You, my dear, have a purpose.

I entered the "real world" just over a year ago, "adulthood" as they call it... in many ways, it seems like it has only been a few weeks since I graduated from college, but when I look back over the last year, I am reminded of how far I have come, the things I have lost, the things I have gained, the blessings and joys and hurts... when I think about the last year of my life, I think about how hard things have been, how I cannot possibly recognize the same girl who walked across that stage last May, and I am simply amazed that it has only been a year. 

I have only been a real adult for a little over a year... 

This year, although tremendously difficult, has brought a lot of good things... new job, new car, new house, new friends, new perspectives, new beginnings, new hope. As I sit on the counter of my kitchen and write this, while eating icing straight from the tub, I am reminded of the great words one of my professors said to me before I graduated, in which she said, "Find the things that motivate you and you will be just fine. You, my dear, have a purpose." 

Again, I laugh as I write that, just as I did when I heard the words the first time. How can Tedi Ellis, the girl who has made a mess out of adulthood and failed more than she has succeeded, who has made people who don't even know her shake their heads in wonder, who falls down the stairs more than she doesn't, and who finds herself pretending to make it just to get through the day, who is literally sitting right now on her kitchen table eating a tub of icing with the soundtrack of "Cheetah Girls" playing in the background... how can that Tedi Ellis have a purpose?

I have spent the great majority of my life trying to find that purpose, trying to find that reason to get out of bed and to keep trying... I have tried and I have failed. A year out of college and I still find myself wondering if a purpose even exists out there for that Tedi Ellis... for me. Who am I outside of ridiculous snapchats and witty, funny Facebook statuses? 

At the end of October last year, I accepted a job working with Boone County Children's Division as a caseworker... my first real attempt to find some kind of purpose outside of blowing up bounce houses and entertaining birthday kids. However, in the weeks before I officially started, I found myself terrified of failing, of messing up some kiddo's life and leaving a part of their story forever scarred by my actions. What if what I thought was best was not actually best? Who was I to decide if a child was safe, or cared for, or protected? Who was I, the girl lacking purpose, to tell a parent how to raise their child? 

To put it simply, I was terrified of royally screwing up some kid for life. 

In the last 7-8 months, I have learned a lot. I have felt the immeasurable pain that children in foster care experience. I have held babies as their parents walk out the door knowing that they are not allowed to leave with their child. I have rocked a baby to sleep in a hospital, while machines all around them record every breath. I have gotten on a plane and been handed a child, that was not my own. I have buckled children into carseats, kissed scratches and bumps, braided hair, and tried to comfort little hearts that were breaking. I have reassured foster parents that they are doing everything right and have begged them to keep on trying, to keep on showing love, to keep on giving every piece of their heart to a child that is not their own. I have chased after little legs and have played board games with teenagers. I have watched as every belonging a child has is stuffed into laundry baskets and trash bags and packed into a backseat. I have watched as a little girl stared out the back window knowing she was leaving the only world she knew. I have laughed and learned and cried and watched in wonder as this system, as this child welfare system has unfolded before me. I have prayed and prayed for hours for little faces to have a better life, to get the life they deserve. I have held hands with the littlest, most precious souls out there, and every day, I am reminded that my job is not just a job, but rather a privilege. 

I have seen cruelty... but I have also seen great love. 

In those moments when I can literally feel my heart just breaking away, I struggle to hold onto the purpose of it all. So many times, I am the last person a family wants to work with or a child wants to see... they want their mother or father or grandparents or siblings, and rightfully so, but they do not want me. No child wants a caseworker. At the end of the day, no matter how "normal" we try to make it, there is nothing normal about the process of child welfare or about foster care. That fact alone makes things exhausting. 

Life as a caseworker is exhausting. 

In the beginning of training, we were asked to create posters of our lives and share timelines of things that have happened in the course of our life, both the good and the bad. I remember writing down the big things for me, like graduating college and getting my dog and the death of family members and "normal" things like that, but one thing that stuck out to me as I sat and listened to the other new workers introducing themselves, was a girl who shared her story of being in foster care herself. She shared about feeling "passed around" and "not really wanted, but not really unwanted, either." As she shared her story, I remember thinking and wondering why that was her story... why, of all the things before and after those two years when she was in foster care, would she choose to talk about those two years when she was. I didn't know her story other than from the surface, but as I have continued to work with kids in care, she always comes back to mind. 

Her story was forever changed by foster care... who she is now was altered when she was 8 years old... who she is and will be and could have been was changed... her life, her dreams, her future, forever impacted by the decisions of the adults around her. 

Why does that story, her story, impact me? Why does it stick out to me so much? 

I don't enjoy my job everyday. I don't love my job everyday. There are days when I can't even think about my job, or the kids on my caseload, or the families I work with. To be honest, there are days when I absolutely despise the child welfare system and I dream of the day when I won't have faces of kids in the back of my head to worry about... but child welfare, Children's Division, motivates me.

The girl in the training, now an adult sharing her story and helping kids like her, motivates me. For the first time in my entire life, there is something in front of me that motivates me and drives me to do better, to work harder, to be a better person, to love deeper and to hope in new things. 

To be honest, while the children motivate me daily, I am most driven by that girl in training, who unknowingly forever changed my perspective and impacted the way I work. Her story was changed, forever altered, forever scarred, forever different, by decisions adults made... and while I am more than aware that most of the children by the time I even lay eyes on them or read their names on papers have already seen trauma, I have an obligation to minimize the effect of that. 

While I don't always know my purpose in this world, at Children's Division, that child in front of me is my purpose... when that child meets me, they will have a different story from then on out, it's unavoidable... but as a caseworker, wanted or not, I can impact the moments when their lives change forever, and hopefully, it can be for the better. 

Yesterday, I sat on the floor of a tiny little room with a little girl in my lap, and as we laughed and played and talked about butterflies and how she couldn't wait for her whole family to be together, I caught myself whispering words that changed my life just a little over a year ago, as I said, "You, my dear, have a purpose." These kids have a purpose, every last one of them, and it is a privilege to watch their lives unfold. 

This job is a privilege, a privilege that is not lost on me.