A whole new world

So I am half a month into my new job and what a huge eye opener it has been.   The very nature of social work is demanding and intense and then you add the element of homelessness and addiction the time of a world wide pandemic and it’s a mindf*ck of note.

I have realized there is so much I don’t know and need to learn but I am also reminded I am good with people.  I like people!  I am good at building trust and relationship and being sincere and non judgmental.  Apart from the obvious stuff I need to learn like SASSA grants and acts & laws I need to learn the nature and culture of homelessness and addiction.  They seem to go hand in hand.  I also need to learn to be less trusting and use my head more and my heart less.  Jo & I just want to love people and help so we don’t always listen to our gut.  She is better than me at discerning but her heart too directs her hands and feet.  We want to believe them, we want to trust.  Nicolene the previous social worker has a super sharp BS detector, mine needs a great deal of work. 

                                            (pic not of an actual client as we respect their privacy)

 

I am learning everyone’s names and stories and love walking in and greeting everyone in our extended family.  I am so proud of the steps they take as they try to get back on their feet, and then saddened when they self sabotage.  I have so many ideas I want to implement but I need to take it slow and get familiar with each family and their story.  Everyone has strengths and talents and I want to help them find out what those are and develop them.  I want to try and teach them to be cycle breakers so all these gorgeous little kids we have staying there choose a different path one day.  I feel privileged and grateful to meet people whose lives are so very different from mine.  My problems and stress are big and real to me as theirs are to them.  I do not compare and although I am grateful, I do not feel guilty for all I have.  We are connected by our humanity and this time and place.

 

My work is all consuming.  I think about them at night and when I wake up in the morning.  Yes I know I need boundaries, I will get there.  I will learn to balance my personal life and my work life.   I will make mistakes and errors of judgment for sure but I will never be cynical.  I will work hard and I will love hard.  The day before I started work I was so incredibly nervous I wanted to vomit.  I was walking outside in my potted garden in my courtyard and I went to my Pops plant for a chat.  It’s this beautiful jasmine plant I asked him to buy me for Christmas when he had cancer.  He was diagnosed in that August and every time I prayed for him or thought about him I would smell jasmine and there would be a bush somewhere close by.  So there I am talking to my late father in the form of this beautiful plant just starting to blossom as one generally does.  “Dad what would you say to me right now?” 

“Just do your best my girl, that is all you can do.”

Very Pops right?   Simple and true words that made me feel calmer.

So now I go to work and it’s busy and messy and intense and hard and my dystonia is pretty bad from stress but I just do my best, because that is all I can really do.