A Lifetime Ago, Part 2

Hello again dear readers.  Here is the second half to the previous post.

So, I was talking about how much I loved the World Bird Sanctuary and how it was a really key part of my teenage years. 

Last year, Tobin died.  I was in the process of working on my graduation capstone for my writing degree when I found out.  One of my essays is actually about him and WBS.  It's the one my professor and mentor requested I read at my capstone reading although I had reservations.

I don't know if it was Tobin's death last year or just the amount of shit that's happened this year (grandma's death, my sister's attempted suicide, etc, etc.), but I have been thinking a lot about the Sanctuary.  And about my past and my future and my present and how they're somehow all woven together.  (Which is a post for yet another time, readers.)

So anyway.

Nightmares.

For the past month, I've been dreaming about the WBS.  As I said in the last post, they aren't really nightmares.  They really do just make me horribly sad when I wake up.  And they all follow kind of the same pattern.

Let's look at last night's.

It was dark. I was standing at the steep stairs that led down to the Office of Wildlife Learning, where I primarily volunteered.  Only, the stairs were larger and steeper than they really are.  I felt like I was almost going to fall off the edge.  I was aware that my family was with me, but they were more in the background.

In my dream, I wasn't that awkward 14 year old girl.  I was me, as I am now.  But my normal confidence was replaced with an almost feeling of apprehension.

Then, one of the guys I worked with - one of the ones I was always nervous around for no really good reason except that it was me - was there.  I was to follow him down to the building.  He began walking and I followed, moving (to my surprise) like a ghost, more floating and less walking.  Everything was dimly lit and nothing was how I remembered it.  The people were different, the birds were different, and I felt like a stranger.  It was almost as if I was invisible.

And then I woke up, sad and with a feeling of longing.

I have a dream like this at least once a week now.  Sometimes more.  It's always night, it's always the Sanctuary but exaggeratedly so, and it's always the same guy I worked with.

I've been thinking about what this can mean.  Today, I believe I have figured it out.

So.  Autumn is the time when your fears and losses come to light.  You have to learn from them and face them.  Then you sew what you want to harvest in spring.  Also, when I'm stressed, I dream about places that are most comforting to me, like the woods.

I think that the reason I'm having these dreams is because I'm afraid to lose who I was.  But at the same time, my mind is trying to cope with the fact things are changing and have been changing for a long time.

I'm not who I was.  I'm this fairly fearless young woman who wants to change the world.  I'm studying Environmental science so that I can go into the field and see what's up. I love color, I love words, I love life.  My family, while always important to me, is no longer my center nucleus.  I have Trevor, who I love with all my heart.  We've been discussing the concept of marriage after graduation, something I never thought I would do.

It's a lot.  I don't know where I'll end up or what I'll do.  But I know it's going to be good.

I also know that more than likely it won't involve me going back to the WBS.  At least, not in this lifetime. 

So I believe the reason I've been having these sad, longing dreams is because my mind is trying to turn the page on that part of my life and lead me into the next part.

What do you think?

~Meaghan

P.S. - Sorry if this second part was kind of disjointed.  I think my sleepless night finally caught up with me.

A Lifetime Ago, Part 1

Hello, my sweet and dear readers.

I've been having these really weird dreams the past few weeks.  I would almost classify them as nightmares, but I don't think that's the correct term.  I'm not frightened when I wake up.  Just incredibly sad.

Before I get into them, though, I have to give you some background.

When I was 13, I lived in St. Louis, Missouri.  I was homeschooled all through middle and high school, which opened this huge door to discovery for me.  One of those things that I discovered is that I loved birds.  Specifically, birds of prey.

So at age 13,  I began volunteering at this amazing place called the World Bird Sanctuary.  What the WBS does is many fold.  They have an excellent rehabilitation program where they nurse injured raptors back to health and release them into the wild; if the raptors are unable to be released (like if they're blind in one eye or have a wing that will never fly again), they stay on the property to be used for education.  There's also a great breeding program on site, to bring bird populations to stable levels or to use the birds for educational purposes.  They do educational programs, have a nature center just for learning about things, and everyone there is a wealth of information about anything bird and nature related.

(I think you can see a theme here.  Education, people.  It makes the world work.)

Anyway.  Great place.  If you ever get the chance to go, you should. 

Years 13, 14, and 15 were some of my hardest years as an awkward teenager.  Like, every teenager has it hard.  I totally get that.

 But I think I get a little bonus here. 

I was homeschooled.  Guys were weirded out by me cause I was into nature and the sex lives of owls.  I was going through a period where I only listened to the Beatles and oldies station.  I was round, not in a curvy fun way but just in a chubby way.

My dad also lost his job when I was 14, getting one in Springfield, Illinois.  For a year, my mom, sister, and I would spend the week doing all our many activities, only to leave on the weekends to visit my dad in Illinois. 

It was kind of fun, you know, traveling and all that.  But it was hard.  Emotionally and physically.

And that's where WBS comes in.

Every Wednesday, like clockwork, I would wake up at 7 am and put on my WBS tee shirt with khaki colored pants.  (They once addressed this at a staff meeting I went to.  Khaki, I learned, was apparently a type of material, not an appropriate term for color.  So it had to be specified as "khaki colored pants".)

From 10 am until 2 pm, I did grunt work.  I gutted  mice, rabbits, quail, and the occasional guinea pig for the raptor's food.  I cleaned bird stalls and mats with Simple Green, which I still love the smell of.  There were carpets to be sprayed down and vacuuming to be done and rabbit crap to scrape out of a litter box (Cadbury was cute enough that it didn't bug me) and parrot stalls to give the good ol' Listerine treatment to. 

I got to watch all the owls work on flying from glove to glove.  I fell in love with Tobin, a European barn owl who hatched the spring before I started volunteering.  I got to hear wild Barred owls in the woods surrounding the sanctuary and got over my fear of bees and got to watch the seasons change like I never had before.

The best part?  Having adults outside of my parents actually speak to me like an adult.  To them, I wasn't just this horribly dorky kid (although, I still cringe at the fact that I really was) but an equal with a quest for knowledge.  I could ask as many questions as I wanted - and believe me, I did - and they all got answered fully.

It was heaven.

I loved my Wednesdays.

So while the chaos in my life was going on, my Wednesdays stayed consistent.  Each one brought a piece of stability that my parents knew I needed.

A few months before I turned 15, my dad lost his job in Illinois.  I was okay with it, cause I wasn't too keen on Illinois to totally honest.  And it meant I got to stay at the WBS for a bit longer.  Six weeks later, though, he got another one. 

In Colorado.

The farewell the WBS gave me was amazing.  I got to hold Tobin even though I technically wasn't old enough yet.  The pictures are still on our fridge and on my desk.  I received a framed picture of Tobin (displayed on my bookshelf as of this posting) and a beautiful card signed by everyone I worked with (stuck to the back of the bedroom door).

Tobin recently died last year.  I was really upset.  I hadn't gotten back to St. Louis in three years and it killed me that I never got that one last look at him.

But. 

I think it's okay.

Continued in the next post.