Three Years

I've been married three years.  On July 30th.  I feel so much older than 25.  Oh, well.  Life is a give and take of sorts.  Being young and pretty, nice and thin...I traded that for marriage and a baby, both very wonderful things, but my body took some wear and tear along with that.  I still don't feel like myself, but I'm incredibly blessed to be with someone who sees me as I am and thinks I'm beautiful.

Marriage is pretty hard.  Having a baby is even harder.  Being unemployed for months then starting a stressful job where I take people's kids away, it's a wee bit rough.  Want to know what's weird?  I'm not all that stressed.  For once in my life, I feel like I belong.

Sometimes I look at people and I feel pity for them.  I didn't realize until the last year that pity is one of the worst things I could give someone.  People don't want pity.  They want help, but they don't want to admit it.  They will spend hours, days, and years trying to convince others that they don't need anyone and they definitely don't want pity.

I see plenty of messed up things.  It's like looking into a dirty and broken mirror.  I spend time trying not to notice how easily I could be like one of these people who beat, burn, and neglect their children.  I don't pity them that much anymore, because it doesn't matter what happened months or years ago.  They are where they are now, and there's no changing what was.  They can only go forward.  Some of them refuse to, others need some nudging or pushing.  Three years.  That and more is how long some of these kids have been away from family.  As a Christian, I am called to love the orphans and widows.  I am spending most of my time with orphans lately.  The grace of God shows up in the strangest of places.

The New Kid

You know the feeling.  The new job.  The new school.  The new neighborhood.  The new town.  The new in general.  Everyone else knows what they're talking about except you.  I barely understood what my supervisor was saying, it was like talking to a robot from another planet.  Not that the things I will be doing are that complicated, they are in a way, but it was more like how she acted.  She was nice, but didn't explain too much.  She's a sink or swim gal, I think.  Actually, now that I think of it, I think she disliked the process of dealing with a new person as much as I disliked being new.  She wasn't mean, but more like exclusionary.  She talked with her coworkers, but didn't direct a lot of conversation to me.  She did say she couldn't go with every new person wherever they went, and I get that.  But I felt like I was being babysat.  She sent me with people to be out of the way while she trained other people who would be testing soon.  I also get that, but I still hate feeling incapable, like an infant.

She sent me to watch several people, and I got what they were doing pretty quickly.  The girl and guy I was with a majority of the afternoon were pretty awesome.  They explained things in detail and gave me case files.  Despite the dysfunction of some families, I can trace their thought processes in their actions and reasons for doing "crazy" things.  Does it make it right?  No.  But most of the cases I studied today are people who need help, who lack resources.  They are people in pain from their own troubled childhoods.  They crave compassion and understanding, and more than those, they need accountability.  I read one with some sexual abuse accusations, and get this, I didn't freak out.  I'm not freaking out still, even though the things I read are hard, and the things I see will be even harder, I have a magnificent peace about it.  I can handle it.  I wasn't nervous, nor self-conscious.  Aware...yes, that's it...I was aware of how I was new and that made me a nuisance. 

All the same, I have a job and I'm seeing some pretty interesting things, like pregnant women who are petitioning to see their kids, shaking from withdrawals.  Sad.  Yes, but this is real life, and like the grubby DHS building, I can't be clean.  I will have to get my hands dirty, and be cool with that.  Everything is used and scratched there.  Terribly out of date...all of it.  Reality TV...nah, I have real life.