twenty(or)something

Having grown up with three dogs, it seems only natural that animal rights would develop into a passion. However, when I started volunteering at the local humane league three years ago, it was with a purpose that was much more personal. A part of me was trying to heal from the loss of two of my beloved dogs within the same year, knowing too well that the loss of the third dog — the dog that had really been mine growing up — was inevitable.

I never wrote about the loss of Sampson because, quite frankly, even thinking about it now still brings me close to tears. If you’ve ever loved and lost a dog, you know what is in my heart – gratitude at having loved an animal so dearly and a bit of lingering grief at having lost them too soon. If I had my way, dogs would live forever – fifteen years is over in the blink of an eye, but still, I know, the love that they create in your life is without measure, without an end.

I got lucky.

I was with all of my dogs when they passed away, and, frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I took their losses harder than that of either of my grandparents, and it took me a long, long time to reconcile the anger and the guilt I felt for that. But I will forever feel blessed for having been with them, loving them, until those last moments that are forever ingrained in my memory.

But still, it’s not enough.

I have a deep respect for so many other causes and contribute as much as I can when I can, cheering on friends who fight to end poverty and hunger in third world-countries, helping to bring books to inspire and educate villages, fundraising to support research to find a cure for diseases that have just as much of a personal impact.

But this is the cause that fuels me, the one I’ve been trying to dedicate myself to for the past few months and even years, since the day I first walked through the door of the local humane league.

It was my way to give back and be around the animals I love so dearly while easing the pain of those losses I had recently faced. But what I received was worth much more than I could ever give. I found Riley, who has been my greatest joy and helped relieve the grief of Sam’s passing. While my other dogs were family dogs, Riley became my child, my little boy, my sole responsibility. Chewed sneakers, missing socks, and emergency trips to the vet and I’ve still never been more grateful for the day that voice inside of me whispered that this dog had found a home with me. Or, more accurately, that I had found a home with him.

Love a dog and you’ll experience love in one of the purest forms. Which is why when I hear about cruelty to animals in any form, it’s more than just a passing phase of sympathy and anger — it’s a call to action, a chance to make a change. Inhumane treatment of any living creature is inexcusable, but cruelty to the innocent goes far beyond that.

We’ve become a society where we look the other way, where we turn the channel and then plead ignorance, where we lament after the fact, where sympathy and compassion follow the crime rather than working to prevent it.

But compassion doesn’t have a time frame. Action happens now.

Thousands of animals are brought into the shelters as strays or given up because a family won’t or can’t provide for them. Hundreds more never know what it’s like to have a family, as a cramped, wire cage is all they have ever known. There are people who work tirelessly to make sure these dogs are saved from a lifetime of abandonment, of loneliness, of mistreatment, who make it their goal to provide not only a shelter, but a home, not only basic care, but love.

A Voice for the Voiceless

I don’t do this often, but today I’m asking for your help. Hundreds of shelters across the United States are in dire need of help to care for the very animals they are trying to save. Operating such a facility and caring for the animals takes a tremendous amount of financial resources in order to provide them with the proper shelter, food, comfort, and veterinary care.

Beginning today, a widget is placed on both twenty(or)something and Typescript that welcomes donations to the ASPCA. If you’re unable to provide a monetary donation, there are other ways to help:

Your local SPCA or humane league always welcomes volunteers to help with fundraising, legislation, community development and awareness, and direct animal care. Gifts-in-kind — anything from food to treats to toys to blankets, sheets, and old towels — can provide the animals with a little piece of comfort as they wait for their forever family.

Everything you do makes a difference in the world. Anything you can do can make a difference for these animals. Please help me spread the word as we find a forever home for our forever friends.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Pedigree, ASPCA, or HSUS. “We Are Their Voice” is a TM of the ASPCA.

What’s the name of the game?
Does it mean anything to you?
ABBA, “What’s The Name of the Game”

I’ve always had faith in social media and the communities that are built from it because it has always been about making the world a little smaller and bringing people together through shared interests, locations, and values. It was always about the connections for me. It was always about understanding another human being, about not feeling so alone in a world that, in all reality, though my optimistic self likes to ignore this part of it, can be a bit cold and dismal and separated. It was always about finding friends whom I may have otherwise never have known, bridging the distance and allowing for real connections based on who we are, not only what we do.

Only, that landscape has changed.

What was once a virtual front porch, a get-to-know-you coffee shop, that meet-and-greet cocktail party has turned into a playground where there are only so many swings. Numbers rule and competition to be the most/best/first weakens the importance of those solid connections. Your title becomes your defining characteristic and your rating measures your self-worth.

But we are more than a title. And we are more than a number.

The great thing about social media is that it helps you understand the complexity of people — a defining characteristic of what it means to be human. Because of our experiences, memories, likes and dislikes, values and beliefs, we have layers and depth beyond what is ever originally perceived. Social media peels back those layers one at a time, over time. We have compassion and intelligence; we have the ability to debate and share our story, hold fast to our values, conjure strength and provide support. We are able to constantly understand and wonder and question and discover. We have the ability to change and grow and transform our lives in an instant. Tell me, what metric creates a rating for that?

