I volunteer on Tuesdays.  I’m out the door by seven (hopefully earlier with traffic), and for roughly twelve hours I am picking up poop, giving tours, doing minimal computer work, partipating in both our enrichment and training programs, helping with special projects, and feeding.

To give an hour-to-hour assessment of what I do would be impossible.  It changes every day.  Right now, as daylight savings time is dwindling away, the afternoons get particularly dicey in terms of when things happen.  We could feed as early as five.  I didn’t start yesterday until six.

Last Tuesday, ST had off from work.  He said he’d make dinner, when I would be home?  I said between 6 and 7.

Come 6, he was wondering why he hadn’t heard from me.  I usually call as I wait on the dirt road for the gate to the sanctuary swing shut behind me.

By 6:10, he’d called.  By 6:30, he called and said he was driving over to bang on said gate to find out what had happened to me.  (These messages were on my cell phone, which I keep in the car out there.  I rarely get calls during the day, and part of feeding protocol is to turn your phone off so you can concentrate on the animals.)

I could not have told you for the life of me when I was getting home.  I purposely gave an hours leeway, and didn’t think about it for one more second.  I certainly was unaware I had just sentenced myself to a curfew.

At 7:10, while the gate shut behind me, I got his messages and started dialing his number.  Actually, before I listened to the messages, I naively just started dialing our home number thinking all was well and yes I was late, but I’d had a wonderfully exhausting day and couldn’t wait to come home and be pampered.

Um, yeah.

When I finally reached him, I was cursed and yelled at.  We hung up to finish the conversation in person.

All the way home, I was scared of how this was going to go down.  If he yelled at me, I was pretty sure I was going to yell back.  I wanted to feel in the wrong, that I owed him a phone call and his panic is a manifestation of his love for me.  But that independent little girl me still feels that when she’s demanded something, she wants to do the exact opposite.

It just also was plain weird - a first for me despite working with these big cats for over five years.  My ex-husband was also a volunteer, and we were very aware and accepting of the situation - both in terms of the time suck and the large cat aspect.

Luckily, when I got home, ST didn’t yell.  I think he hated the fact that he yelled earlier because it seemed to weaken his cause.  He’d been so worried, he vomited.  I felt horrible, but not responsible.  I just couldn’t.  I’d been volunteering again since our second date and he was well aware of how many times I’d call around the time I said I’d be home only to say I was just leaving the property.

I agreed I did owe him a phone call, and that I would slip the phone (on vibrate) into my pocket come the afternoon so that if he tried to get in touch, at least I’d know.  He also has the numbers of a few people who will always be there with me. 

Ironically, this Tuesday I was also held up.  At ten to seven, I tried to put several calls through so he’d know the deal.  No dice.  I got home to one passed-out tired man.  Who immediately thought I would be mad at him.  (I wasn’t.)

I don’t know the moral or end to this story.  I am stuck between feeling like I act single way too much and that I am grown-ass woman who can do as she pleases.