The Horrors Persist…

But so do I.

Ya know, I had started out writing about the endless flow of political horrors but I couldn’t finish it at the time and there is just SO MUCH, I’m going to ignore that and talk about something else! 

Primarily, my progress on the main quest -AKA moving abroad!

I seem to have finally overcome some paralyzing anxiety that was plaguing me for a while and I have had almost a solid month of actual productivity and positivity! I have no idea where it is coming from but I feel… hopeful? Is that the word? I have managed a handful of job applications most days for a few weeks now- as opposed to a panic mass of applications all in one day every few weeks. This still means a steady trickle of rejections but somehow I remain hopeful. I literally have no evidence to suggest this is the correct emotion. 

I’ll take it though. I feel like I have moved past an emotional barrier that was holding me back pretty significantly. After closing my rescue, rehoming most of my animals and all my education birds, selling my house and moving across the country to live with family… I kind of isolated myself from the communities that I am most at home in- nature, wildlife, and conservation professionals. Taking part in those conversations was a painful reminder of all I had to give up, all that I lost. So for a long time I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. But now that I am finally starting to heal, I am reconnecting with those groups and starting to network again. 

This was primarily kick started by shifting my doom scrolling on facebook to doom scrolling on linked in. I started following more conservation organizations and seeing more jobs in that field, so applying to more of them as well, with much the same results as before unfortunately. But, even as the stream of rejection remains constant, I keep on trying. Because I want to return to conservation. I want to work with wildlife again, even if not directly. I want to do important things and contribute to change. I want to put my passion to good use. My entire life has always been about nature, and how to help it. My calling, my reason for living, my PURPOSE is to support and defend the natural world. And no matter how much I look into other options just to try and get by, I keep coming back to conservation. That is where I belong. 

And I am finally coming to terms with the fact that, as painful as it was to get to this point, I no longer have most of the obligations preventing me from traveling to chase this calling. I can go anywhere in the US to take a position if I wanted to stay here. I can go to South Africa to work with cheetah conservation, or Spain to work with vultures, I can go to Germany to get my master’s degree and improve my chances of getting in with the specific organizations I want. I am not stuck in one spot… and I made the immense sacrifices necessary to ensure that. 

Even as I type this I can feel the lump in my throat, but not because I feel hopeless and trapped as before, only because I feel scared. An excited kind of scared. I know what I need to do and what I can do, I just have to take the leap. And I have actually started working on the next steps in order to take that leap. 

Applications are open to European universities. I am applying to three German universities and one in Belgium. My plan is to have all my materials in by December, or at the very latest, before the new year, so that there is plenty of time to correct and upload additional documents if they need it. I may look for a few other programs as well but those are the ones for now. 

As much as I have loved Seattle, and enjoyed the culture, the weather and the people here… it is still part of the US. It is not isolated from the increasingly hostile federal environment, or the long time hostile capitalist working environment, or the ever growing threats against anyone who isn’t a rich, white, male. It was definitely a nice reprieve from the overused outhouse that is Oklahoma, but it’s still connected to the same broken sewer system.