I got to know Liz and Arthur and Courtney better today; I absolutely love the people I work with. Yesterday David sat down and went through all of my clients one by one to make sure they were all mentally/emotionally a good fit for me. That was really great, especially after the difficulty of last week. But today went really well. Liz and I laughed a lot, and Arthur is a really cool person; he wants to start a non-profit and is looking at Community Connections a lot from the business angle, considering it is the largest non-profit on the East Coast. Liz is just fun, a very kindred spirit and I really hope we can become good friends. We'll live close by in Arlington and we've already talked about some events going on either in Arlington, Alexandria, or the city that we want to go to together. I got to tell her about my tattoo today and my desire for another one soon enough, and she told me about some of hers. Rachel's coming in tomorrow and we'll move to Arlington, then we'll go to DC all day Sunday and Monday. Can't wait.
I really shouldn't be blogging right now; Rose Shaw's lawyer called me today about documentation that she had been a part of CC for the past two months, and I have yet to send him the necessary paperwork.
On Wednesday, the judge finally put Ms. Shaw away, and though she was dreading it, she knew it was coming. So I was there for that, and actually felt a little relief that we would just get the jail time over with and she could move on with her life.
But Ms Shaw went to jail. I was sitting in the car with her, listening to her beg me to turn the car around, start crying, saying she didn't want to go to jail. There's a part of me that's slowly becoming calloused from this job, like she deserves it, she needs to just suck it up and handle the consequences and make this as painless as possible because I'm looking at the clock hoping the trial will last at least an hour because I want that productivity with her... and maybe if I didn't start developing that type of mentality, I'd become trapped in a world where I was torn apart by every one of my consumers that had to face the music and go to jail, swearing all the way to the courthouse they'd change and I'd be taken for a ride every time. Living that way is not for me, and thinking that way is far more exhausting than I want to handle. I'm learning the art of leaving my work at work and at 5pm, it's Ellen-time.
On Wednesday, the judge finally put Ms. Shaw away, and though she was dreading it, she knew it was coming. So I was there for that, and actually felt a little relief that we would just get the jail time over with and she could move on with her life.
But Ms Shaw went to jail. I was sitting in the car with her, listening to her beg me to turn the car around, start crying, saying she didn't want to go to jail. There's a part of me that's slowly becoming calloused from this job, like she deserves it, she needs to just suck it up and handle the consequences and make this as painless as possible because I'm looking at the clock hoping the trial will last at least an hour because I want that productivity with her... and maybe if I didn't start developing that type of mentality, I'd become trapped in a world where I was torn apart by every one of my consumers that had to face the music and go to jail, swearing all the way to the courthouse they'd change and I'd be taken for a ride every time. Living that way is not for me, and thinking that way is far more exhausting than I want to handle. I'm learning the art of leaving my work at work and at 5pm, it's Ellen-time.
Oh and just for the sake of humility, I completely ate it in front of the court house. I was walking, maybe strutting a little because I felt particularly cute that day, and my ankle just gave out and I tripped and fell on my hands and knees for the whole world to see. I started laughing at myself, but Ms. Rose just looked at me and shook her head. "We both having shitty days, girl." Yeah she's right.
I'm sitting in Motivational Interview training, wishing I were back in the courtroom or Howard or at someone's house. I'm quickly learning how to avoid boredom by just kicking it with the consumers.
Liz is laughing. She's got this app on her Droid phone that says random facts every day and we're A. bitter that someone gets paid exponentially more than we do to work for Apple and produce said facts and B. trying to find all 50 states on the 5 dollar bill because apparently they are listed on the Lincoln Memorial. We find 26 and start laughing again. The average person laughs 13 times a day, apparently. We're up to about 73, but there's a kid on the metro who gets hit in the head by a guy who's pushing and shoving to get off at Rosslyn and we decide that was a traumatic-enough event to lower the laugh number down to about 35. Still better than 13, so the day's a success, we agree. Tattoos and music and movies and museums and maybe more talk about the people we work with; all good topics with Liz and I'm just hoping we'll be friends and have more laughs like this in the future.
