quote

I came across this quote today and found it very interesting:

"As I considered the many possessions I owned and couldn’t let go of, I came to realize the inertia was all about grief. I don’t think grief has a half-life. I think it is always there, undiminished, and it merely gets covered over by other experiences."


From a NYT article by Avery Corman. 

aunt/niece

I haven't blogged since I met my niece about 2 weeks ago. She was cute, just a little alien-looking, but not too bad. I got to help my sister and brother-in-law a little bit. I loved holding my niece and probably spoiled her a little bit. My favorite moment was right before I left. She had been trying to suck on her hand, but eventually gave up, but left it halfway in her mouth. I was holding her up and rubbing the back of her neck with my finger and I thought she was asleep, but I looked and she was wide awake and still and relaxed and comforted.

At work, it's pretty much a rule that if a young adult comes and they lost their parents, or they leave their parents behind, their aunts and/or uncles will insist that their niece or nephew lives with them. I have seen aunts and uncles act like parents to them. I get that now. :0)

The whole trip was generally a lot of fun. I saw many friends and family members, some that I hadn't seen in quite some time, including my pool league team. Man, I miss Thursday nights with those guys. There were many other people I would have liked to see, but my time was limited.

Work has been busy. Sometimes I feel like my identity lies primarily in my work, and that kinda bugs me. I mean, it's fulfilling and rewarding most days, but I want to be more than just my job. I want to be able to talk about more than just my job.

I have been training pretty hard for my half-marathon in May. I joined another one of those weight loss competitions at my gym, but this time I'm doing it in conjunction with my half-marathon training, so that should be fun to see what I can do in this time. I'm having some fun fiddling around with nutrition, trying some new foods in my diet, cutting out really bad foods, seeing if I notice any difference in energy levels or how my body feels and operates. Also, I am waiting endlessly for a certain phone call...

one bag

Today at work I helped my Cuban clients move into their new apartment. It was 3 weeks coming, but we finished it today (except for some chairs for their kitchen table). We went to pick up a bunch of their stuff from their host home. There were about 12 bags full of random stuff; clothes, shoes, coats, sheets, curtains, and stuff. The father of the family said, "We came to America with one bag...." as he looked at the piles of stuff. It was a thoughtful and reflective comment. I have really enjoyed working with the Cuban family. I was a little worried when we had a week to prepare for them, but it has turned out quite well. They are educated and curious and eager and capable. The father is even handy around the house. I enjoy being able to communicate with them, since I can't with most of my clients. They're generally really, really wonderful people. I'm privileged to help guide them through their first few months in America.

On another note, I get to go to Michigan this week. I'm really excited to meet my new niece! I also have plans to hang out with my old pool league team. I miss pool league a lot, so I'm very happy that I can be in town for a Thursday night. I'm very much looking forward to this trip.

vamlumatimes

As a follow up to my last venting post, I felt so sick the next day with uncontrollable coughing and feeling winded when I stood up and walked 5 steps from a chair, I went to urgent care. The doctor took a chest x-ray because he was concerned with how my lungs sounded. The x-ray turned out okay, so after a flu test and a nebulizer, he just told me it was a bad virus, and told me he'd give me a note so that I wouldn't have to work for the rest of the week (which was Thursday night and all of Friday, but that was going to be a lot of hours for me). I went back to the office quickly, and ran one other quick errand, but then I went home to rest for a few days. It was pretty great. I got a lot of cleaning and organizing done around the house over the next few days. When I went back to work on Monday, I felt relaxed and way less stressed out.  Today, Tuesday, I started to feel stressed out again, but not nearly as bad as last week. Also, I don't have to go to the airport at all this week, which always makes me feel better.

Today was Valentine's Day, which is not something I really care about. Me & Kurt were going to make fajitas (more Kurt than me, probably), but he had a terrible day at work, so he wasn't feeling up to it, so we went to Waverly's Trackside Bar & Grill. It was pretty fun. We played keno. He made a pattern of a heart on his keno sheet, then we had ice cream sandwiches. Then we went back to my place and watched King of the Hill.

He didn't win anything with his quarter games, but I won $7 with my $1 game!

venting

I've been thinking a lot about job burnout lately. I know it is something completely common in the social work field. You'd think people would figure out a way to fix it, and if someone has figured it out, they haven't told my place of work. I read somewhere that the biggest source of burnout in the social work field is having too much to do and not enough time to do it in. That describes my life for the past few weeks. And you know what makes me frustrated? I never wanted to be a social worker, and here I am, being a social worker.

This week is outrageous. I worked 12 hours today. It will likely be 12 hours tomorrow, as well. The thing that bugs me is that these are all things about which I have no choice. Everyone likes to tell us to have boundaries to keep ourselves sane and destressed, but then work puts us in a situation where if we don't do the work, we'll get in trouble. So, in essence, we don't have a choice. This week, I don't have a choice that I have to work late 2 nights, in fact, cancelling plans I had made in my personal life, plans that I had been looking forward to for a long time. Just thinking about that gets me more angry and upset. If I don't do what I have on my work calendar this week, no one else will do it, and I'll get in trouble.

