This summer and fall have been filled with a constant flow of overnight house-guests. Second week of July, my good friend from Texas, we'll call her "Texas Ninja". She brought a friend with her the first few days and then her other friend drove in from Iowa for the weekend. For that visit, Texas Ninja slept on the sofa, and I borrowed a friend's air mattress for the spare bedroom for the Texas Ninja's friends.
Then came "California Drummer" for a weekend in August. Meanwhile, I was also in the midst of the homestudy process for becoming licensed as a foster parent/home. So when my father came for a two-week long visit at the beginning of September, I rushed out to get a twin bed the night before he arrived (I hadn't had any bed for my spare room and they stated it would be required prior to my last visit and licensure).
"Roomie" stayed with me for the second week in October, followed by "Redmond Homemaker" with her dog from the 20th to the 25th, and "Omaha Marrieds" for the weekend following. Needless to say, I am happy to finally have the place to myself with no prospective visitors on the horizon as I settle into hibernation mode for the imminent long Chicago winter.
A year ago I never thought I could live by myself. Ever since moving away from home after high school to go to college I have always had roommates. The thought of living by myself scared me. I thought I would isolate myself, become depressed. The thing that motivated me the most to get a place of my own was the hope of filling that empty space with that of a foster child. But it's been nine months now of having my own place and I am still on my own. And I absolutely love it!
While my father was here for two weeks and I found myself emotionally drained and barely able to function, I wondered, "How will I ever do this when a child is staying with me?" In these short nine months I've grown so used to being on my own and having my own space that I'm not sure how I will ever adjust to the change.
It seems that the spring was used as my nesting period, my getting used to living on my own and creating a comforting home environment. Summer and fall and the revolving door of house-guests were prep for sharing my space with a child. It really hasn't been all that bad. In fact, part of the greatness of having my own place has been the flexibility to have people stay over.
In my previous four years of living in Chicago, I have never had such a constant flow of visitors. Never before has my father been able to have such a long visit due to overstaying his welcome in a roommate's home as well. It feels good to have the home and stability to provide housing for my guests. And now I have it to provide a foster child too!
When I first got my job at the hospital I was commuting about an hour each way on a good day. After a commute home of 3 hours in a snowstorm on a bad day, I was fed up, I needed to live closer to work. As a therapist dedicated to my job, I needed something both convenient and affordable due to entry level wages and horrendous student loans.
Since we are a low-income hospital that borders one of the poorest sections of the city, there is a substantial amount of affordable housing around the hospital. That being said, it can also be a bit sketchy, and can get a little tricky finding the balance between affordability and safety. A little too far in one direction and the rent triples, and continues to rise as you go toward increasingly more desirable neighboorhoods. However, if you start going in the other direction, the prices fall drastically while the number of shooting fatalities listed on the police reports skyrockets.
Somehow, I was able to find my balance with an apartment I could afford, on a street that I feel safe, with a short 5-10 minute commute to work. The point of all this being; I'm not actually "within the thick of it." If I were within the thick of it, I would be on the other side of the hospital, afraid to leave my house at night in what some of my patients experience on a daily basis. If I were within the thick of it, I would be doing everything in my power to kick my cocaine addiction and still not be able to turn my back on it. But in reality, I only get to hear their filtered stories, and in that respect I am only an "outsider looking in." I hear their stories and then return to my sheltered life and my cozy little apartment where I'm nowhere close to the thick of it.
Instead, I am in a place somewhere in between. Geographically, I live with a primarily hispanic community directly south of me, with a less affluent black neighborhood just west of me, a gentrifying white population to the north, and another burgeoning white community to the east. Just in my 5-unit building alone, we meet all the demographics of the community surrounding us. Directly adjacent to me, the early 20s artistic, white, hipster roommate pair; below them the newly-wed, also employed in social services couple; in the basement, a latino couple with a baby; and below me, our token black man.
I spend my evenings in an apartment somewhere between the wide diversity. I spend my work days amongst people below the poverty line. And I spend my weekends socializing with other privileged white folk. Though, because of the field I chose, I may not make enough to live in a fancy neighborhood, I am able to live comfortably enough not to have to worry about where I will get my next meal. In that respect I am somewhere in between the rich and the poor, the minority and the majority, those turning a blind-eye and those within the thick of the poverty. Somehow, I am able to find my balance in a place between the two.
How about you? Are you on the front lines and within the thick of it, someplace in between and an outsider looking in, or are you turning a blind eye?
I got another foster care placement call this week. Somehow saying no was easier this time than last. Again, she didn't fit within the confines of my "ideal" child mold. An 11 year-old girl needing a transitory home between her current foster/adoptive family and going home to her biological mother. Even before speaking to the social worker in further detail, I had a feeling about the motives for the move. The girl wanted a home where she did not have an attachment to the caregiver so she could reestablish loyalties to her own mother. So rather than the role of teacher/therapist as I'd hoped, or parent or attachment figure as it would be with the two young children, I would be expected to be in yet another role, more of a friend, at a minimum of an arms length away, nonetheless.
My thoughts were taken back to my own 11 year-old self and remembering how hard my life was even as a child that had not experienced much trauma at that time in my life. Remembering how volatile my relationship with my mom was even without having a bunch of other foster mothers in the picture too. Take my feelings of not having my mother as there for me as I would have liked and magnify it by 100 for me to even imagine what this child might be going through.
I had to admit to the social worker that I was a bit triggered. What happened to the girl that when my parents got divorced at that age wanted to reach out and help others going through similar experiences? When did I become so afraid of pubescent girls? Probably, just in having been one and knowing how awful I was and not wanting to have to deal with one of me.
Part of me wonders if it might have been good for me. If I might have been able to work through some of my fears and my own mommy issues. Another part of me wonders if I'm really not as ready as I thought I was for this and I'll just keep turning down the kids one after another. But I have to hold on to the hope that the right kid will come along, that there will be a child that I am my most stable self with and that I will still have my own personal growth in that strength, stability, and vulnerability.
What do you think? Did I make the right decision? What are your experiences parenting or being 11 year-old girls? How have your mommy issues effected your decision to be a foster parent? How does the relationship you have/had with your mother effect your parenting skills?
