LES PORTES FRANCAISES (FRENCH DOORS)

We have doors! The contractor finally started the big stuff!!

Let me tell you about our doors (no, it's not that interesting, I know). We have 5 sets of patio doors. They were all wood sliders, and due to the previous owner's lack of care, they were all rotted out. What a shame because at one time they were probably really nice doors. (I hate sliders so I would never have liked them, but I can still recognize a nice product.)

I was afraid the doors were going to fall out of the house before we replaced them! We couldn't even go in and out of them, so if I wanted to go to the backyard, I had to go out the front door and walk all the way around. Huge, huge pain.

So we ordered some french doors and today they went in! There still needs to be trim put around them on the inside, and of course we're re-siding, so there will be different trim on the outside too. They also seem to have come with these ugly goldish doorknobs which I don't think we ordered (?) so hopefully that will change too. But hey, for today, they are here, they work, and if you're reading this, please say it with me, hallelujah!

Here is a before and after of the kitchen door:

And one of the family room (aka Paul Bunyon room) doors:

And the other Paul Bunyon room door:

Now that the doors are in, the siding and the windows can go in. Once that is done we can replace all of the carpet and then we can actually unpack!! Wouldn't that be a hoot!!

Can you see me over my soapbox?

Friends, I am conflicted. Here's the thing:
My job is best described as a social worker. My title is actually Employment Counselor and I work with clients who are on welfare. All people on family welfare are required to work with an Employment Counselor and have requirements they must meet as part of the federal government's welfare plan. I might just start another blog about welfare and poverty because this is probably not the right venue, but considering both Jason and I do this for a living, here it is. What you need to understand about people on welfare is that they are not on the system because they are lazy and don't want to work. In fact, almost all of my clients really, really, really want to work and many of them do. It's just that other stuff gets in the way. That's why it's easier to understand what I do as social work rather than Employment Counseling. For example, if you have a child who has serious mental illness such that the child can barely attend school/daycare but has not yet been properly medicated and you are needed to essentially be with the child or available to the child 24 hours/day, how are you supposed to work? Getting disability takes time, getting a PCA for the child takes time, getting the right diagnoses takes time, figuring out how to manage the stress for yourself takes time....and in the meantime there is welfare and your Employment Counselor. Other clients have somehow managed to make it through our public education system and no one noticed that their IQ falls into the MR (mental retardation) range such that they cannot complete a traditional GED nor hold a regular job. Yet here they are with a child and have been trying and trying to job search and get housing and whatnot and are stumped as to why everything is so hard. So before they can access the right services, there is welfare and their Employment Counselor to get their IQ tested and hook them up with Disability services. These are 2 examples and they are not uncommon. They are also reasons why people lose their housing (the apartment building doesn't want your "crazy kid" here anymore) and why people have trouble accessing services (it can be difficult to access food shelves when your IQ is in your way.) It is not uncommon for a client to have lost their job and their housing for simple reasons such as being on a waitlist for a mental health provider. Some days all I can do is listen.
My clients often cry in my office. They thank me for being supportive and sometimes tell me that I am the only one being supportive. One thing that my clients usually lack is a support system. Things are made a lot easier by a network of great friends, but if you don't have ANY friends, the really tough things my clients go through is that much more unmanageable. And many of my clients don't have ANY friends. Not one.
I think that my job is important. I listen. I encourage. I help navigate through resources. I teach my clients how to pick a doctor. I model good parenting skills. I report to child protection when necessary. I educate my clients on healthy habits. I educate clients about careers, education, and help them make vocational choices. I take clients to doctors appointments, food shelf appointments and anywhere else if it is needed, although this is not a part of my job description but something I do because it's important. I advocate for them if I need to, and try to teach them how to advocate for themselves, although sometimes if you're going through it you're too tired to do the work for yourself. I am good at this. I'm really, really good at this.
The downside is that this work does not pay very well. At the end of the day, I have done good work. I have contributed to the world. I think I have made a difference in my clients' lives. In Judaism, this is tikkun olam, in a sense, healing the world. It is fulfilling. It is challenging and intellectually stimulating. At the end of the day, I can pay my mortgage and buy groceries and buy gas.
At the end of the day, though, I do not get the material rewards that I grew up with and that others of our friends have. We do not drive nice cars and are, frankly, lucky to have the ones we do. We cannot travel. Even plane tickets home for the holidays are out of reach. What I make in a year is not that much more than what a year of high school for me cost - in 1995. We grew up so very privileged and have chosen a different life. Jason and I are still figuring this out.

Planning a wedding has brought out some conflict for me. The other day, I was discussing budgets with Jason's mom. I was at work and when I got off the phone, I went to talk to a coworker. We were discussing one of her clients who I had seen in the office the day before. The client has a HEARTBREAKING story and is quite challenging to work with. My coworker JSL said it had been difficult to see the client the previous day. I asked if it had been difficult because I knew they had needed to have a difficult conversation. JSL said no, it was difficult because she found out that the client and her 2 year old child had not eaten for 3 days. Remember how I mentioned that some clients don't have the IQ to navigate the resources they need? The local food shelf could not get the client in until the next morning. Our agency is not a food shelf, so we don't have supplies or money to give food to the client. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to send a client home, send their 2-yr old home, knowing they're that hungry and saying you'll see them tomorrow for their food shelf appointment? It is something like getting stabbed in the heart. Even though it wasn't my client, I could feel my co-worker's pain.
I went back to my office. For the rest of the day, my mind could not get around the fact that I move between two worlds - one where it is completely normal to spend tens of thousands of dollars on one evening's party (be it wedding, bar mitzvah, etc), and one where it is normal to see a client who hasn't eaten. Then I'm in the middle personally too - I come from a world where my friends' dads were CEOs and I'm pretty sure my first party as a baby was black-tie!! Now my friends are doctors and lawyers and here I am now, having traded my economic power for something different, and no longer fitting in to either world.
Neither Jason nor I think that we should forgo a wedding just because we happen to work with people in poverty. It's just - imagine if someone specialized in both oncology AND obstetrics. It would be confusing, no?