They also like to tell us to communicate and ask for help when we need it. I did that this week. I voiced my concerns and I have been completely ignored. If anyone cares at all that this job is ruining my week and making me bitter and burnt out, they are not sending me an email or taking a minute to encourage me and try to work with me and see if I can get a day off next week or something like that. Instead, I got an email that said, "Hey, it won't be that bad!" But the reason the person in email said it wouldn't be that bad was because they forgot about a client, and all the hours of work I would have to be putting into that client for this week. So, there was both a lack of awareness about the demands of the week and my job, and I felt like it was an insulting attempt to placate me.

Because I've been working very hard for long hours recently (I rarely get a lunch or breaks), I feel like I am becoming my job. I like a lot of parts about my job; the diversity, teaching refugees about America, reuniting families, and so much more. But I want that to be just one part of me. I don't want to be "senior case manager". I want to be Renae. And so often lately, I am just "senior case manager". I feel like I am disappearing, and I don't know how to get me back. Even if I knew, I wouldn't have the time. And so I fade away...

My sister will be giving birth hopefully in the next day or two. Two years ago today I had a friend who died. I have a boyfriend and a social life. I was sick this past weekend, and I was not able to take the time to fully recover, and so my cough is getting worse, but I don't know when I'll have time to go to the doctor. I've postponed medical appointments several times recently because of pressure at work to complete tasks that I couldn't reschedule. Because I'm sick, I'm missing out on my training for the Lincoln Half-Marathon. All these things...I have no time to think about, no time to reflect, no time to remember, no time to be thankful, no time to heal, no time to rest...this is not how it's supposed to be. Social work is not the type of work I want to do, but I could handle it if it weren't so demanding, if it didn't cost so much. I could handle it a little better if I didn't feel like I was the sacrifice my agency was making to improve their program and reputation in the community. I think I could handle it better if they realized that they were sacrificing me.

All this...ramblings of a clearly overworked and burned out social worker. Ugh. How typical. And since I got home at 10:30, and took some time to check my Facebook and write this, I will go to bed late, and I have to get up early tomorrow and do it all over again...

.

I'm sick. I've been sick for a few days now. It's probably what one calls "the common cold". My nose is majorly stuffed and runny, I have a dry cough, and my ears are crackly. Last night, I searched "sinus pressure points" online, and I found this massage you can do that is supposed to open up your sinuses, so I tried it, and it really helped! After I do the sinus massage, a ton of snot drains out and I feel much better (TMI? sorry). Everyone should try it.

This past week was a very stressful and exhausting week at work. I had a late night airport arrival, which I dislike doing. There was cultural orientation, which always takes a lot of energy. We had a site visit and were audited, which was also stressful and draining. It was a very successful audit and meant a lot to our program, as it was the first one since the big meltdown. The recommendations were minor compared to previous audits, so it has been deemed a success by most everyone. I consider a professional success that things went so well, too. It's a good feeling, I guess, which I'm still not quite used to having in relation to my job.

We're still waiting for the arrival of my niece. I'm excited to see pictures and I'm even more excited to visit at the end of this month!

I just finished reading a blog written by a young woman who lives and works in East Africa, interviewing and processing refugees in the refugee camps (she's the front end of refugee resettlement, and I'm the back end of refugee resettlement). I really enjoyed reading her blog and hearing the foreign and fun tidbits about her life overseas. I remember my days living overseas. I wrote in my blog almost every day. It was an adventure. It was hard. I have no illusions about what it's like to live overseas, and I don't often long to do it again, even after reading that blog. I do think that I'd like to live overseas again someday, but I don't know under what circumstances I would be willing to do it.

Plus, who needs to live abroad when your job makes you feel like you live abroad sometimes? Today I visited with a refugee client of our that was resettled in July. Sure the home was "American-like" in its construction, but they all sat on the floor, and they had one bedroom with a stripped bed, and another room where they all actually sleep (on the floor). So I see plenty of foreign things here. And there's plenty of awkward moments where you can't communicate well, or you don't know if the other person speaks English or not, so you just say a few works and hope they respond.

The job has been continuously improving the past month. I did not blog during the many months of nightmarish existence that work put upon me, and parts of me is glad I did not document it. Yes, I do like to write about stuff in my life so I can remember it better years down the line, but I just don't think that was the case July to early October.

Thanksgiving was nice around here. I had a few low key, relaxing days, bopping around town with Kurt and friends, and hanging around my apartment. The stomach flu interrupted those lovely days of bopping around. Early Saturday morning. I was awoken at about 3am that morning feeling sick, and went back and forth between toilet, bathroom floor, and bed, until it culminated into me retching at 5:30. Heavens, I hate doing that. Kurt says I have a phobia. I slowly felt better after that, and was back on my feet and eating fast food on Sunday.

I look forward to going to Michigan for the weekend before Christmas. I look forward to Kurt starting his job. I look forward to things now. It's nice.