Thoughts at the end of a long day...

It's odd how the day goes and how the day ends.  I felt terrible at work.  So many of my clients just frustrated me beyond words today.  E (who acts like he  wants me to do all the work and who sits there, essentially laughing at me), R  (who seems fine all the way to the Music Room, but when he gets there he looks like he’s going to pass out, and then suddenly he’s fine again when we go through the 15 minute process of getting the coats back on and very slowly walking back to the cottage), M (who reenacts the painful loss of his family and home over and over and over again, feeling the need to punch at me in the process, and then he can’t let me go at “goodbye”),  R2 (who didn’t get a nap and was sleeping mostly)... 

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm losing my heart for my work.  Lately I've been feeling so angry with the guys, and I feel so guilt-ridden for being angry.  Honestly, in E’s session I was thinking that I could just walk away from the Center and be done with this. I was so tired of always having to do all the work.  I'm really starting to get that my clients are not going to change, ever, unless something drastically changes in their lives.  They can't change, because if they did it would be hell for them.  To be too aware within a system that's so difficult is torture. Maybe it's not fair to ask any more of them.  But, yet, I want to.  I want them to be bigger than this tiny fishbowl they live in.  Is that totally unfair to ask?  Probably.

Before I left work this evening I stopped by the Exercise Room, looking for a colleague.  I knocked on the door, opened it, and there was B, standing right in front of the door.  He immediately approached me and took my hand and clung to me for a little while.  L, his staff person, got the treadmill started for him, and he guided him over to it, and B hopped on, got his balance in ten seconds, and then turned around and just as gracefully, hopped off (after walking backwards on this moving machine for a second or two, watching me), seeming still to want to come on over and hang out with me.

I guess that’s why I stay.  Because of the B moments.  Somehow, for now, they make up for the E, R, M, and R2 moments.   And because even though we have these horrible moments (sometimes weeks and months), I think it still makes a difference that I’m there.