Casework blues

A beaten caseworker is a competent caseworker... not.

For the past seven weeks I have been in training as a Child Welfare caseworker. If the people in my program irritated me before, they are now occupying the first fifteen slots in my not much longer list of people who make me very angry, very regularly.

I do not come from a typical social work background. For one, I come from a middle-class (perhaps upper-middle...I'm not really sure) Jewish family. For another, I never had use for a caseworker myself while growing up. I have never been addicted to any substance, was never in foster care, have not been in a mental institution, and was never, ever, even once, hit by anyone in my family. Or anyone at all, for that matter. This, along with my ability to spell, punctuate correctly, use proper sentence structure, and understand subject-verb agreement, puts me in the nosebleed section of the game, if all the other social workers were actually playing ball. Actually, I probably stayed home from the game to pick my toe lint.

Social workers, at least the ones in my program, wear their milieu of social ills like a badge of honor, a woe-is-me flashing neon sign on their chests or oversized foreheads. Not only do most of our classes become a competition for whose life was the hardest, they become full disclosure group therapy sessions, which most of the professors, sadly enough, are only too happy to indulge. One of the few ways I comfort myself is by nicknaming the various students by their pronouncement they wear only too well. There's "Bipolar Billy," and of course, "Heroin Hannah." There's even a "Not-sure-what's-wrong-with-him-but-we've-been-told-it's-back-problems-but-we-think-it's-a-prescription-painkiller-addiction-but-at-any-rate-it-takes-him-five-minutes-to-get-a-sentence-out-and-he-disappears-halfway-through-every-semester Jim." You get the point.

Any mention of flaws in the foster care system and Foster Care Fanny has a story about the time her alcoholic foster father came home drunk and called her a hussy. Any mention of whether there is ever a past-tense for an addict and all the former (or current, if there can be no such thing as former) addicts pipe up menacingly. It's one thing to use your past to inform your current professional practice. It's quite another to practice informing other current professionals of your past. Constantly. To no benefit.

Some of the comments have not even the remotest relevance to social work at all. My all-time favorite was, "Yeah, um, I had a dream last night that I had a penis. What would Freud say about that?"

I also liked, "My little boy is three and he like to wear pink, n'at. My sister say he a queer."

Come on, that's not even a question.

In one of my classes last semester, we were having a "discussion" about whether it was acceptable to hit your children to discipline them. I hardly need to say that the battle lines were drawn and paralleled what people had experienced in their own childhood. For the most part, it was, "I was hit and I'm fine." It also turned into a "who was whupped the most and the hardest and the most frequently" contest. The shocking part, after getting over how many of my classmates had been hit, was that everyone was laughing about it, bonding over the commonalities of their corporal punishment. "Oh, when you see that look in their eye, and you just know they going for the paddle." "How about them belts with the extra large buckle so you know he mean business?" Everyone laughs appreciatively, apparently reminiscing about their last paddling.

We repeated a similar exercise that managed to remain much more on topic in our training. The trainer put up an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper on one wall, with the word, "OK" written boldly. On the opposite side, a paper stated, "Not OK." The trainer would read a statement and we had to stand near the paper that applied to our thoughts on it. One of the statements was, "hitting a two year old on the backside with a wooden spoon." Needless to say, I was in the minority, standing by the "not ok" sign. Each of us stated our opinion and why were standing where we were. Those who thought it was acceptable stated that you weren't actually hurting the child, just teaching him a lesson by hitting him. Two-year-olds, they reasoned, could not understand a verbal explanation of why what they did was wrong, so they needed the physical memory of being hit to remind them to not run out in the street (or whatever the offense was) again. I said that I believe there was never a necessity for physical punishment, and that, if the two-year-old could not understand a verbal explanation, he certainly would not be able to rationalize why he was being hit by a spoon, a half hour after running in the street. He would only come to fear the spoon and possibly, the parent.

The next day, we were being shown slides of various injuries caused by abuse and we were trying to guess what had caused the injury. For example, four small bruises together with a separate smaller mark a little farther away on the neck is probably a grab mark. With one mark, I guessed it was a belt, and was derided by a coworker for thinking so. She stated, with an air of one-who-has-been-hit, that it was, most definitely a paddle mark, and everyone laughed appreciatively. It turned out, she was right, and after the declaration by the instructor, she quite audibly stated, "Well, Tova wouldn't know. She wasn't even hit by a wooden spoon."

