If you're out on the road, feeling lonely and so cold

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the paths we take, and how the choices we make, no matter how small, can have such a huge impact on our lives. 

I’m a planner by nature, but mostly for day-to-day things. I love a good To Do list. But I’ve always had a harder time with bigger picture, life changing decisions. They make me feel panicky and paralyzed, especially if there are multiple choices. Whenever I’m faced with one of these life changing decisions, I think about this Sylvia Plath quote from The Bell Jar: 

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. 

When these decisions pop up, I can’t stop thinking about all of the possibilities, all the ‘what ifs’ behind each choice, and I do sometimes wonder if I’ve missed out on things because I’ve been too afraid to make a big decision. I get lost in my head a lot (SHOCKER) and tend to have an existential crisis of some kind every few years. I start to wonder who I am and what I’m doing with my life, and ponder what changes I might need to make. The first time I remember this happening was when I was working in Human Resources a hundred years ago. I went to an HR conference with my boss in Chicago, and it was one of the worst professional experiences of my life.

There was a morning where we were all gathered in this giant auditorium, more like a concert venue, really, and I got up at one point to use the restroom. I couldn’t find my seat afterward, so I sat on the floor at the back of the room for the rest of the talk. I don’t remember much about it. Just that there were a lot of corporate buzzwords and I kept thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?”

The problem was that I didn’t care about anything they were talking about. I’m not saying that the HR field isn’t a worthy one. I’ve worked for places with no HR representation and it is never a good thing. I’m glad there are people who feel a passion for it. But I didn’t. Add in a megalomaniacal boss who seemed to get off on making my life a living hell and I was fairly miserable at the time. I made the decision on the way home that I was going to leave that job, but not for just any other job. I wanted to find something that I was excited about. Something that wouldn’t make me dread going to work every day.

Soon after, I saw a job posting for an Adoption Counselor position at a local animal shelter. Despite it being a significant pay cut and my family thinking I was absolutely bonkers, I took the job and it led me to a career where I finally felt like I was making a difference. However, after a few years in the same position there, I did eventually start to feel a bit boxed in, and I wondered what was next for me. 

I had no idea that I’d soon be coming across the thing that would lead me to the next step. Four years ago, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I was driving through a small park on my way home from hiking, and I saw a group of people standing around the pond there. I pulled over and, as I walked up, I saw that they were huddled around a mallard. 

This duck had been hit by a car and, every now and then, it would try to get up and walk to the pond but it wasn’t able to. The people eventually dispersed, explaining that animal control was on the way, but I couldn’t make myself leave this poor, broken duck. While I waited, I remembered that there was a wildlife rehab facility about 40 minutes away, so I gave them a call. They were incredibly helpful, and walked me through how one would theoretically catch a duck. They made it sound very straightforward. Get a towel. Approach duck. Grab duck with towel. Put all in box. Bring to wildlife center. I thought it would be simple. 

It wasn’t. 

It turns out that it’s incredibly hard to catch a wild animal, especially if they can fly. This is something that would become common knowledge to me later, but at the time, the only animals I had to routinely wrangle were the kittens that escaped Kitten Clubhouse at work.

I didn’t have any of the supplies they recommended, so I called Joe. He left work early and brought me a box and some towels so we could attempt to capture this duck. (This is just one of many reasons why Joe is the best.) Unfortunately, the duck, though unable to walk, could still fly and he flew into the pond on our first attempt to catch him. 

At this point, I would say that most people would give up. The duck was in the pond, the water was ice cold, what were we supposed to do? 

Instead of giving up, we went to Meijer to buy a net. When we got back to the pond, the duck was hanging out along the edge, but every time we approached with the net, this goddamn duck would swim out to the middle of the pond. 

We tried for two days to catch this duck and, the day before Thanksgiving, we were finally successful! I stood by the side of the pond on one side, distracting the other ducks (I know this sounds ridiculous, but every time we approached our duck, the rest would all swarm around us, probably because they thought we had bread…PSA: DON’T FEED WILDLIFE) while Joe crept up behind the injured duck, slowly lowered the net into the water, and scooped him up. My favorite part is that there were people fishing at the pond, and I still wonder what they thought of us basically stealing a duck and putting him in our car.

I really expected that we’d take this duck to the wildlife rehab center and they’d magically be able to fix it. After having since worked at a wildlife rehab center, I now know this is a common misconception. Most people think that, upon bringing an injured animal to a wildlife rehab facility, those there will be able to fix whatever is wrong with it. But the truth of the matter is, it should be incredibly difficult to capture a wild animal (see above) and if you’re able to? Chances are the animal is not doing very well. These animals are also incredibly delicate and stressed out due to being around and being handled by humans. Plus, they’re suffering from whatever injury or illness brought them to the facility in the first place. Sometimes there’s nothing that can be done, and the kindest outcome is euthanasia, which was the case for our duck.

We were incredibly disappointed, obviously, when they told us. Now, I’m just glad to know that he didn’t continue to suffer in a cold pond, and at least died in a safe, warm place where people were trying to help him. 

After this duck adventure, I happened upon a job posting on the Volunteer Managers email group I was a part of. It was for a Volunteer Program Manager at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The work they were doing was exactly the same as the place we’d taken our injured duck, the place that had helped me so much when I had absolutely no idea what to do. I’m not sure it would have caught my eye if we hadn’t just had this wildlife experience. Despite the fact that the job was in Washington and we were in Ohio (small detail), I applied, and a few months later, we were moving across the country. All because of a duck. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about where we’d be if I hadn’t found that duck. Would that job have jumped out at me in the same way? Or would we still be in Ohio? What would have happened if I’d been diagnosed with cancer while we were still living there? In some ways, it would have been so much easier, because we have so many family members and friends in the area. But the type of cancer I have is quite specialized, and we likely would have had to travel for me to get treatment. In a way, I was really lucky to get this type of cancer while living in the Seattle area. There are multiple cancer care treatment centers here, including specialists in head and neck cancers. We didn’t have to travel far to get great medical care. In fact, multiple people have told me, “if you’re going to get cancer, Seattle is a good place to do it.” (Yay?)

I know I keep talking about wanting my life to get back to normal, even though I know, logically, that the old normal is gone forever. I have to build a new normal, one where I live with the fact that I’ve gone through this huge, life-changing event. One where my speech might be forever affected. One where the way and the things I eat are different, at least for a while. One where I’ll likely live with the worry that the cancer could return for the rest of my life. Today, at the doctor, I found out I’ll get scans every 3-4 months for the next year, then every six months, then every year, to make sure no new cancer is growing. After five years, the doctor said I’ll “graduate,” and they won’t need to keep such a close eye on me. Five years. Who knows who or where I’ll be by then?

Those are all things I can accept, I suppose. Because I have to, there’s really no alternative. But what I’m struggling with at the moment is that I can’t see the path to this new normal yet. I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know how to recognize it when it appears. I don’t know what choices I’ll be faced with, and what the right decisions will be.

I guess I’ll just keep following ducks until I find my way.

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