Work rollercoaster

Taking a minute to breathe, before I get back to my workday... I am sad
and disappointed. I got my hopes up, big time, for one of the women I
work with. She is addicted, badly, to crack. She is also really smart
and a really wonderful person when she's not in addict mode. She had to
give up custody of her 2 little kids last year because of the drugs, and
that hurts her all the time and she really wants to get them back. She's
also doing terrible things to her own health. But she hasn't been ready
to stop using. This Monday she told me it was time, she was ready, she
wanted to go for treatment. She brought it up herself. I worked my butt
off this week to make it happen. We got her a bed at a good place. I
went to her house today to let her know. She said no.

I shouldn't be surprised, at all. It happens this way at least as often
as someone actually makes it to rehab. And it doesn't mean she's never
going to go. But it is hard to take. Her health is bad enough, if she
keeps on the way she's going she might not live long enough to have
another moment of clarity. And I really do care about her.

A few months ago, Emma and Karin invited me to go to a panel with them,
which was the last class and graduation party for their certification
course to be foster parents. One of the things I learned there was that
foster parents choose to get attached to a child, knowing that they will
give them up and grieve for them, because it is exactly that attachment
that the child needs in order to continue healthy development. I can't
remember how she said it, but I remember one of the foster moms on the
panel saying something like, our willingness to open ourselves up to grief
is the gift that we give them, so that they can have a real mutual
attachment with us and feel loved and safe. That stuck with me.

It hadn't occurred to me before, but I think there's a parallel there with
my work situation. The relationship we have with folks is nothing like
parental. But we help people with what they want help with, without
telling them what to do, and we don't ever get mad and go away because
they didn't do what we wanted. And the fact that we do actually care is
maybe the only reason that we ever do any good. So I want to keep caring, even though it takes me on a rollercoaster sometimes.