06:365
WHAT’S THE MOST TIME YOU’VE SPENT APART FROM A FAVORITE PERSON? TELL US ABOUT IT.
I was a new college graduate with a fancy new zoology degree. I still had fond dreams of becoming our generation’s Jane Goodall. I imagined living wild and free in nothing more that a wall-tent, adopting some wild animals as family, writing papers and working to save the animals I cherish so much.
I was in love and I was in so much pain.
My little brother had committed suicide two short months prior.
I had to go.
I had to leave everything else behind to follow my dreams.
Or, escape.
I needed to watch the sun set on a different horizon for a while.
I had to do anything different from crying all the time.
I knew I’d be back, eventually. It was a temporary assignment.
I dreamed big and I was very independent, he knew that about me. I needed space. I needed to go.
So my pug, Kya and I packed my Jeep and we went.
It wasn’t the jungles I had dreamt about, but it was as good as I could do.
I had been hired for a three-month volunteer internship in Utah. I’d be rehabbing and training captive birds in a mid-city aviary. Against all my fears, I’d be performing a scripted on-stage bird education show.
It was the era of pre-texting and Facebook. It would be the only time he’d write me love letters. Real-life love letters that would come in the mail. And we would fall asleep to the sound of each other’s breathe on the other end of the phone.
During the night, I would fall asleep to my Friends DVDs. Tears hardened on my cheeks, Kya tucked near my core.
During the day, I cleaned, chopped and prepared meals, fed angry raptors and cleaned bird enclosures. I worked on training programs with pelicans, horn bills and non-flighted eagles. The barn owl, Aurora, would dive bomb my neck as I’d drop slices of meat in her mew. I was bewared daily of the the macaw who could break a broom stick in half, reminded that he could do a number on the fingers I confidently slide in between the bars of his cage to say hello. But he liked me and we often cuddled when no one was looking. The raven was very smart. He often escaped. One time it was my fault. After squawking in the tree tops for a couple hours he eventually came back, back-talking me the whole time. The toucan loved grapes. He slide them down his large beak into his mouth and hoped for more. The emu was huge and fast, but she was easily manageable as long as you didn’t show fear. The American Kestrel was my most favorite. He was small, but mighty. I still have the scars on the loose skin in between my thumb and pointer finger from him daily reopening the wounds. He just wanted freedom and holding tight to his tethers, I denied him that. He reminded me often of his annoyance. One time a vulture was sick and near death. During the life saving procedures I was the one who assisted the vet. He lived and for many days I helped nurse him back to life.
I was there about 8 weeks and even though I was staying with my Aunt and Uncle, whom I was very close with, I had to go home.
The homesickness was harder on me than the thick grief waiting back at home. They tried hard to help me through. To bestow their wisdom and positive energy over me. I was too gone. Just too sad.
No amount of distraction would take away that pain. Nothing other than time, a lot of time, would fill the hole in my heart.
I missed my brother and I missed my love, Dylan. I missed the simple comfort my dad’s presence assured me. I missed my mom, and siblings and my friends. I missed the people who were going through the same feelings as me.
As much I didn’t want to admit it, I needed them to get through those hard next months.
I didn’t need to expand my knowledge of bird behavior or sneak beer in the volunteer quarters with new friends. I was disconnected from my peers, I kept to myself and I was extremely un-liked.
If nothing else came from that short time, I found out an important lesson, I was not cut out for zoo-type work. Wild animals was were I wanted to concentrate my efforts.
I admitted emotional defeat. Kya and I packed up the Jeep once more and drove home. Once home the pain nearly crippled me. Now those 8 weeks I spent training birds are nothing more that a blur, a bleep in the radar of life.
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