Looking back I should have responded to the white hot anger that surged up in me at this comment, but I did not. Many times, I have wanted to say something to this particular girl, because she manages to mutter a contradiction to every single comment I make in class. She purposely tries to show me up, especially after I receive praise from the instructor for being well-spoken, deep, or insightful. What she said was that I couldn't recognize an injury because I myself had not experienced it as a child, but what she was really saying was," Go back to Rhode Island. You don't belong here. You look wrong, you speak wrong, you act wrong. You're a know-it-all who is determined to show us all up, and you have money and you didn't have to work to get through school and you are also white and no one here likes you because you make us feel uncomfortable and you don't fit in."

And that can be a little hard to swallow as a social worker who is trying to be open-minded, non-judgmental, and all those other social work things they teach you early on. Well, bitch, I hate to tell you, but open-mindedness goes both ways, so stop hating me because I can form full sentences.

apartment

I'm really excited about my new apartment. I haven't even sealed the deal yet-haven't given the leasing company the deposit check. But I will tomorrow. I'm obsessed. I've been in this place I'm at now for almost two years, and it's serves me well, but it's unkempt. The floors are dull, the bathroom moldy. The closet doors don't really close. the back stairs and basement stairs feel as though they are about to collapse. And it's a bitch to heat in the winter. For the past several years, there has not been a complete turnover of renters, just one or two at a time, so the landlord doesn't get in in between the fix up the place. And I guess that's the benefit of a management company.

Today, I went with the leasing agent first to a two bedroom that was a little too dark, a little too small, and a little too boring. She asked if I could expand my budget a bit. I could. We went to a quieter street in the beautiful neighborhood of Victorian homes that I have become obsessed with in the last month. The apartment is two stories tall within a three story, potentially 150 year old building. You go in this side entrance and are met by a grand staircase with a huge picture window. Inside, the ceilings seem miles above, the paint in clean and fresh, the light is pouring in the huge windows. The carpeting is only two weeks old, not yet lived in. There is a kitchen with a granite island counter, new appliances. Little touches, like a brick mantel. A little nook. For this nook I am already planning an overstuffed chair, in which I will spend many lazy Sunday afternoons reading as the sun comes pouring in the window and warming me. I will nap in this nook.

Upstairs, there is a new, moldless bathroom. And two bedrooms, both huge, with big, walkable closets. One bedroom which will be my roommate's, has sloping ceilings and three oddly placed windows. The other, which will be mine (oh yes, it will be mine), is in a damn turret. There's a square part to the room, where I guess my bed will go, and then there is a sunny circular space with windows all around and an amazing view of the entire East End of Pittsburgh. I. Love. It.

It's near a parklet and a farmers' market and everything. My dog is welcome. There is parking in the back. And all utilities but electricity are included. I hate paying utilities, All the envelopes, licking, check-writing, stamp-buying.

There is even a convenience store around the corner. And it sells beer. The post office is a block away, the bus a block away. A half dozen neighborhoods within walking distance, all ones I want to go to. I am calling the leasing agent first thing tomorrow. I will be at the office at 4:30 with a check in hand, ready to claim this bitch.

hair

When I was born, I had a head full of hair. It wasn’t just a lot of hair for a baby, it was a lot of hair in general. It was jet black, and so thick you couldn’t see my scalp, even right out of the womb. Well, probably right out of the womb, it was pressed flat to my head and rather damp, but I imagine that once I was dried off and wrapped in a blankie, I was quite the startling sight. With blue eyes that never darkened, pale skin, and enough fat rolls to earn the nickname, “the Michelin Man,” my appearance caused complete strangers to stare at me. When I say I was striking, I don’t necessarily mean in a beautiful way, but I was surely arresting.

From the time I was born until I was eleven, my hair was never cut. And I mean never. A trip to the salon meant that my long curly hair was deeply conditioned, combed out, and maybe a half inch was snipped off the bottom. Then it was braided into long neat plaits, with the ends curled. When I was only ten months old, my hair was long enough for two French braids. I know it’s true because I’ve seen pictures. And from there, it just grew. Even when I was only a few years old, I could never wear it down because it would get too tangled. All the girls in class wanted to play with it, but I wouldn’t let anyone touch it. If I did, I feared their fingers would become entangled forever and I would have to spend a painful eternity brushing the whole thing out. Ironic that I had the most feminine, flowing locks in the whole grade, but I couldn’t even brush or do my own hair.

