My grandmother passed away this weekend. I found out on my way to the beach. My sister eloquently expresses her thoughts about our grandmother on her blog.

I loved my grandmother and I will miss her. My biggest regret is missing Christmas this last year. I never imagined that it would be the last.

This is the first star fish I have ever seen in the wild 

This is another painting done by my great-grandmother. It's one of my favorites. As a child, it was in bedroom in which I slept when we stayed with my grandmother. I would look at it just before I fell asleep. Many a childhood thoughts went through my head while looking at this painting.

Interesting dilemma...

Last week I received a call from the counselor of one of the kids, Kevin, on my caseload. The counselor explained that Kevin had disclosed to her, in a counseling session, that his foster father had choked him (enough to leave a mark) and hit him (hard enough to make him bleed).

Both the counselor and I were immediately upset (who wouldn't be), but our anger was compounded by the fact that this kid has been through it all. He is the prime example of the failure of the system. He's he kid who slipped through the cracks.

The rest of the day was spent figuring out what the plan was for this kid. Against my better judgment, I was told to tell his counselor to send him back to his foster home. However, Kevin took matters into his own hands and ran away.

I won't go into the full story. Suffice it to say, he was placed in a new foster home (a temp foster home). Temp foster homes are not known for having the best reputation and most of the "foster parents" are simply in it for the money. In fact, some of the shittiest foster homes are known for only taking teems who are placed on an emergency basis. They know that the agency is in a crunch and they can extort us for more money.

Well, that's exactly what happened. I wasn't there more than 10 minutes before this guy asked for double our normal daily rate of payment. Fucker! I avoided the question and said I would have to take care of it in a couple of days.

To top it all off, this guy hands me a card which showed that he was a pastor at some christian church near by. I wanted to puke!

The following day things continued to get worse. In the morning I took Kevin to school, but had to pick him up two hours later because he threw up. My options were to leave him there, take him to shitty foster home number one, take him to shitty foster home number two, or bring him into my office for the day. We both chose option number 4.

Later in the afternoon, I took him to get a small lunch at a cafe near my work. Toward the end of lunch I received an urgent call on my cell phone and accidentally left my purse at the cafe.

The afternoon was not pleasant. I will simply say that it included a very tumultuous meeting about the whole thing. Four hours later, I arrived at my desk and realized that my purse was not there. I knew that none of my co-workers would take it. Finally I realized where it was...the cafe.

I walked quickly to the cafe and looked to where I had been sitting. Amazingly enough, my purse sat there untouched. Still present were my ipod, cell phone and wallet. I couldn't believe it, but was so relieved. I was the first time all day that I had felt some sense of good.

There was a man sitting in the chair next to my purse. I said something about being surprised that it was still here. The man said his wallet had been stolen earlier that week. I nodded my head in recognition that his situation sucked and then explained that I figured my purse would be gone when I arrived back at the cafe.

The man smiled at me and said "just shows you that there really is a God."

The dilemma...

If God is responsible for the good (my purse in the same spot, all items intact), why is he not responsible for the bad (Kevin being in foster care for multiple years and being beaten by more than one foster parent)?

My great-grandmother and her mother were talented painters. Above is one of their paintings. While they may not mean very much to most people, to my family it's a part of our heritage. I have two in my own home. This one is at my grandmother's house.

I feel 13 again (but not in a good way)...

Two weeks ago I started a MySpace page because I had found the page of a friend from elementary school. When I started page I told myself that I wouldn't spend very much time on it; that I wouldn't become an addict. Well...I have failed. Tonight I spent over an hour looking around. I was visiting the pages of my friends and their friends pages.

Then it happened...I spotted the page of a girl from elementary school/Jr. High who was a total bitch to me. All the insecurities came flooding back. For God's sake, I'm 25, not 13!

These feelings remind me of a book I read awhile back called Odd Girl Out, which discusses the secret aggression of girls. Basically, the author (Rachel Simmons) shows that girls have been taught to be nice, but just like every human, girls get angry. However, they don't have a healthy outlet because they are not supposed to be angry, they are supposed to be sugar and spice. Therefore, they find more subtle ways of acting out their feelings. They abuse each other through isolation and manipulation. Ms. Simmons explains that girls don't forget the aggression that was perpetrated against them. The scares last a life time.

So, I guess my feelings are normal; however, that doesn't mean they're fun.

I need to stay of MySpace for awhile.

A walk with Kelly

Somewhere along the way I started to lose my ambition to write. I used to love to come home and write out my thoughts on this page. I didn't care if anybody read what I had written; it was simply a cathartic experience to write. Now, I have no energy to write. When I do think of something to write, I quickly get distracted or realize that I don't feel like articulating those thoughts. It's too bad, because even if what I had to say wasn't all that interesting, it was still fun to write.

This lack of motivation has extended to other parts of my life. Often when I get home from work I don't feel like doing anything beyond watching tv. When I lived in the 18th Ave house I rarely watched tv. Additionally, my contact with friends has also decreased.

I think my job is the biggest contributor to my lack of motivation. As a caseworker for child welfare, I get to see the worst of humanity day in and day out. In Oregon, we aren't represented by attorneys in court, so I also double as the legal representation for the agency with which I work. As a caseworker, I am often the bad guy. I represent the agency who takes children away from their families (or at least that's how the families perceive us). And finally, from the perspective of the courts, the public and our clients, we are almost never seen as doing a good job. This perception applies to the agency as a whole, but sometimes applies to me as worker.

I'm exhausted. I bare a constant weight of responsibility; knowing that the choices I make or have a hand in, affect the lives of families and children. I'm the worker who decides when we are ready to start looking at termination of parental rights regarding a parent. Ultimately it's not my decision to terminate parental rights, however, it is my job to set up a legal case so that it can happen.

As a person I am often torn. The naturally empathetic person in me feels bad when a parent is pleading for their child to be returned; however, the knowlegable, reasonable person in me knows that they would put their child at serious risk. Sometimes, I feel no empathy at all. Some of our clients are so blatantly unable to care for children (i.e. sex offenders) and it makes sick that I have to work with them.

Day in and day out I cannot let my personal feelings affect my professionalism. I believe this 100%; however, that doesn't mean that it hasn't caused some damage having to consistently shut off my feelings and just do my job. I have become somewhat divorced from my emotions.

The most unfortunate thing about my job is that it is not just 8 to 5. I think about it all the time, as I know my coworkers do as well. Often I have dreams about work. Sometimes I will wake up in the night, remembering that I forgot to do something. For instance, today I am on a short vacation; yet, I still woke up in the middle of the night remembering something that I forgot to do before I left last night. I told myself that I had to wake up at 8am to make some calls so the issue is handled while I am a gone. I woke up at exactly 7:59am (without the use of an alarm clock) and made those calls. It's insane that my job has that much power over me.

The stress level is incredible. When I first started I was told that statistically a caseworker lasts about 2 to 5 years. And now I know that to be true. I reached the two year mark earlier this year and strongly feel that I only have a year to two left in me (even though I have no idea what I'd do if I quit).

The stress of my job is greatly amplified in the fact that I have lost my way when it comes to spirituality. I used to be able to spend time meditating or reading so that I was filled up once again. I've lost that and really have no idea how to get it back.