Influenza of the Heart

    I think my heart's caught a flu.  It's honestly nice just to know I've still got a heart. I was getting worried toward the end of the semester that it had just become one big callous.  It just gets so hard that you've got to keep your skin tough to keep out the bad.  A kid says something really cutting to me.  Meh.  Part of my job. I hear an abuse story.  Part of my job.  A baby dies.  Part of my job.  I'm pleading self-defense here.

     But the good seems to get shut out with the bad and can't get through either.  Edison holds my hand for the first time.  Part of my job.  Nicole presses my cheeks between her hands and kisses them.  Part of my job.  Paola is crying because she misses her mom so bad and I make her a cup of tea.  Part of my job.  Two little girls and I break out in dance to "Jungle Boogie," and they look the happiest I've seen them all week, and I can see in their eyes that they finally trust me - love me.  Finally.  After a year with them.  And I'm leaving them in a year.  And I can't think about it.  Oh God, I can't think about it.  So... meh.  Part of my job.

     And then, as soon as my heart has a little room to breathe... some time away... it all just comes flooding out, triggered at any time by the tiniest of things: seeing a mom chasing her toddler or catching "A Series of Unfortunate Events" on TV.  Or coming across baby pictures of Nicole in the orphanage, and realizing she *grew up* there, without a mommy to mark her height on the wall, to take pictures of her 4th birthday, to hold her on her lap for five minutes when she has a bad day at school.

     I wouldn't trade them for the world - these kids, all the things they've taught me, all the ways I've grown.  But buddy! It's hard stuff!  And I think I'm going to bunker down for day and make *myself* a cup of tea.