I Want to Be a Mentee

I switched careers officially in April 2009. I felt like a pioneer, shedding the comforts of living in one place to traverse a great landscape; enduring a chuckwagon wheel breaking and going without - food, water, even strength. I took a risk, and I've done the best I can to adapt - until recently. . . where I realized I need something new now. I need support, a number to call, a friendly face that has been through these trenches and can say that the turns I took were right or maybe too cavalier; too reckless. What would my mentor do differently next time?

Where is my mentor?

It's not just reassurance I need, though positive feedback makes me stand tall and feel capable to not only hit the road on an adventure but have the courage to make the return trip too. I crave a critical eye; someone who cares enough about me to be honest. Someone who has been there before and understands the challenge of self-preservation when you're sitting in front of a young woman who has been raped and is recounting her story from last night, still fresh and open. After hearing about trauma, poverty and crisis, I don't intuitively know how to go home at the end of the day and take care of myself. Even in my sleep, I'm still taking care of these beautiful young people.

I feel trapped many days, working under the weight of what feels like a great and global responsibility. How do I continue to admire a client's journey when I resent, at times, his presence in my doorway? Because it will be another crisis, and I'm already brimming with the residue from the last one. How do I not feel that their problems are all the same, and become blasé to what a conversation with me means to them? I realize that all professionals go through this, but being removed from someone's admission that they are homeless feels downright inhumane.

I love my job. I love the challenge, but I need someone to teach me the power (the necessity) of a deep breath and to not neglect my long-term goals, in and amongst holding back the dam for clients. I know part of it is relinquishing: responsibility, onus and the need to be vigilant no matter what. I am entitled to days where my performance isn't profound, this much I know. It's impossible to be present and to take action for every hand reaching out of the sand.

I guess I need someone to tell me that it's ok. That they have done it before and that my sanity and self-care is the most important task I have every day.

Can I Do This

It's hard to describe precisely the confluence of emotions I felt stepping into the classroom. A girl had just thrown a fit just outside the door, throwing expletives like darts at two female security guards. I'm guessing they're ladies because touching can't be interpreted. The girl storms away and I'm beckoned to enter.

I walked past old circus performers, night walkers and junkies to get here. At 10 a.m. Fully freakish in front of Uptown Baptist. I remarked at the crater in the street that would soon swallow my ankle and leave me limping for days.

Maybe I should have stopped there.

It's a sea of obstinance in the art room. Palpable anger and apathy. Seniors are sprinkled among juniors, visiting eighth-graders and a row of kids with CP in wheelchairs. I'm there to talk about how to get a job, and how my agency can help you. No one cares, but more than that, there are whispers of violence. Yard sticks are swung and scissors are sharpened. Defiance is omnipresent. And the teacher? Sitting atop his desk, sullen, sulking even. . . alone and content to watch it unfold.

I got scared. Then I got angry. Then I became complacent and shrugged. I couldn't do much with this group. It wasn't my classroom. But what if it was? How would I handle it? Send RaShawn to the principal's office. An empty threat, only effective if the call to a parent goes answered, assuming there are parents in his life.

My message was one of hope. One that would lay a brick toward self-sufficiency, but their ears were clogged with incidents and obstacles far more prescient, more violent. I can't blame them. I can't blame anyone.

I just want to help fix it. I just want to feel like I can. I want to shake loose whatever semblance of motivation might still be chirping inside, bleak and near ash but still aglow. Seeing this sea of apathy and dismay, different than what one might expect from teens so close to graduation. . . I had to pause and think about the truth. They have a lot to be angry about. Now what?

Desperate for a Voice

I warned you not all posts will fall under a philosophical category. I want to talk about Chicago too. Career musings. Relationship happenings. General observations.

Do I have your permission?

I think my friend Nikki does it best in terms of documenting over at her blog, but the city is grand. Even though my iPhone and bus pass have been stolen out from under my savvy self in the past three months, I ignore the inconvenience. Rather, I've become a bit obsessed with the "under belly." Truth is, ignorance is rampant among many Chicagoans. A large percentage of the population identifies "The Bean," Willis Tower and Magnificent Mile as hallmarks of the city.

But one of the beautiful consequences of working in social services is you can't be ignorant to so much of what the city really is.

I had three young men promise to hunt down whomever took my phone, the same young men who make me cry because they want to succeed so badly and have every reason not to bother. It makes me less angry that my things being stolen cost nearly $400 because the under belly is so under served.

I mentioned the circumstance to Jada, one of my favorites, a young woman who went through "the system", mother of one and daughter to a heroin addict, that "these are tough times, people are desperate." In fact, she is desperate. For child care so her son isn't surrounded by drugs all day and for a full-time job so she can save for a house. For time to go to school so she can fulfill her dream of being a rehab counselor. For warmth because she is the prey of a slumlord who turns on the heat when she feels like it.

But she said to me, "No one should be desperate enough to take from someone who is trying to help us. That's why people hate us."

Many Chicagoans are desperate. For dollars, for clothes, for food. The New York Times profiled the growing reliance on food stamps as the sole source of support for many families in this country. Of course, on the theme of ignorance, the Republican's comments are maddening. On the other hand, I thank Jason DeParle for giving what I think under served Chicagoans are most desperate for. . . a voice.