Fly

The past two weeks I've been listening to a specific track over and over. It's the last song I listen to before I get out of my car going to work and the last song I listen to before I walk into my house when I get home. That song is Fly by Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. Besides the fact that the song is really good, there are so many lyrics in it that just seem to particularly fit my life.

"I came to win, to fight, to conquer, to thrive. I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise, to fly"

I'm not going to let my life bring me down right now. As much stress and unhappiness as I've had in my life the last few years, the last two weeks have been just as bad, if not worse. I had asked Manuel not to talk to me because he kept saying the same things over and over without actually listening to what I was saying. It was beginning to get really painful because I had deliberately protected his feelings and said what I needed to respectfully and he didn't get it. Then I said the same thing again, but a little meaner, and he still didn't get it. It's become unbearable because every time he catches me he starts having the same conversation again. It's hard to explain, but it's not like he's begging me back. Part of him is begging me, part of him just realizes he royally screwed up and he's pissed because he doesn't think it's his fault. He goes back and forth between crying that he misses me and completely screaming at me and blaming me for everything.

"Me, me, me against them. Me against enemies, me against friends. Somehow they all seem to become one, a sea full of sharks and they all smell blood."

Your true friends come out when you're getting a divorce. Also, the truth of the past 3 years comes out. It's ugly. It's hurtful. It's depressing. You have to reconvince yourself everyday that you're making the right choice. I just keep saying "those you know the least about you always have the most to say". I've been called a slut, a whore, a gold digger. I've been deleted by plenty of people on Facebook. The "teams" have been picked, the lines have been drawn and the truth is quite painful to face at times.

"Cause I am not a word, I am not a line, I am not a girl that can ever be defined. I am not fly, I am levitation, I represent an entire generation"

I keep reminding myself that I know who I am. I know what I need. I know what I deserve and I know what I don't deserve. When I told all this to my dad, I said "at some point I just need to be selfish, for once" and my dad said the smartest thing ever "It's not selfishness, sis, it's self preservation".

I'm going to fly. I'm going to thrive. I'm going to win. I'm going to be okay and the more I tell myself that, the more I'll believe it.

Untitled

Seriously. Seriously. Seriously.
I don't even know where to begin.
Today was by far my worst day ever at work and my brain is literally soup right now. tomato. basil. soup.

I never intended for this blog to be solely about my job, but hey, that's what takes up 40+ hours of every week and it happens to be having a profound affect on me (positively).
I went to work today with a very specific plan. I'm working the day shift, 7-3:30, the boys are back in school from Christmas break. I'll have at least 5 free hours that I can spend doing my paperwork and catching up on what I'm behind on. First rule of residential: never make a plan for your day. It's a surefire way to guarantee that absolutely none of it will work out.

By 9:30 am I should have been an hour into paperwork...instead I was just getting out of a restraint where I had been bit and spit on. Amazing.

By 11:30 am, three of my boys were refusing to go back to school.

By 1:30 pm, one of those boys was throwing chairs at staff.

By 2:00 pm, we had removed anything that could be thrown from the common area and were in a literal standoff with the three boys, waiting for them to riot.

By 2:10 pm, the gentleman visiting from corporate, along with 3/4 of the administrative team and most of the clinical staff, were standing in our common area making sure everything was okay.

By 3:00, myself and another staff had the remaining 9 boys off the program and in the swimming pool.

By 4:00, I was filling out my second police report of the day and the decision was made for me to stay on second shift to ensure the safety of staff. My coworkers stayed too.

By 4:15 pm I was calming down a client who decided to punch the wall repeatedly.

By 4:30 pm I had passed out ibuprofen and bandaids to two separate boys for wall punching episodes.

Then....there was the brief period of peace. We all watched a movie in the conference room and everything was a-okay.

Then...by 9:30, one of the boys on my co-case, who just had an individual with his case manager, and an individual with me two days ago, completely forgot everything we said and flipped out and punched a staff member.

By 9:45 we were in our second restraint of the day.

By 10:00 I was fighting back the tears of a very disappointed staff member who was stretched to her emotional capacity.

By 11:00 I was recovering with my staff buddy/co-case  who had just spent the last hour debriefing our client and trying to understand what the heck had happened with him.

By 11:15 a second client told night staff to send me to his door, upon opening his door he showed me the pencil he had broken into tiny bits and the words "F U Bitch" that he had carved into the door. He simply nodded his head when I asked "is that for me?"

By 11:30 I was clocking out and heading to my car.

I cried on the way home. I cried because today I felt like I did nothing right. I felt like I was running up the down escalator. I cried because a client I'm very invested in told me something in his individual that ripped my heart to shreds. He told me his biggest struggle is earning something, because his entire life he's been trying to get his mom's attention and earn her love and it just doesn't work. I cried because no child deserves that feeling. I cried because I have 12 broken boys that I absolutely love and today they tried to test that.

Here's the best part of all. I'm going back tomorrow. I'm going back with a smile on my face, a song in my heart and a lot of prayer. Why? Because it's my job. It's my job to love those boys and I love that I do. They may be cray-cray to the max, but they're still just little boys.

Make Me Proud

These two tweets absolutely made my day today:

abbyblujay 

@sarah_graceless so far this year you're my hero cuz you're strong enough to know when you need to walk away. looooove you : )

 

ANieceOnASea 

@sarah_graceless 2012 is going to be a year of empowerment! There's nothing better than a woman who realizes she doesn't have to give up!

 

These two ladies are amazing and have offered me more support than I could ever imagine and I am so stoked to call them my friends. "Support in what?" you may ask. Well, support in making what is arguably the hardest decision of my adult life. The decision to get a divorce. 

I generally try to refrain from making my blog an area of venting/ranting/gossiping. I don't want to disrespect my husband in any way, I just want to express how I feel at this very moment in time. For the past 2 1/2 years I have been with my husband. Just over 2 years ago, my mom died suddenly of a heart attack. These two events are completely connected and not in a good way. In a nutshell, when my mom died I stopped showering and eating, started being crazy and was ridiculously depressed. My husband (boyfriend of 3 months at the time) stuck around. I should mention during this time he was supportive, yet not the best rock in the world, he did ask me why I wasn't showering...let's call that a bad question to ask. A few months after this, he exhibited his first episode of less than stellar behavior. I don't want to go into a lot of detail but let's just say it was bad and I wanted to leave him but I was scared and I felt bad because he hadn't left me. Can I also mention that I was barely 21 years old, had just gone through the single most traumatic thing in my life and was trying to finish college? Someone else should have been making decisions for me. 

Basically, from that point on my relationship just snowballed. Now, I'm 23, married to a man I don't love for all the wrong reasons. I worked so hard on my dream wedding that I gave up my dream groom and dream marriage. I've completely botched 2011. I've essentially wasted 3 years of my life and thousands of dollars. However, I came to this realization. I can continue to be married for all the wrong reasons and be a 23 year old woman who is ridiculously miserable, unsafe and unhappy or...I can be a 23 year old divorcee who has a second chance at life. 

So...here's to 2012! Let's see what happens :)