunk of the day. Most days I have to do a cage cleaning, or water-bottle cleaning, then paperwork, social networking, bookkeeping...a myriad of tasks that go with running a busine4ss and having too few volunteers. Today I am on vacation and a volunteer is coming. The most I'll have to do in my workday, besides what I already did, is pick up supplies. When my workday is over, I enter my worknight, which is a little easier. There is another round of meds, chopping fruits and vegetables for dinner and trying to get around to the three colonies. Tonight I may be able to spend the minimum half hour with them, that they need. I will carry them, one colony at a time, to the sofa and give them treats while I watch a show. They will get scritches and love and I will get grooming and love. The interaction with the rats is what makes the day worth it. Most of this does not happen if I have a very sick rat. Sometimes they need 2 to 4 hours of attention, alone....sub q fluids, hand-feeding, 4 doses of medicine, bathing, etc. Thank God that today there are no very sick rats here. It looks to be a relaxing day!

Help with animal rescue

Thinking About Moving On

I've been here for 4 years...running this rescue/sanctuary for largely unwanted, unpopular animals. I am so tired. I've cried myself to sleep too many times; begged for volunteers; begged for donations; gone bankrupt; been homeless and watched over 100 animals die. I've done most of it myself for most of the time: the cage cleaning, the nursing care, the fundraising, the marketing and most recently kept up the social networking.

I am not at all tired of the animals, but am enormously tired of the people: the volunteers that are unhappy and put upon and don't show up but half the time and when they do want to talk and talk and talk; the donators who require much thanks for few dollars that just don't go far; the people who surrender the animals with their weak stories of self-pity; the people who adopt the animals with their upset over having to pay half the spay or neuter fee; the people who lean too heavily on me for help with things they could look up for themselves; and the heavy requirements of social networking. And I'm tired of me and my lists and need to please the people I'm around and my nervous need to chatter when there are people in my house.

Even the work with the animals is largely made work because of the opinions of others: you should do this, you should stop doing that.

I am an artist, a painter, a reader, a writer, a loner. People suck the life out of me. I have great difficulty with friendships unless they have heavy boundaries.

I have not done any art in 6 days. I can always tell you how long it's been. For me it is like going without food. So what is stopping me? People are always coming here and I have to get ready for them...volunteers, adopters, visitors. The board is not talking unless I'm there. I should be doing some fundraising, the bookkeeping, balancing the checkbook, paying the bills. It's time for the animal's twice daily meds, their dinner, their water bottles to be washed, the cages clean. I have an idea for business improvement that I need to act on immediately. And the studio is not set up for what I really want to do: paint.

I can hardly think of how I can mix the animals and art anymore. I am too obsessive. I need to do either thing completely. But I can't live without either. So I'm thinking about what to change. My vacation starts Sunday...vacation from board meetings, volunteers and visitors, but not from the rats. Oh, did I tell you they are rats?