What The World Needs Now Is Love

A typical day on the unit during the summer includes me reading the news on MSN, Fox News, and CNN, catching up on experts relationship advice on Oprah.com (I steal the therapists' ideas for me to use someday...), catch up on e-mails, or sit outside on the front step and read. We are averaging 2-4 kids on the unit every day. We sometimes go entire days not getting any phone calls for intakes at all. Today was not one of those days. I did three intakes today. It's often the intakes that take all of the emotional energy I could possibly have out of me. And it's doing multiple intakes in a day that makes me think I can't handle this job much longer.

One of the intakes I did tonight was with a girl I have worked with previously. She cried all the way through her intake interview and the 4 hours following. I sat down to talk to her this evening with one of the staff members and she tried to talk about what was going on, amidst her tears and blowing her nose. To give you a very short version of the story... She has lost both of her parents, her grandparent, and had her pregnancy terminated in the last 2 months. Toward the end of the conversation, she asked, "You aren't allowed to hug me, are you?" Oh, the heartbreak. All this poor girl needs is someone to love her, someone to hug her and hold her and let her know that although life sucks, there are people who love her. I wanted to bring her home with me to experience my family for a day. Needless to say, I hugged her. I sat next to her and held her hand and put my arm around her shoulders. I tried so hard to provide a tiny amount of that love she so desperately needs.

I am so grateful that I grew up in a family that shows constant affection. I can still, at almost 27 years old, walk up to my dad and get a bear hug. My parents have never left the house or gotten off the phone with me without hugging me and/or telling me that they love me. I have never had to wonder where that love was going to come from. I have never had to wonder if I'm going to be safe or protected or provided for. I have never had to deal with the responsibility of caring for siblings in the absence of other family members. I have never experienced the pain of abuse, neglect or abandonment. And for all of these things I am immensely grateful. And for the hundreds of kids out there I have worked with so far... Someone does love you. Someone does shed tears for you. And someone does wish they could provide you with the love, care, and hope that you deserve... But in the midst of wanting to help with that, her heart is breaking slowly but surely at realizing how harsh and cruel and evil the world can be. Like the popular '60s song says:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone.

A New Rope

Someone once said, "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on" (credit has been given to Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, among others...). Whatever the case, right now I feel like I'm clinging to that knot on the end of my rope for dear life. I don't know why, but it seems like several areas of life fall in on you at the same time. But I guess something I've thought about recently is that maybe my rope is fraying in too many places to tie knots and continue hanging on. Maybe I need a new rope...

**Image courtesy of google images.

Angel Wings

There are some days it just sucks to be a therapist. I remember several days I would hold back the tears as I finished my case notes in the Interns' Office at the BYU Comprehensive Clinic and would just barely make it to my car before I couldn't hold them back anymore. There were many, many days I somehow managed to make it north on 9th East, west on University Parkway for almost 6 miles, and follow a steep, curving road along 4th West in Orem to my apartment, all to end up in the parking lot and wonder how I made it safely, not being able to see through the tears. There were a few days I would sit in my car for nearly an hour, talking to my mom, trying to let go of whatever emotion got ahold of me that I somehow managed to borrow from my clients. After two years of this, I learned how to make that drive home a chance to let go of the emotion, to not carry it home with me. And that's a lesson that has come very much in handy.

Every once in awhile, though, working with the population of adolescents I work with, I manage to find something that just completely breaks my heart. And I find myself doing the same thing. Holding back tears, wishing that I could somehow change these kids' lives to make them not quite so atrocious. The true evils in the world show up with what children suffer at the hands of adults, particularly adults who are supposed to be their protectors and dependable loved ones. But as much as I wish I could do that, as unfair as I find their situation to be, I know I cannot be their savior. I am amazed on a very regular basis at the resilience of these kids. They are strong. They are examples of childlike qualities in the darkest situations imaginable. They are very often what the scriptures encourage adults to be.

More than anything, however, this job makes me grateful for my life, my family, my friends, and my talents and immense blessings that have made my life so amazing. My sheltered life has allowed me to become the joke at work. One of my coworkers teases me all the time about my angel wings and being careful not to bend them as try to make it through doors. As annoying as it gets sometimes, I'm so grateful that I have led a life that leads me to be the joke because I'm innocent and naive. I'm so grateful for my family who has provided that environment, the safety and security that came as being apart of the world I live in. And maybe, just maybe, I do get to be a bit of an angel in the life of the kids I work with. I hope that I can give them enough to hope to continue living life, to try, to work, and to recognize that there is something worth living for and despite the sometimes unspeakable things they've experienced, there is good in the world. There are real life angels who want to protect them and love them. Today is one of those days I am greatly humbled and so glad I am who I am, angel wings and all.

If It Were Easy

"The truest things I know about relationships is that sometimes we don't know anything at all. You can't always get the one you want, and sometimes the one you get may not be the right one at all. But if you have hope, the universe has a funny way of showing you exactly what you need. The challenge is to let yourself be alone until the right one shows up. But you can't hide, either. Heartbreak sucks, but not having heartbreak sucks more. The answers aren't in a lecture or a book. But maybe, if you'll get yourself happy, you'll find the right one. I believe this because, against all odds, I'm an optimist. That's the thing about love. If it were that easy, everyone would have it."

I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately. It's been well over a year since I've had a relationship, and even then that relationship wasn't one I want to admit even happened. It's been interesting, to say the least. It's been a time full of hope and optimism and bouts of depression and pessimism and loneliness and gratitude and every possible emotion you could imagine. And I have spent a good deal of that year going on dates, endlessly hoping for something I started to feel was never going to happen. Eventually I reached a point where I was just finished. A relationship I wanted never seemed to be in the cards, and I gave up for several months. Giving up, however, wasn't where I wanted to be. I was growing too content with being alone, too settled in my ways and in spending time with just my family, too willing to hide from the potential of growth and even (gulp) risk. And as I look back on the past decade of dating I've experienced, on the couples I've done therapy with, and on the way my beliefs about relationships have changed over time, I realize how little I really know. There are no solid answers. But the author of this quote was right... Having heartbreak does suck. Not having heartbreak sucks more. Not having heartbreak means not growing, not learning, not expanding your horizons, not learning to work with another person, not risking. And all of those things can lead to happier times, optimism, and even love.

So I've figured out that for everything I do know, I don't really know anything at all. I can help other people with their relationships, but it's much harder to help myself in my own. It's much harder to see my own faults, to be prepared to deal with someone else's faults, and to figure out how to be a strength to each other. But I've also figured out that as scary as the process is, it is also fun. It is an adventure, and it requires me sharing and learning and growing with someone who makes me better, who encourages those things, and who cares about me and respects me in a way that hasn't happened in a very long time. So maybe the author is right... Maybe I am an optimist. And maybe I do believe in love and falling in love and finding the right person.