I was 14 when I decided I was going to be a Social Worker. In hindsight it seems like a pretty strange decision to make as a young teenager but I guess some needs are so deep that when there is no other way, we are forced to meet them ourselves. I was as longing to be saved, as I was to save others.
Ten years on and I am a qualified social worker who has just quit my first “real” job after only four months. The job that I had dreamt about and worked towards relentlessly for ten solid years. Less a job and more of a vocation. I was made to be a social worker and because of this every shitty experience I’d ever had was okay because I was training. Gaining valuable experience for my future self. Every experience I’d wished I’d had would be fulfilled through these beautiful, cathartic moments where I would become the person for these kids that I had always longed for myself.
In reality the four months were hell. Weeks and weeks filled with sleepless nights, debilitating stress and an overwhelming sense of helplessness in the daily pursuit for hope. I’ve never felt like I couldn’t do something before but leaving this job was not a choice, it was necessity. And just when I’d had my life all neatly tied up with a bow at last, it came undone. And the whole fucking mess came spilling out. When I quit my “dream job” I lost not only the ideas I’d had about my career but the ideas I had about myself too. That I was capable and strong and tenacious. A social worker. A wounded healer.
Life is funny like that, isn’t it? We can plan with precision and care how the entirety of our lives will pan out but it is as useful as a daydream. I am quickly sobering in my new found knowledge; that my life may never look like I thought it would. That our lives rarely do and that there is beauty in that. That our real character will be shown in how we faced the challenges and the U-turns, not how we predicted them. In how we were able to grow and adapt to our changing surroundings. In how we were able to hope, amongst our pain and our dying dreams.
Some of the most beautiful experiences of my life were mistakes. Completely unplanned, unpredictable moments and chances which I am thankful for everyday. Life really is more complex and more creative than we could ever comprehend and it is our responsibility to ensure we never limit ourselves to our own imaginations. I might get a new social work job and continue my career or I might not. I might be a teacher or a writer. I might not be the person I thought I was going to be but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying. We don’t always have to succeed to win. Success won’t always look like we’d imagined but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth having.
Sometimes the greatest strength is not in how hard we hold on, but in how gracefully we can let go.
This is breathing 