How i almost became the parent of a 15 year old.

In my last post i mentioned the possibility of me becoming a foster parent to a 15 year old girl,
she is a wonderful young lady who desperately needs a stable parent figure and home. i have been working with her for almost a year now as a therapeutic mentor. So when things seemed like they were going south in getting her placed in a foster home i felt compelled to speak up and offer my home.

      Her social worker jumped on it and was very enthusiastic about the possibility, so we talked about possible red flags and anything that might hinder approval and much to my surprise i got the all clear pretty quickly.

      This all happened in a matter of moments and so i left the meeting almost feeling like i was spinning because a mere 30 minutes prior i was a single 26 year old without a care in the world and 30 minutes later i may have just signed up to be a parent to a teenager.

    That is a LOT of change in a very SHORT amount of time. but i knew that if God really put this on my heart than i could handle it. but man was it a scary thought!

the only thing standing in the way was my job. as a therapeutic mentor i wasn't sure if i could legally switch from being a clients mentor to being their foster parent. ( we have a lot of confidentiality clauses to keep both the clients and myself safe.)
  So Friday morning i found myself asking my supervisor if i could, legally, become her foster parent.  sadly the answer to that question was no, and i felt a little tug of sadness at the thought, because i had started to really warm to the idea.   i knew that God had things under control and in the end things ended up working out for her other foster home and hopefully in a few weeks we will be transitioning her from a group home to permanent foster home! which is so very very exciting.

but this was the story of how i ALMOST became a single parent of a teenager.

do i have what it takes?

do i have what it takes to be the parent of a 15 year old girl?

because if i do,
i know a 15 year old girl that is in desperate need of a parent.

i don't know if i could do this, if i could make it work, but her social worker is a fan.

so many variables, living situations, job situations, financial obligations, the rest of my life...

so many thoughts to ponder...

shoulda, coulda, woulda.

today i have been missing you, and i think its because of the weather,
    its reminding me of the end, of those last few weeks, when i was trying so desperately hard to hold onto something i knew i had already lost. looking back i wish i had been strong enough on august 16 to break up with you. because thats when i knew we were broken, and that staying together couldn't fix that. i look back and think that if i had just listened then, maybe things could have been different now. maybe we would have been able to be better friends and be more involved in each others lives. i don't know, but i do know it would have been easier on us both. i hate living with regret and this is my biggest. i think its funny that i don't regret our break-up, i regret that we didn't break-up sooner, and more accurately that i didn't break-up with you. and its simply because i wonder what life would be like now had i listened. that is my biggest problem. i want what i want when i want it and nothing can dissuade me from it... i know this is a problem so don't worry too much, i'm working on it.
         I find it interesting that i am feeling this way. i've come so far in the last year, at one point i thought i was never going to be able to move on... i had given up hope. i figured that i would just have to spend the rest of my days as a sad pathetic girl who couldn't move on from her ex...i had resigned myself to my fate, and in that resignation i found my redemption. in giving up i was able to move on in ways i never imagined. i accepted where i was, and that it didn't matter how much i tried to pretend, i wasn't 'ok,'.  then one morning i woke up with this simple thought in my brain, " and just like that she's done". i have no clue how i got here, but the important part is that i did. its been alternately painful, eye-opening, tearful, wonderful, exhilarating, scary, sometimes seeming to drag on longer than forever and at others passing in the blink of an eye.  Its been both the best and worst year of my life. the best because i learned to embrace the lessons, see God as fully sovereign, and let go. the worst because i had to learn to not only let go, but give up control. surrender- not my favorite, but i learned to embrace it.
   i doubt i am ever going to publish this post, it was meant to be just for me, to clear up some mental space... to get these foreign thoughts out of my head... not for public consumption. i feel better already. i find i'm not missing you anymore, after getting all my thoughts and feelings down on 'paper" . thats how it is with me, if don't speak out these kind of thoughts, if i keep them cooped up inside my brain they tend to fester and knot... leaving me with a giant gooey disgusting mess that can turn into a complete meltdown...
 its nice to finally feel free.