Change

It is rare for us to have patients stay longer than a week. Usually, they stay and leave so quickly you barely have time to remember their names. Some will return days, weeks, months later, and be wounded that you don't remember them. “In the time since you've left, I've worked with hundreds of kids,” I want to tell them, but I don't. I just pretend to remember their face, not their name. And they laugh at how forgetful I am.

I wish I could remember all the kids I worked with in inpatient. I still remember the ones I cared for in residential, and I pray for them by name daily. I knew those kids, their likes and dislikes, their quirks and thoughts. In inpatient, you're lucky if you know whether they are on good terms with their parents or not (usually not).

Sometimes, the kids will write me notes or draw me pictures thanking me. Those are the ones I remember. I put them up on my cupboards and I smile every time I see them. It's a reminder to me that even though I may not remember all of their names, I have made some small difference in their lives. Those notes and pictures, they represent to me all of those who I have worked with and cared for in just a small moment of their long lives.

I know I am just one person. I know that I cannot make much of a difference in anyone's life. But I also know that I can look back in my own life, point to one person, and say “There. He is the one who changed me. He is the one who gave me hope. He is why I am who I am today.”

And maybe it's vain, but I want to be that person too.

Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine's Day.

I'll admit, for all my love of stories, I am not an incredibly romantic person. Sure, I appreciate little gestures of affection, the occasional bouquet of flowers or a nice dinner, but I am far more easily wooed by a new book. But I remember being 16 and feeling incredibly lonely when my friends showed off their gifts from their boyfriends, and I did not want that for the girls I work with. So I stole a page from a friend's book, who in turn had stolen elementary school's book.

I had the girls in my group make little boxes, decorating them with stickers and glitter and paper hearts and markers and paint. They took hours, carefully writing their names, adding cute designs. And then I had them make valentines for every girl in that group, and distribute them in each other's boxes.

There was so much laughter. I saw smiles all around, and over and over I heard a girl proclaim "This is the best Valentine's Day I've had in a long time--I can't believe I'm in a psych ward!"

The most touching part was that they all made me a valentine as well. Reading their little notes, colorfully decorated, I felt a little choked up. I wanted to do something special for them, something that would lighten their sorrow. Instead, they filled me up with love.

And all involved had a lovely Valentine's Day.

Beauty

I am really beginning to love working with teenage girls.

When I first started working with girls instead of boys, I was somewhat resentful. I liked boys--they were easy to understand, uncomplicated and open. Girls are trickier. They are more deceitful, more suspicious. I've had days where they will simply glare at me.

But.

Recently I've been learning how to talk to them. Being a woman, once a teenager, you'd think this would be somewhat easy, but girls are suspicious of adults, and honestly, rightfully so. Adults have taught them to judge themselves and each other. Adults tell them that they shouldn't wear revealing clothing if they want to have any respect. Adults tell them to act like ladies and to hide their feelings. Adults tell them to grow up, then get angry when they make decisions that those same adults think are infantile. Adults, for teenage girls, are really kind of terrible people.

Of course, that isn't always true. But it is true a lot of the time. And I won't lie, I've heard those same judgments cast from the mouths of my coworkers, and once I did the same. As children, as teenagers, we were taught that that is what adults do. We are supposed to judge.

I see girls walk in with push up bras, with leggings and high heels and tops that leave nothing to the imagination. I see the way they flaunt their bodies at the boys across the way, and I sigh and navigate them back to their groups, where we talk about self-respect and the importance of acceptance.

"I dress like that because it's the only time I feel good about myself--I'm proud of my body," a girl said not long ago. "But my mom says I look like a slut."

"People should be allowed to dress how they choose," I say. "But if the only time you feel good about yourself is when you're dressed in a specific way, that tells me that your perception of yourself is not a good one. People who are truly comfortable in their own skin are not the ones who look in the mirror and think that they are beautiful. They are the ones who forget that the mirror is even there."

A few murmurs. This is not what they have been taught. It is not what I have been taught. But it is what I have learned, as an adult, as a woman.

Adults will tell kids that everyone is beautiful. Adults will tell kids that there is no one standard of beauty, that each person perceives it differently. And the kids hear it and roll their eyes. They know that's not true. I take so much issue with that lesson, because the focus is still on beauty.

So I try to teach them something better: that beauty doesn't matter.

Because it doesn't.

What matters is strength. Strength to ignore standards, strength to lift up your chin and keep working, keep moving forward, keep climbing. Strength to be comfortable in your own skin, to not care if the way you dress or talk or carry yourself makes you stand out, makes people judge you. Strength to make dreams, strength to carry them out. Strength to realize that sometimes, you will never make it, and strength to realize that that's okay. Strength to cry, to be honest, to smile and laugh and dance and revel in the wonder that is life.

And that matters more than the shell that is beauty ever will.