The Journey and the Pain

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, it hit me that the pain I wrote about last evening and that I am feeling right now is not entirely different from the pain the kids we care for deal with.

Trust, betrayal, trusting again, hurt again.

The differences are significant, of course. Huge.

But there is something there that is the same.

And I am finding it difficult to trust again. I have made a decision to work on that -- to go back and work with people, risk getting hurt again. I have made that decision not because I feel that I have to, or that some cosmic force will punish me for doing it, but because I want to be there. For various reasons, not all easy to explain, I need to be there.

Again and again I am struck how experiences that are in some small way simliar to what our kids have experienced are SO hard for me. Betrayal and abandonment of someone one or thing that you have trusted hurts so deeply.

No wonder Miss E, for instance, has so completely shut down. How does a baby or toddler deal with these feelings? I find them overwhelming, and I have other parts of my life that are more secure. I have sources of strength and security to help me.

How foolish we are to ever think that we can win these kids over within months. How naive we all were when we thought that we would love them and that would be enough.

Healing takes time. Trust takes time.