My nanny/second mom, Edrie, had only to sit in a chair or on the floor with a brush in her hand and her knees splayed and I instantly ran over to her so she could do my hair. She was firm but gentle enough, even though it hurt to have her tugging at my head. Edrie came from one of the only black families in town, and everyone knew her as “the singing hallmark lady,” but I didn’t know that race had anything to do with how she combed and braided my hair. She did my hair similarly to how she did her niece’s hair, and she was my best friend, so I assumed we should have the same hair. The most my mom could manage was two braids, because I would start crying when she would tug to brush it out. Edrie, however, a wise woman of many “hallmark” phrases of her own, would tell me, “whining only gets you one thing; me angry.” So I shut my mouth, and sat motionlessly while Edrie did cornrows, microbraids, two-into-ones, and the next day at school, friends would ooh and ahh about the concoction she’d come up with to keep my hair in place and untangled for as long as possible. Edrie had been doing my hair since all there was to do was two “palm trees,” little gatherings of hair splaying out on every side of a ponytail holder.”

My hair’s length had nothing to do with my preference. It didn’t really have anything to do with me. It had everything to do with my mom. My mom seemed to be the only one who had stick-straight, straw-thin hair. Us children had inherited my father’s thick, curly, Jewish hair. Just as my mother had never been Jewish enough for my father, according to his family (she was raised reform, and he was conservative), her hair was never enough, so she lived through ours. My mom has had the exact same chin-length bob since she was eight. It has gotten a little reddish recently as she has tried to cover the grays. But every time she has tried to grow it longer, it becomes brittle and thinner. So she did not let me cut my hair. I didn’t really mind, but when my family moved to Minnesota when I was seven, my hair now extended beyond my butt, and I no longer had Edrie to braid it for me. It was like this uncontrollable monster, not even attached to my own body. Pulling it through a ponytail holder required vigorous, full-body movements. Every time I sat down, I had to sweep it in front of me so I wouldn’t yank my neck back sitting on it. The motion was like a tic and it was completely automatic. My mid-thigh hair probably weighed several pounds, and it took hours upon hours to dry; it would freeze it the sub-Arctic Minnesotan weathers. It would constantly get stuck on everything and tangled in everything and I was always shedding feet-long hairs everywhere I went.

I probably began petitioning my mom to let me cut it when I was around nine or so. It took two full years of pleading, cajoling, and flat-out begging before she let me cut it. It was her hair more than mine, her pride and joy. The compliments cost her nothing, but having my hair shut in car doors were more than a pain in the ass. Her allowing me to finally cut it probably was due to the fact that my pleas had grown in intensity; we had just moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and I was desperate to fit in at my new school, an all-girls Quaker school chock full of WASPy girls who would never accept me anyway. I didn’t know that their non-acceptance of me would run beyond materials and aesthetic goods. All I knew was that I wanted milky pens, a baby G watch, New Balance sneakers, and shoulder-length straight hair. So my mom dropped me off at her fantastically stylish gay stylist, Paul. She couldn’t even come in; that’s how devastated she was. I went with a few of my new friends. Paul cut off 21 inches and the tiniest shred of my childhood. I felt lightheaded and elated. I also felt like I had a phantom limb for weeks. I would run my hands through it and be shocked when it ended. I would put it in a ponytail and it would go through with one tug. I continued to make a sweeping motion to my front every time I sat down. My mom wouldn’t let me donate it to locks of love, though they could have made two wigs out of it. She insisted on keeping it. I have no idea where it is now, and I am pretty sure she doesn’t either.