Liz is laughing. She's got this app on her Droid phone that says random facts every day and we're A. bitter that someone gets paid exponentially more than we do to work for Apple and produce said facts and B. trying to find all 50 states on the 5 dollar bill because apparently they are listed on the Lincoln Memorial. We find 26 and start laughing again. The average person laughs 13 times a day, apparently. We're up to about 73, but there's a kid on the metro who gets hit in the head by a guy who's pushing and shoving to get off at Rosslyn and we decide that was a traumatic-enough event to lower the laugh number down to about 35. Still better than 13, so the day's a success, we agree. Tattoos and music and movies and museums and maybe more talk about the people we work with; all good topics with Liz and I'm just hoping we'll be friends and have more laughs like this in the future.
I went to Annapolis with Aunt Lisa on Wednesday, and Thursday I went to Alexandria with Callie and spent the night there. Callie is getting engaged soon and invited me down to Mississippi around Christmas time to help her look for wedding paraphernalia.
CC, though, was good this week. I made productivity and I'm at peace with the job, as difficult as it may seem. I'm ready to just tackle it and make the most of the opportunity. And I'm very thankful for Liz and Arthur today; we kept each other laughing the whole time.
I was with Brenda Deans for about 6 hours yesterday. She had a colonoscopy procedure done at Howard, and she's this obese woman who's borderline retarded, with schizophrenia. She is a sweet person, and it honestly felt like I took the day off from work to be with her; she was simply in need of someone to transport her places and hold her hand through the waiting process, as well as help her with paperwork and answering questions. Ms. Deans is one of my favorites, because she's very compliant and is so sure of herself, even though she has every reason not to be. There's nothing stable in her life. Her mother died and her sister Regina and Regina's two evil kids moved into Ms. Deans' apartment. There was a shooting in the neighborhood the other day, and Ms. Deans was outside walking and heard it; the fact that it scared her broke my heart.
Waiting in Howard always gives me a fresh perspective. I used to hate that hospital because it was a training hospital where all the doctors had to take Medicaid, so obviously all the patients are poorer and rougher. But it's grown on me. A lot of the doctors are African; a lot of the nurses and orderlies are African, and the fact that they're from Africa and making a life for themselves in the DC area is encouraging. These people are brilliant, and I wonder what their lives were like in Africa; I wonder what their stories say about them, how they came to the States and under what circumstances they arrived. I wonder how far they could've gone in their lives had they been born here, and given the full opportunities of American citizenship. Then, looking at some of the patients and the underprivileged lives of some of the folks I work with, maybe its for the best they were born somewhere else. But I still wonder. I wonder if it breaks their heart to see the way some blacks carry themselves here; the destitution people fall into, the helplessness the city brings on the some of the black population and how there's so little motivation to leave the ghetto and become better. Better can meet becoming "whiter," which can be viewed as abandoning your people and betraying the culture subjected to prejudice and biases. I wonder if Africans hate it, or if they want to disassociate from it all. What a crazy world, to go from Africa to a culture where no one appreciates those who help the poor.
Serena Williams was playing tennis yesterday at Wimbledon against some Russian and everyone in the room was watching Serena. It was one of those moments where I appreciated that no matter what your financial situation, there are still common cultural ties that have the magical ability to erase every boundary. Every black in the waiting room: the orderlies, the doctor, the Howard med student, the desk attendant, and the poor folks with tattoos and diseases just waiting: they were all watching and rooting for Serena. And I got to see a bond being formed in a very subdued yet powerful way that I respected and gladly stepped back and admired. I told Ms. Deans Serena won, and she smiled and said "that's good."
Jesus is the author of love, whether its brotherly love, agape love, or love between a father and a child. Every day, I have the honor of seeing love happen in little ways, and there are these vignettes that remain snapshots in my mind of the beauty of our Lord, and the persistence and strength of love created before man was on Earth. These portraits are blessings, and reminders that He will prevail in darkness. God is love, and there is love and beauty everywhere.
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