I have spent months wallowing in frustration. Frustration with Sunny’s defiance, her meanness, her cruelty toward her sister, her disregard of others in the community life of our family.
Frustration has led to anger.
I recognize that it is ridiculous that I am angry with a broken ten-year-old for being broken. But knowing and changing are different things. I know my anger isn’t justified. Yet incident after incident of Sunny’s behaviors gives my brain and heart no time to recover and regain their foothold. I feel like I’m constantly scrambling for equilibrium, calmness, patience, or at least the appearance of patience.
My lack of patience feels all the more ridiculous because Sunny’s behavior at school and with others generally is quite good. She’s still mean to her sister all the time, but she saves her defiance and lack of consideration for home. That all fits. She’s rejecting us so it hurts less to leave us. And it fits the profile of a child with reactive attachment disorder. Talking with others who experience Sunny feels sometimes like being gaslit. Is she really so terrible at home? Or is it just me? Others like her and enjoy her company.
Then she unleashes a collection of nasty comments about my appearance, and refuses to clean up her own urine after she’s peed on her laundry rather than go downstairs to the bathroom, and I am reminded that my patience is genuinely being tested.
Overall, my patience is failing.
Sunny likely leaves on Tuesday after school. It will make for a very long day on Tuesday, but everyone in my household wants her home as soon as possible. She is ecstatic at the idea, and her behavior has improved a little now that she has a date and it is so close.
I constantly strive to live a life of compassion. That striving is part of my identity. Spending so much time failing to feel and behave compassionately has taken a huge toll on my self esteem and sense of self.
I am longing for this fresh start when Sunny leaves. I need to feel like I have a chance at behaving compassionately toward the other people I share this life with. Yet I know too well that a fresh start won’t happen unless I find a way to be compassionate toward myself. I need to forgive myself for losing my temper yesterday and raising my voice at her for being especially cruel to Sprout. I need to forgive myself for snapping at her when she demands things rather than asking nicely. I need to forgive myself for feeling so angry toward a broken little ten-year-old.
Compassion toward oneself is the hardest task to achieve. It will be harder than finding compassion toward Sunny, at which I’ve failed miserably lately. Yet it’s crucial that I find a sense of equilibrium after Sunny leaves, and that I do find the fresh start I’m so longing for.
I’ll start working toward that self-compassion through ritual. I’ll clear the house’s energy with candle and incense and fresh air and cleaning and salt. I’ll rip out her gross carpeting and put down new rugs, put on fresh bedding, repair a damaged wall, wallpaper it. I’ll move in my nice desk that currently resides in a busy hallway, move a lot of clutter into her closet in an organized way, and rearrange my dining room once the desk is out of the way in my new office. It’s all going to feel renewing.
I’ll go to therapy and talk with my brilliant insightful therapist. She’ll help me. She always does. Rather than just telling me I need to “be compassionate toward myself” like my old therapist (a mysterious and monumental task I never managed), she’ll break it down into bite-sized doable challenges week by week, until I find compassion oozing in around the edges.
I’m glad it’s summer while all this will be happening. I can open windows and let breezes through. Somehow physical fresh air feels renewing, and renewal is definitely what I need right now. Renewal, self-compassion, and perhaps, redemption.
Foster care is hard in ways I can’t begin to express to folks considering doing it. It will test every limit, challenge every inch of your self-understanding. You’ll be shocked at what you can feel toward some kids in some circumstances, and will wonder what the heck is wrong with you.
It will also, however, bring tremendous joys among the hardships. I remember when Mouse stopped projectile vomiting because we figured out her dairy allergy, and she started to gain weight finally. I remember when Sprout first started to eat on her own after we had force fed her Pediasure via a medicine syringe for days. I remember when Kiddo first told me she loved me, after a very difficult and trying year and a half of raising her.
Has it been worth it? Oh yes, yes it has. I’ve questioned that often, but if nothing else, foster care has brought me two of the great loves of my life: Kiddo and Sprout.
It has also, however, shaken me to my core. When I crawl out from under this current black cloud of frustration and shame about my anger toward Sunny’s behavior, I will be a different person than when I started. Hopefully I’ll be a more compassionate one in the end… toward even myself.
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 