A lot of things happened between then and my freshman year of college, all various adolescent expressions of myself through hair. I bleached it and dyed it blue, pink, and turquoise in turn, further jeopardizing any shot I would have had at fitting in either at my private school or the public schools I shortly transferred to. At my middle school, where the student body was only ten percent white, it was bad enough that I was already a distinct minority, but I made it worse for myself by having hair every color of the rainbow, a condition which earned me the nickname “skittles”- hissed, never spoken loudly lest a teacher should hear, in the hallways as I passed. I cut it into a stylish bob when I lived in Portugal, trying to let go of the dorky, dowdy, frumpy self I imagined I had been in high school, wearing mostly painters pants I stole from my dad and my mother’s vintage pieces from the last four decades. When I returned from Portugal the summer before college, having skipped out on high school seven months early, everyone agreed I had changed; I had an entirely different attitude about myself, everyone said. The hair was just a physical representation of that.

February of my freshman year of college, my roommate who I’d been living with for two days (having left vicious and evil roommates days earlier after months of begging the res life office) walked in on me naked, standing on a towel, scissors in hand, with the floor covered in my hair. I leapt, shrieked, and jumped behind the closet door until she could coax me out. It had taken me months to get to this point. The usual anxieties of starting college, coupled with the previously-mentioned evil roommates, my sister’s recent marriage and the consequent results it had had on our relationship, and a completely debilitating depression had all brought me to be standing naked, with scissors, in my dorm room, with my hair scattered around the floor. I don’t know exactly what I was trying to do, but I needed to do something. Of course, my hair was fabulously uneven, as I had begun chopping away haphazardly. I shoved on a hat, and at my roommates insistence, ran to the mega mall that was just on the other side of the woods that shrouded our campus. I took off the hat inside and asked if they could fix it. The middle-aged haircutter at whatever discount chain barber I was at told me she could basically give me a flat top, or buzz it. “Shave it off,” I muttered without hesitation, feeling a secret thrill as I did so. I felt a surge of emotion, a private high, that I disguised with a determined frown as she put the guard on the clippers and began moving them across my head. With each pass, watching the hair fall off and the baby-down, clean, new hair that was left, I felt stronger, prouder, more determined. I saw my rigid, square jaw becoming more prominent, my set eyes jutting out from their usual recess. My god, I thought, why didn’t I do this sooner? When she finished with the last pass, I stared at myself and two concurrent thoughts popped into my consciousness. The first was, “badass mother fucker.” The second was, “holy shit, what did I just do?”

No one can know the secret high of shaving your head until you’ve done it. From that moment, roughly three years ago, I’ve had my hair short, occasionally shaving it, carving it into Mohawks, setting in racing stripes. I cannot let it grow. There was something about having short hair that was so satisfying, so empowering beyond description. It made me feel so much bolder, so much more unique, so much more edgy than I’d ever felt. I could walk around with a fucking onesie or overalls on and still feel sexy. I felt a certain respect from others, a certain awe and reverence for what people deemed to be my courage, or boldness, or something they felt they didn’t possess. “I’ve always wanted to shave my head,” came bursting forth from so many delicate, pretty mouths of close friends and total strangers, “but I never had the guts!”

Some people, when they feel angst or frustration, when they feel any sort of pent-up emotion and need to express it in some way, turn to heavy drugs. Others self-mutilate, just to feel something, or perhaps to numb the pain. Some get piercings, some tattoos. Some people just break shit. I shaved my head. It was a physical and emotional release, and once I got it in my head that I needed to shave my head, I had to do it right then. I would rush home as soon as I could as this tension built up inside of me, a tension that could only be broken when I was standing with a towel around my shoulders and felt that first satisfying zip as the razor touched my scalp and the hair, and all my emotions, fell away. And I would emerge anew, rejuvenated, slightly less angry about everything, for at least a little while.

Having short hair, particularly a Mohawk or buzz cut, as a woman, arises many questions about sexual preference. Never in my life had I had anyone question my sexuality, but suddenly, I had women hitting on me because they thought I was gay, men hitting on me because they thought I was gay and hoped to convince me to bat for their team, at least for a threesome or two. The men I dated had to justify their liking me as some sort of novelty or fetish, as though it wasn’t normal for men to attracted to girls with shaved heads. One boy I dated called me “alternative,” and when I asked for he meant, or what about me was alternative, all he could come up with was my shaved head. Because I didn’t fit into peoples’ assumptions of what having a shaved head meant. I wasn’t a punk, I wore flowing summer dresses, and I was-GASP!- straight. Shaving my head had nothing to do with my sexual preference, though it did have a lot to do with my sexuality. It gave me confidence and projected an image. It inspired my friend Maggie to dress me up: “Oooooh! Now that you have short hair, you can wear all these frilly dresses and v-necklines and skirts and it’ll be great! It’ll be a great contrast”

