Duck Drama

Renae Brumbaugh

-- Coffee Talk --

Having ducks on my pond has been great therapy for me, but not for the reasons you’d think. Yeah, they’re pretty. They add a graceful tranquility to the yard. And they’re a lot of fun to watch.

 

But honestly, they have more melodrama than a Pretty Little Liars marathon. Murder, romance, love triangles, bullying, extortion . . . it’s all there.

 

I’ve written before about how one of our catfish ate one of our ducks. It’s a tragic memory for me, so I won’t rehash it now. But for those of you who haven’t kept up with our duck dynasty, we ordered baby ducks last summer. A straight run. Some of them died before they reached maturity, but since all young ducks look alike, we didn’t know how many girls vs. boys we had. There’s a way to tell, but I’m not putting my hand up in there.

 

Turns out, all the surviving ducks were males. Every last stinkin’ one. What were we gonna do with eight male ducks? As soon as they saw some pretty little hot mess flying by, they’d all be gone. We had to do something.

 

So we ordered a half dozen more baby ducks. This time, we requested all girls.

 

Now we have six girls and eight boys. And oh, the drama.

 

There is one boy that the other fellows don’t like. He’s smaller than the others, and everybody picks on him. We call him Loner.

 

There’s one girl duck that hasn’t found a boyfriend. We call her Margaret. The other five hens have each found their soul drake, and paired off nicely. So there are three drakes and one hen left unattached.

 

But two of those drakes are having some kind of bromance. They’re not interested in the hen at all. Confirmed bachelors, they ignore her completely, and hang out by themselves over by the lily pads.

 

Loner has shown some interest in Margaret, but every time he tries to approach her, the bromance guys chase him down and peck him. Seriously. They won’t let the two would-be lovers near each other, and it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.

 

Now, I know it’s not a good idea to get involved in somebody else’s drama, but I couldn’t help myself. We have a duck pen near the pond, where we kept them when they were small, to protect them from predators. Now that they’re grown, we leave the pen open so they can come and go as they please. Well, the other day, the bromance bullies were both in the pen while everybody else was on the pond, so I shut them in. I wanted to give Loner and Margaret a chance.

 

So do you know what Loner did?

 

(Heavy sigh.)

 

He spent the next several days hanging out by the pen, trying to figure out a way to assist in a jailbreak for his buddies. Now that’s codependency at its finest.

 

As I said, those ducks have been great therapy for me. All I have to do is look at their lives, and I realize I have it pretty good.

 

I wonder how many times, though, I’ve acted like Loner. I’ve been given chance after chance to break free from difficult circumstances, bad habits, or even people who bring me down. But change is difficult, and we often gravitate to what we know, because it feels familiar and comfortable. It may be destroying us, yet we hang on and hang on, wanting to make it work.

 

Loner would be so much better off if he’d forget those guys. He could go and have a happy future with Margaret. But instead, he’s consumed with trying to get his old, miserable life back. I dunno. Maybe he wants closure. Maybe he thinks he can play the hero, and his buddies will accept him. All I know is, he has a chance at a new beginning, and he’s choosing the very life that got him the name Loner in the first place.

 

I refuse to be like that. Someone recently told me, “You can’t start a new chapter if you keep re-reading the old one.” I’m going to shut the door on the past and move forward into the glorious future God has for me.

 

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” Isaiah 43:18-19.