It's like this

Some days I can handle the animalistic wailing that seems ongoing. The slamming of doors, the frequent outbursts and demands for someone else to be more punished than they already are, the causing of drama in a place that is so void of anything, so monotonous that anything is a welcome change to the hourly cigarette breaks, cleaning, miserable meals, counseling and groups. Sometimes when I walk to my office the yard smells like the State Fair, other times it smells like someone has been storing onions in their armpits, these all emanate from the cafeteria...

Other days, I am haunted. Haunted by the screams, the cacophony of angry pent up women, the banging and the slamming. I am able to read through it for the most part, I don't get used it, I just get through it. I did a lot of my homework at the prison and just barely missed a 4.0 this semester. Bragging, I know. Just let me.

"I don't know how you do what you do."

I hear this a lot. Mostly I heard it from friends over break. They ask me, curious, "what's your work like?" "How do you do that?" "I could never do what you do." It comes one of two ways, a sort of I-should-be-doing-more way or a sort of mystified by my apparent masochistic tendencies way. (You should talk to the girl in my program who works at Hospice...) I understand this, I walk that line myself daily. Not everyone can do the prison thing. Some days I don't think I can. I tell them what work is like. Sometimes it's magical, sometimes you see a light in eyes that have been dead from abuse and fear. Sometimes these women come together and support each other and offer insight they didn't know they had the strength and knowledge to conjure. I got 2 Christmas cards from inmates this year. One from one of my clients and one from the woman who gave me flowers for my office that day.

Other times I have to lay my head on my steering wheel and fight back tears before I can bear being buzzed through the 2 sets of doors to surrender my license and get my key and badge. Other times I just sit in my office and look out the window, feeling helpless and stupid. Sometimes I forget to listen 100% when they are talking, sometimes I don't try as hard or don't
know how to work with someone and just say things to see what happens next. My brand of counseling is experimental to say the least. I know what not to do and I don't do those things, lest you be worried I am sending someone down a destructive and unhealthy path.

Sometimes you just do what you have to do. They gave me this assignment and quitting is rarely an option for me. It's hard, it's fucking hard. But I like it that way, too. I like the challenge more than I want to admit. Okay, maybe not. I don't do what I do to make anyone feel like they are doing less, everyone has their gifts and there are a plethora of talents my friends have that I am ever fascinated by and in awe of and I generally get to reap the benefits of those talents and gifts on a regular basis for which I am eternally grateful.

I just do it. That's all. It's what I know how to do. I also know that I cannot work in the prison system for a career, at least not at the level of counselor. If I were to work there, I would have to be in a position to make more decisions on behalf on the staff and inmates. I would have to be
the warden. And that just sounds creepy to me.

I have an interview in 2 weeks at another agency for my placement for next year. This agency works to effect policy change and lobbies for rights of domestic violence and sexual assualt victims. I am totally interested in this process and seeing how an agency is run on the grand scale.

But until then, I continue to go to prison every Thursday and Friday. And you're right, it's still funny.

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee�
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963