In august of 2008, just before starting at Pitt, I was in a horrible car accident. My friend was driving, distracted at the wheel on a rural country road outside of Rochester, NY. He ran a red light at 60 mph and crashed into a tractor trailer. The other three people in my car emerged, somewhat unscathed, save one friend who fractured one of his lumbar vertebrae, his L3, I think, but even he jumped out of the car in the aftermath, the Honda civic now resembling an accordion rather than any identifiable make or model of car. I was trapped, immobile in the backseat, certain I was going to die right there in the backseat. For the pain was so overwhelming-my abdomen seemed as though it had been split apart-that I couldn’t imagine anyone could stay in this much pain for long. Having passed in and out of consciousness, I pieced together much of the day later on from various peoples’ information. The inches-long gash on my scalp was immediately apparent and quickly stapled together with thirteen hard, cold staples. The tears in my small intestine, ripped apart by the seatbelt, were not so apparent from the outside, but were found within inches of my life, and minutes of my death as I bled internally. I spent a week in a hospital 600 miles from home. I was given welt-inducing Heparin shots every 8 hours so I wouldn’t get blood clots, I was constantly poked and prodded, would awake at 4 AM to find my surgeon lifting up my gown and examining my swollen stomach, pointing out the various aspects of my bowel resection and its healing process to the ten med students I would quickly notice in the darkness, scribbling maniacally on little notepads. The catheter gave me a UTI, and later, when it was taken out and I had to go to the bathroom, it would take up to a half hour before a nurse would answer my button press, leaving me writhing in pain, as IV fluids make the urge to pee come rapidly and forcefully. Once, a nurse’s aide reattached my GI tube after having unplugged me from various machines so I could go to the bathroom, She reattached it wrong, misdirecting the bile that was supposed to be sucked out of my stomach and through my nose into a bag. I woke up covered in my own filthy, stinking bile, my gown and bed soaked, and waited for over an hour, unable to move, before the nurse came to clean me off.

I got a real glimpse of what it will be like to be old- “Ms. Tenenbaum,” the nurses would cadence gently, “Do you think you’re up for a walk today?” “Would you like to try to sit up Ms. Tenenbaum.?

The staples and the IV were the last things they removed on the morning I left. The staples came out one by one and made loud plinks in the steel basin. I gingerly touched my head, feeling over my greasy, unwashed hair to the razor-straight scab beginning to form on my scalp. I was told I could pick at the derma bond on my stomach when it began to heal, but NOT at my head. That I had to let fall off naturally. I imagined what a hit I would be, starting at Pitt, when a piece of my head fell off in my salad as I was attempting to make new friends. I picked at it in Gabriel brothers a few days later, taking of giant pieces of hair in an immensely satisfying gesture while asking the sales dude to pull down various Oriental rugs as he stared at me in disgust.

The aftereffects continued after I left the hospital. I was helpless for two months, unable to drive, lift over ten pounds, reach up, exercise, or walk more than a few blocks without utter exhaustion. I lost fifteen pounds, mostly muscle, and couldn’t get up a flight of stairs without getting winded. On my back, I was a turtle, my abdominal wall so torn apart that I could not even sit up without rolling to my side first. I went through acid reflux so severe it sent me back to the emergency room for an overnight stay, and anemia and B12 deficiencies, because my small intestine, which had been responsible for absorbing the vitamins and nutrients I needed from my food, no longer worked the way it was supposed to, scarred now and missing pieces. I also could not be a passenger in anyone’s car without nearly breaking down in tears, or, on many occasions, actually doing so.

I shaved my head only once since the accident and found the long straight scar waiting for me, showing itself under the Mohawk. The foot long, meandering scar on my stomach was hideable. The only people who had seen it were those who had seen me naked or in a swimsuit since the accident, and this was a small number of people. Suddenly with this visible scar, it was not only a daily reminder to others that there was something on my head to inquire about, but a daily reminder to me of the horrors of the accident and its aftermath, of how much it had fucked with my life. I would see it in the mirror now, even when fully dressed, a visible representation of the damage that had been done. Many well-intentioned people, upon seeing it would remark on how “cool my racing stripe was,” then realize over time that it never grew in, that it was perfectly, unnaturally straight, and that there was not one to match on the other side. It opened up a can of worms with total strangers or mere acquaintances, who upon asking what the line on my head, were unprepared for emotionally-loaded, heavy answer. I willed it to grow in as fast as possible.

