Friday, May 1, 2009

10 months...

It's officially MAY. I've reached the point in the year where 6 months ago I said I would be freaking out...

I find it so hard to believe I landed in this foreign land almost 10 months ago.

At times it seems like I have been here much longer than that, that time is dragging on. It is hard to come home to a small 4-bedroom apartment, which you share with 6 others. A tiny room which never has belonged to you. The lack of furniture in my room causes my roommate and I to live in a mess of clutter...

...nothing has a place in this temporary lifestyle. There have been moments where, while surprising given the nature of the program, my life has become a bit routine.

Work. Rush home. Gym? Dinner. Shower. Bed. Work. Rush home. Gym? Dinner. Shower. Bed.
and so on...

The lack of time to just do nothing takes a toll causing me to feel worn down, and I think, "UGH! I can't believe it's only MAY."

There are other moments where I feel like I cannot believe May has come so quickly...

It was only 10 months ago where I boarded a plane, flew across this country nervous about what would await me, who I would encounter, what lessons I would learn...

Looking back at all of that past anticipation and nervousness, I smile at how silly it was to get scared when everything turned out fine.

I have already been here for 10 months, and now, sitting down with someone homeless to talk is easy for me... I've become a pro with stalking doctors in order to get supportive letters for social security applications, I've learned how to keep track of each of my 16 cases. I can give you details about any of them, without cheating, off the top of my head, unlike at the beginning of the year where I was constantly confusing clients and their diagnoses, doctors, and paperwork.

Only 10 months, and it's easy to overlook how much we have learned in this process at our jobs, and how much better at them we have gotten. While I have come closer to mastering the Social Security application process, the real value is how as Jesuit Volunteers, we've become accustomed to interacting on an even field with the homeless, or those typically seen as second-class citizens.

At the beginning of the year through the first-half, interaction with the homeless was not easy. The otherness that was automatically created between us, between provider and receiver, Giver and taker, was hard to ignore. It is difficult to help someone because you are a fellow human being, versus helping someone because it's you are superior. I would feel nervous, choose my words carefully, trying to respect their privacy but also trying to understand their situation as best I could. Walking on eggshells alot. While I felt I needed to hear their painful stories for my own good, my own social awakening, I did not want to trivialize their pain by acquiring any kind of selfish benefit through their difficult telling of it... even if my social awakening was a necessary condition to working for social justice.

It made me feel bad to want or crave their stories, to want to feel their pain too.

Their stories of extreme heartbreak, trauma and disaster, automatically isolated me.

As the year has gone on, this constant interaction has sort of caused all of these hesitancies to die down when I am sitting down with a client... after a while, the eggshells disappear. There is not enough time to feel awkward or isolated, or to not ask the questions that need to be asked. Conversations have become second-nature. Laughing has become second-nature, and many times, I forget we are in a work office, because it seems like we are two friends sitting down and talking. At the same time, discussing my client's mental problems for so long has caused me to not react with such shock anymore.

I have heard so many painful stories, it is hard to flinch at this point anymore. Before coming here, I had never met someone who was suicidal. Now, I've met so many, it's hard to look at them differently or react suprisingly.

Have I forgotten the pain that is there and become numb, or, did it never leave us and we've learned to live with it all along?

I think that when you erase the shock factor of a painful story when two people are sitting together, that wall that is placed between both of you comes down. They have lived with it for so long, it is part of them. They forget their stories are shocking, until they tell them to a complete stranger all over again. I tell myself that by not tearing up at every meeting or by not putting on a sorrowful face with them each time, we stop feeling sorry for them and we start being in solidarity. I am not ignoring their pain, but more than ever, I am embracing it.

I think that before, I was so focused on the shock of their pain, that their PAIN was driving my ambition to seek a better life for them. "They deserve a better life beacuse they've experienced such trauma..." I would say...

Now, it's more, "They've ALWAYS deserved a better life because they are a person, and everyone should have a roof over their heads, despite their traumas."


When that wall comes down, their pain stops being the focus of the conversation, and instead, they themselves become the focus. Their lives, their humor, their personality comes out... they as people.

"Treat the person, not the disease" would apply...

The approach to interaction with the homeless has become easier and freer... it's something I forget was difficult 10 months ago. I hope I never feel scared or uncomfortable to sit down with someone who I feel is different than me, economically, culturally, socially, etc. I want to grasp on to the easiness of the conversations that flow between my clients and I forever... the common thread that ties us all together as human beings is easy to overlook and forget sometimes, it's easy to alienate others and isolate yourself, but it is in standing with others that are different than you, who's lives you wish to better, that real change is made. You can't know how you're affecting other people's lives who you never interact with... no textbook can teach that. The only way you'll learn is by going out and talking to those that you want to be directly affecting...




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