It’s so easy to get caught up in it all, to want to be on that virtual kickball team. But the thing about social media is that kickball is the wrong game. Because in social media, no one is without a team, a place.

A community is what you make of it — it can be strong and positive or overwhelming and unbalanced. And truthfully, lately, I’ve found myself on that latter end of that spectrum, wondering what had so changed. The answer was simple — I had as I scrambled to play catch-up, forgetting what I believed, forgetting what was so important to me and what I valued:

Being able to connect with others on that intimate level, finding people that we can learn from, so that we can grow with, not out of.

Like that landscape, a community can change as well.

Maybe it’s all up to you to figure out what you want yours to look like.

Rebecca from Modite wrote a remarkable post today on her blog called “Understanding the Anxious Mind.” I began to write a response, but felt I had so much to say that I turned it into a blog post. Thanks, first, to Rebecca for continuing to open up this dialogue.

Truly, anxiety affects more people than we ever realize — from those who feel anxiety in social situations (socialized anxiety) to panic attacks, anxiety is often overlooked and rarely completely understood. To those who have never quite experienced the depths of a panic attack, it seems as if these concerns and simple worries are easy to “get over” and “snap out of.” How can you be so concerned about going to something as simple as a concert? They say, “just go, don’t worry.” The fact of the matter, however, is that it isn’t so easy.

Anxiety isn’t rational and logic-based — it’s completely emotional, driven by adrenaline and the fight or flight response, manifesting itself in very real physical symptoms. It’s more than feeling nervous for a test or presentation — it’s about survival and not knowing what’s going to happen, a gripping fear that cements you in place with a reel of questions looping over and over in your mind. Will you be safe? Will they be safe if you leave them? What if you’re late, what if something goes wrong, what if, what if, what if.

A thousand questions can shoot through your mind with every single worst-case scenario, and while others can shrug it off, you’re left with a certainty that lies deep in the pit of your stomach that one of these cases you’ve imagined will come true.

Anxiety isn’t rational.

I can’t express that enough. Every single ounce of logic is immediately dispelled and all you have is what you’re feeling.

Factor in everyday life situations (paying bills, a job, a family, a significant other) and maybe the not-so-everyday situations (losing a job, losing a home, health concerns, moving) and you’ve got the perfect recipe for added anxiety that can make even simple tasks seem overwhelming.

Because, really, I don’t care how much you love it or hate it, change can be overwhelming and there’s always some measure to go along with that uncertainty. An anxiety disorder levels that up by a hundred so that even the little things are hard to do.

I remember so clearly leaving the house for school my senior year of high school. All I had to do was get in the car and drive less than five miles up the road. I remember I made it as far as the steps of my garage, my hand on the door handle, not willing to let go of it. “What are you doing, Susan?” I remember asking myself. “You’re eighteen, not a child. Just get in the car and go to school.”

The rational, adult side of me screamed, trying to get myself to listen, but I was caught in a web of fear and anxiety and I froze. I couldn’t do it. Instead, I remember running upstairs to my mom and dad’s room, begging them not to make me leave the house, begging them not to leave for work. They did. And I spent the rest of the day completely spent, crashing from the adrenaline rush. When it came to fight or flight, I flew…Straight into the arms of the only comfort I knew.

Little by little that anxiety lessened. I went to a therapist for a few months to find out what my triggers were, to understand what was happening to me, to figure out how to cope. Soon, I learned to take baby steps on my own. When I was at school and felt familiar feelings creeping up on me, invading my thoughts and blocking out lessons, I would step out of class and spend a few minutes outside, breathing in fresh air, trying to quell the emotions and tears that threatened to rise.

With anxiety, you really do feel like you’re being threatened, but anxiety is a threat in and of itself. So many times I would tell my dad I was going for a walk and would make it to the end of my driveway before I turned back around. So many times I passed on going somewhere with friends, afraid that those same emotions would blindside me and I wouldn’t be able to get home, get back to my comfort zone. I was afraid that I couldn’t control life, couldn’t stop change from happening.

Anxiety is a change itself, though. It changes your life, turns it upside down, turns you inside out, threatens to keep you a prisoner in your own house, your own skin.

Until one day you push through it.

Until that one day where you go see a concert or go away to college or take a trip to a foreign country on your own.

Until that day where you refuse to let it hold you back.

Until that day where, when faced with a fight or flight decision, you choose to fight.

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon

This blog has always been a personal outlet for me — this is the space where I wonder, I dream, I think, I challenge, I rediscover, I uncover. I write here, asking the questions of myself (and of others) that I need, in order to better understand myself, to grow, to figure out this life.

However, I’ve become tired of asking questions.

It’s time I find some answers.