Now I am trying to grow out my hair. I vowed not to cut it all year. It is already longer than it has been in some time. Maybe down the line I will be able or ready to shave it again, or to do something else with it. For now, I need to not be “the girl with the Mohawk,” “the girl with the crazy scar,” or “the girl who is clearly a lesbian.” I am not done with those forever, not necessarily. I think I might just be ready to blend in for a while.

In limbo

I have long been comfortable with people older than myself, perhaps more so than I typically am with my peers. Part of it is likely because I have two older siblings and was always hanging about with their friends. Most of it is probably just in my nature. I don't necessarily look older than I am, but in almost every context of my life where my age is not a given, almost everyone I meet thinks I am older than my twenty one years. Every so often someone around my age will say, "We're getting so old!" I feel exactly the opposite. I feel 21 is so young. I also feel that my life is that of someone much older, and that my daily life is vastly different from almost every 21 year old I know.

Now, more than at any point in my life, my daily existence requires maturity that likely shouldn't be expected of a 21 year old. I work almost thirty hours a week as a child welfare caseworker. When daily concerns are domestic violence, homelessness, mental illness, drug and alcohol addictions, physical, sexual, and verbal abuse, I find it hard to relate to, or care about, the daily concerns that plague most of my peers. A friend and I will be catching up, and she is obsessing and ruminating over adding this class or that, adding a concentration, and I want to say, "It doesn't really matter." Of course I don't say that. But it seems so trivial to me. School at this point is a second thought, somewhere in the back of my mind. But I don't fit in in either world.

At work, I'm not a full-time caseworker. I'm seen as the student. At school I find myself not caring. I always felt that much of the knowledge I was gaining in the college classroom was somewhat esoteric, particularly at Goucher, but now I have a concrete "other" to compare it to, a real life, something with substance, with real peoples' lives and pains and struggles playing out right beside me, and me having a potential very real impact on them through my actions and words.

At a certain point, the ability to do my job falls outside of maturity. Some people would never be able to to my job, regardless of age. I talk to people of all ages about the particulars of my job and I constantly hear in response, "I don't know how you do it. I never could."

The truth is, no one, or only a very small percentage of the population is cut out for this job, because the system is flawed. It seems designed to set up caseworkers for burnout, apathy, or both. It wears down on you slowly over time, and rapidly when a client manipulates you, you're forced to remove a child from a home, or return her to her home against your personal beliefs, or a client falls back into addiction for the seventh time, or gives birth to her fourth baby born with crack in its system. Some people leave very suddenly, without another job lined up, because they simply "lose it" one day. Some go quietly, others with high emotions. But many stay long after they should have left. They carry out the motions of the job, but they have mostly stopped caring about the clients. They bitterly draw on their twelfth cigarette of the workday and complain about this mother or that paramour.

And I stare at them and think, "I'm only half in this world." I'm only half a real person plagued by these concerns. I can still go sit in class and think only of action potential of neurons and I can write off my lack of knowledge about certain things. I am not yet chest deep here. I haven't been swallowed by the cynicism, the cigarettes, or the lackluster... everything. I can still get out. This is not my long-term plan. This is how I can separate myself from the others. And yet I feel more akin to them than to my classmates.

With the exception of my social work classmates who are in the same internship, and not even them sometimes, I stare at the people I go to school with and wonder if we could possibly have anything in common. I find my mind drifting off at parties to thoughts of my work, my clients and I wonder what the hell I'm doing there. I know everyone has deeper thoughts than they let on, deeper struggles than they present to the outside world. Harder lives than I could ever know. I see this even in my cases, with children who are now grown, successful, normal, but whose childhood I know from case reports held a very different character.

I don't even have an all-encompassing thought here. I just know that a very wide chasm has grown between myself and not only people my age, but people who I feel don't fully grasp what it is I do four days a week. Between myself and lightheartedness, youth, and innocence, there is a growing space.

I still have aspects of a youthful life, but surely not enough. I don't want to force myself to do these things I feel I should be doing, yet I wonder what will happen if I miss them.

