Lessons & Reminders

"After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it."

- Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

I loved this book. There were many things I wanted to quote out of it, but this one I actually thought to mark. It's one I need to remember. Sometimes I like to whine. I like to think I'm the only person on earth experiencing my particular brand of pain. And that just isn't true. Whining about it & feeling sorry for myself doesn't change a darn thing. Infertility has stung me. Even if I do get pregnant at some point, it won't change the fact that I was stung. Nothing will. And that's okay. We all get stung in some way at some point in our lives.

The past few books I've read - Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett, Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd - have had a similar theme running through them. That theme is about wishing that you could stop time. Which may seem like an odd theme to resonate with me & where I am right now. The characters know that things cannot stay the way they are, but they are so in love with the moment that they want to just live in it forever. They know that where they are in life is temporary. We've all had times like that. I think we tend to see it most clearly when we are loving where we are and the way we are feeling. We forget that it is only transient when we don't love where we are, when we feel stuck. I need to remember that "this too shall pass". It's hard when there seems to be no end in sight, no resolution to your pain. But isn't it true that everything in life is temporary?

So, my recent "lessons read" are that everyone gets stung, and the pain is only temporary. It may not ever go away, but it will ebb. Good things to remember.

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I spent today with about 15 teenage boys in foster care. For work, I had to facilitate a focus group with them around how we could be better about involving them and their families in our work with them. (I work in child welfare, but not usually directly with the families & kids.) These boys were amazing and terrible at the same time. Intelligent and silly. Tough and so, so vulnerable. While we didn't ask them about why they came into foster care, some of them volunteered glimpses of their stories. One boy said he cried when he was removed from his parents even though he knew they were hurting him. Not one of those boys made fun of him. Not one. I was moved by how honest and outgoing these boys were, despite all they had been through. Sure we had some random rubber band fights, but they are little boys, after all.

Some of them had been recently adopted. Others were still hoping they'd be adopted at some point. And there were those who were just waiting until their 18th birthdays to see their parents again without a judge saying they can't.

These boys reminded me of why I do the work I do. Why it's important to look at HOW we do our work so that these kids get the best shot in life. I can get bogged down with the amount of paper on my desk, the deadlines, the bureaucracy. But it's important work. If I can't have my own kids, I can at least do my best to make sure "the system" actually works for these most vulnerable kids. Another good reminder for me.