Passionless

I think I have used foster parenting as a shield, and I'm not sure to what extent that is a good or a bad thing.

See, there are things about my job that I love, and there are things that I don't like and don't really think are important. I often look at the people around me and wonder how they can find it important. I think that my colleagues don't have a sense of proportion. Everything is taken very seriously; everything is debated; every argument is considered. We get caught up in issues and forget that nothing hangs on them.

There are tasks that must be done, but doing them or not doing them is just not going to make much of a difference.

And when I was doing foster care I had a buffer between myself and all that. I allowed myself to avoid the most (to me) meaningless of tasks and even to feel a bit scornful of people who took them seriously because I did things that Mattered In The World. I did things that changed people's lives, at least some people's live.

Now though I am not doing care and not even committed to doing it again.

It is a strange place that I find myself. I expect to care about it again. I predict that I will want to do it again, but at this point I don't. I don't even want to plan a quilt (which is a pretty big deal). I wouldn't be surprised if it is information about a particular kid that shakes me out of this state. I have a feeling that I could get energetic about caring for a particular youth in a way that I can't get energetic about "doing care."

But in any case, I have not plans to do care again in the near future.

So I have no reason not to invest time in some of the things that I have tended not to do. I have no reason not to join my colleagues in their dedication to minutiae. I too can dedicated hours and hours to doing a very good job on reports that will go no where and affect no one. I can prepare and invest energy in debates that result in nothing. And I do it well, too. I suppose that is what bothers me the most. I can fall into that life again and start believing that all the petty politics is important, only periodically waking up and realizing how absurd my life is.

My bioboys are growing older and becoming more independent. No one is demanding hours of time and deep energy of my soul.

So now I too can join the pod people. I can go to sleep and wake up as one of them. I will care about what they care about. I can think the trivial is important and forget that there is real human pain and suffering in the world. Just keep walking and show no emotion and you won't get caught.

Don't take that last paragraph too seriously. My husband rented Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) last week. I don't really feel like that.

But I almost do.