All of my friends are wondering what to do next year. My next year is set in stone and paperwork. In obligations and contracts. Verified in ink. It is real, it is serious, it is not delaying adulthood. It is the beginning of my career. It is a non-impressive but real, livable, actual salary, that, if I stayed at this job, would be hardly different after a decade. It is practical and adult and frustrating and invigorating. It is overwhelming, exhausting, terrifying. It is grounded and real. Real above all. There will be no vacations, no spring or summer breaks. There are already 10:30 bedtimes and 6:45 wake-ups, solid eight hours running into ten or eleven, again and again and again, ad infinitem it seems. Bleeding into sleep time. Thoughts of obligations to clients plague me as a lay in bed, staring at the wall. Although to me it has an end date. Sort of.

This job has given me a stony face, an unbreakable outer shell. It takes so much to phase me at this point. I plod away and nothing really jilts me. Is that being jaded or just practical? I need an outlet.

What happened to my other blog/my dad is getting old

I'm a little upset right now. Infrequent though I may write, I just felt a sudden urge to tap out some angst on the keyboard and found that I could not access my old blog. It's like punishment for writing up my witticisms sporadically at best.

Anyway, seeing as no one really knew about my old blog, and I hardly wrote on it anyway, and seeing as I only really write (for the most part at least) for my own edification, as an alternative to simply creating a word document (no pretty colors or graphics) or writing in a journal (hurts my body parts), it's not such a big deal to start over.

I realized today that my father is getting old. To be fair, I've known for a while. There's been a slow increase in various minor procedures that no one tells me about until months later. These procedures have something to do with prostates, I think. He traded in his bifocals for transitions years ago. And it's been a while since I called him from Portugal to sing him an off-key rendition of "When I'm Sixty-Four." This most recent thing, the reason I know he's old, occurred when I was giving him directions to the Providence Performing Arts Center this afternoon (we went to see "Wicked-"It's fantastic). The thing was not that he still does not know how to get to downtown Providence after over a decade of living a mere two miles from it. It was that he has started making old man noises.

The whole way there, he was clearing his throat, making sounds while breathing, and making odd clicking noises. He has probably been making old noises for a while; the truth is, I just don't really ever pay attention. I rarely see him, and when I do, I rarely notice him. The crux of it is that no one really pays attention to my father. He sort of fades into the background, giving the spotlight to my mother. My mother is productive and industrious. She produces, constantly. She is always doing, making, never able to sit still for a moment. My father, in contrast, can sit in the cold driveway for hours after coming home from work. We'll hear his car pull up, then realize it has been an hour, and go out to find him listening to an NPR program, or sometimes, asleep. She walks four miles per day, which was part of the reason she wasn't in the car with us on the way to Wicked, though she had a ticket my father had bought her, and for which she did not thank him. It was more important for her to get in her walk for the day by going to the theater on foot, than to appear normal and arrive as a family to what was the first time I have ever gone with my parents to a Broadway play.

No one would ever perceive my mother as old, and it is not just because she is eleven (although she will tell you 46) years younger than my father. Every so often, when she is particularly agitated or on a certain rave, I do see a glimpse of my grandmother, her mother, in her, but to mention this to her would be essentially writing myself out of her will, and we all know I'm dying to inherit her doll/shoe/harp collection. My father, however, is, in his own words, beginning to "wear and tear," and it scares me.

He was never a young father, at least not to me. He had lost a significant amount of his hair by the time I was born, and though he was 46, he was not yet old. He will be 68 in a little over a month, and he has started wearing a neck brace since the last time I saw him. I did not even think to ask him what it was for, having a decent expectation of the answer, and generally accepting the gradual decline in my father's health, but my friend Lotte did ask. He replied that he was "getting old." Faced with the same question posed by my brother-in-law, he said it was "wear-and-tear." He may have had a different answer for my sister, but I can't remember.

His answers not only sadden me, they frighten me as well. Just eight years ago my father took up snowboarding, and although he has never progressed beyond the gentlest slopes, his body could at least, in part, take the demanding physicality of such a sport at 60. Now he wears this neck brace, a constant physical expression that his body is wearing and tearing, and that, not only is he not young, he's actually kind of old. And it took me this long to notice.