DISCLAIMER: Sappy people who cry at the slightest gust of wind, judge easily, and ignore feelings if they are less than pleasant should skip reading this blog post. Thoughts and feelings are described here that may disturb you.
On the first day it was easy to be a saint. Foster Mom and I had been preparing for 8 months to receive a kid into our home. We were spilling over with love, empathy, and hope for our new mystery foster kid. Our friends were encouraging us and saying how giving we were to take this step of faith, to be servants, to be awesome mini-mother-teresa-but-trendy-cool-I'm-just-a-temp parents.
M came to live with us and it wasn't long until my happyhappyjoyjoy face paint started chipping away. Who am I kidding... the first night I flopped into bed thinking, "What have we done?" Lately, I find myself reapplying the paint more and more often. Her 4-year old-isms can really drain me. Her questions of "Why" that follow every answer to every previous question are like needles in my eyes. Her fear of foods she hasn't tried is like fire under my skin. Her frozen coma stare that starts as soon as we try to discipline her makes me want to join a Screamo band. My batteries simply don't recharge themselves every night like I thought they would when I dreamed of helping dozens of kids over decades of life. Am I the only foster parent (or bio parent) who feels this way? I don't like being like this. It makes me less patient, sarcastic, and harbor resentment towards a little person who doesn't even know what she's saying half the time....
...A little person who just wants to be close to me. A little person that says, "Ohhh, man. Please don't go" when I leave for work every morning. A little person who just wants a daddy to watch her sing her favorite R-rated hip hop song that her mom let her listen to 10 times a day for the first 4 years of life. A Hurt Child, a helpless child, someone tossed around by the system, a person capable of manipulating adults at the ripe age of 4 years old.
If I'm feeling this way in the 3rd month of our first placement, how will I feel a year into it? Does it pass? Do I get a freebie spotlight-in-the-darkness-shining-moment of clarity and peace soon? Have I not prayed and read my Bible enough? When I've totally given up hope of being the awesome angel that people keep saying I am in the comments section of this blog... does God sweep in then to help? I hope so.
Don't worry out there. Angry writing is like therapy for me. My bite is much less than my bark. I'm doing my best every day to show love to M and be the best chill foster dad in my town ;)
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