I’ve been having trouble dealing with things lately, so overwhelmed with a need to be responsible coupled with a concern for my own health. I’ve tried ignoring it, tried pushing forward — because things need to get done, I have a responsibility to a new job, and there have been opportunities that I’ve been loathe to pass up, afraid of what passing them up might mean.

Ok. Even I know how ridiculous that sounds.

But I’m having trouble coming to terms with this, seeing all of the red flags, the warning signs, listening to the advice that I know to be true.

These past two weeks I’ve been unable to do much of anything outside of those hours at work. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know all of this. I talk about it, I complain about it.

All because, truth be told, I’m a little bit afraid of it — afraid of the not knowing. At least with knowing, you can fix it, change it, make it better. The not knowing, it seems, is always worse.

I’ve found that this has been true in all aspects in my life — it’s why I value honesty; it’s why I find myself on the side of hating change.

I have a lot of fear built up inside of me, but I don’t walk around afraid of the world. There’s a strength there too, I like to believe, that balances that fear, quells it, buries it. It’s what helps me push forward when I’m afraid to leave my comfort zone; it’s what let’s me take the leap and let down my guard especially among people I care about; it’s what encourages me to move forward with dreams, even though I’m hesitant, too, of potential success.

But this?

This is a bit different.

This I can’t ignore and push through, no matter how hard I try. And there have been a wide-range of emotions to accompany it. Frustration at not having answers. Relief that I have my family around me to support me as they do. Stress because I know I have so much I could be doing, so much to get done, so much that I want to do. And guilt because I just…can’t.

It’s not a matter of not wanting to. It’s a matter of not being able to — wanting to keep up with opportunities that seem so easy to accomplish but that expend all of my energy, wanting to take care of others instead of them taking care of me. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to let anyone down.

How do you say no to something that feels like such an important step to achieving your goals? How do you take care of yourself while still maintaining responsibility? How do you stop feeling selfish in needing your loved ones when you want them there for you?

How do you keep from disappointing others…and yourself?

There are answers here…It just might take me awhile to figure them out.

It might take me awhile to admit what I haven’t been wanting to hear.

All my life I’ve been a dreamer
Dreaming dreams that always broke in two…
But I still believe in love
And I love believing…
Lea Salonga, “I Still Believe In Love”

An open letter…

I won’t be the one you think you’ve been looking for all this time. In fact, it might take us awhile to find each other, figure that out.

It will probably surprise us both.

We might not meet in a coffee shop, sitting tables apart, catching each others’ eye as we sip our lattes and tea, the heat from the cups warming our souls as we try to focus on the work on our laptops. We might glance up, get a refill, order a snack before returning to where we left off. We’ll be lost in our own thoughts, barely aware of the other until we shut down our computers, pack our bags, and briefly look back to see if we’ve left anything behind.

You might not meet me on the train as I travel to meet friends new and old in another city, or on a plane to another state, another country. We might share a polite smile of greeting as you take the seat across the aisle, but then you’ll pull your iPod from your coat pocket and watch the blur of colors as the scenery passes by the window, and I’ll settle back with a book or a journal and pen and be equally lost in thought and daydreams. We might interrupt each other for conversation — asking you where you’re going, asking me what I’m reading. But we’ll reach our stops, we’ll gather our things, smile at our brief connection with another person, and then continue to our destinations.

We might not find each other in a bookstore as we wander the same aisles. Our eyes will skim title after title, pulling out books that catch our eye before reading the inside excerpt or the first few pages to see what it really is all about, what lies beneath the cover, inside. We might stop in the same section, glance at the books we’re each holding — a range of literature and fiction, tech guides and science studies, history and philosophy — but we’ll put the book back on the shelf, thinking it’s not what we’re looking for, and continue on in our search.

No, our story may not be made up of the Hollywood first-glance, the chance meeting, the love-at-first-sight encounter, but when it happens, it will be ours just the same. I’ll make you laugh, and you’ll make me smile; I’ll banter or debate, and you’ll challenge me, matching wit against wit. I’ll be the trust you’ve been searching for, and you’ll be the shoulder I’ve been waiting to learn to lean on.

I’ll let down my guard, and you’ll let me in.

We’ll discover the world together as we discover each other. You’ll bring out the adventurous side of me, the spontaneous side I’ve often kept buried. I’ll learn to take risks, and I’ll be willing to take that risk with you. We’ll encourage each other as we chase our dreams; we’ll celebrate when we succeed and hold on when we fail. And though we might sometimes find ourselves apart, we’ll also find ourselves looking for ways to get back to each other.

It won’t be perfect. I’m stubborn and sometimes too independent and reluctant to let down that guard.

But I’ll surprise you.

I’ll surprise myself.

And I can promise you there will be a night where I burn dinner or take the wrong road and get us lost or say something incredibly stupid that has you scratching your head and holding back a laugh.

But there will be laughter. And honesty. And trust. And love.

I can promise you that there will always be that.

I won’t be the one you’ve been looking for all this time, not the one you expected. But when we find each other…

When that day comes when we realize we’ve found each other, we’ll know that maybe we were wrong to be looking for anyone else.