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Friday, July 25, 2008

Are you unpoopular? Do you pop out at parties?

This week has been incredibly emotionally draining. I can home today and took a much needed bubble bath and then procedeed to crash on my little air mattress. I'm even too tired to let out the much needed obligatory end of the week cry.
One of the things we learn as site coordinators is to set boundaries. One of those boundaries is with ourself, meaning we don't take our clients emotional life home with us and we realize our limitations in helping them.
Right now we're dealing with an exhausting and difficult client. Today some more information came out which further complicates the issue. I leave for DC on Monday so it's hard thinking about leaving our SDs with this person but hopefully we've prepared them. And I know they're able to handle anything.
At lunch I got a call from a potentially new client. He sounded so sweet on the phone. While he was telling me his story, I could feel my heart going out to him. It was a weird feeling because I don't want to get too emotionally invested but I just don't want to shut off my human capacity to care for another person. How do I do this? is the question that comes to mind. Can you do both without hurting the other person or yourself?
I don't know why I'm so committed to service. You'd think that the more I did it, the more I would become endeared to it. Yet the opposite has happened. I find myself exhausted, cynical and apathetic. It's a weekly struggle to maintain the idealism and hope which brings meaning to my work and hope to the people I work with.
This break will be much needed and much appreciated. It'll be so fun to be sorrounded by the people that I've only been able to communicate with through e-mail. I'll also be able to see a couple of UF peeps which will make me the happiest person in the world.
If I was honest with myself and willing to share my vulnerabilities I would have to admit that I am quite lonely at times. Even though I tend to have a lot things to do and a lot of places to go, not having someone to share it with is hard. And at the end of the day when I'm so consumed with the emotions I've had through the day, it's just weird not having someone to open up to with that.
Tomorrow morning I'm participating in a kitchen clean-up at my church. It'll be fun. I'm excited to serve my new church and give back in some way. Plus I get to hang out with some more of the awesome peeps at my church. And there's free lunch, which I swear is not the reason I'm doing this...

So unless something profound happens over the weekend I won't start up with writing on the blog until I get back into the office on the 6th. Then I'll share all my juicy details with you and pictures! Until then stay classy!

Quote: I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.Dorothy Day.

Quote (2):I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.Dorothy Day.


Quote (3): Ah come on, Adrian, it's true. I was nobody. But that don't matter either, you know? 'Cause I was thinkin', it really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood. Rocky

1 comment:

Jim and Nancy Forest said...

Great quotes from Dorothy Day!

Jim Forest
www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/