Confession
Sorry if you see this in more than one place, but I'm posting it everywhere.
I'm a control freak- now stop laughing because this is a new realization for me. I didn't realize how much of a control freak I am because I'm just a really good control freak. I don't have to fight with teachers, the school system, or outside influences because they aren't there. I home school them- I know where they are, and who they're with, and exactly what they're learning at all times. I order food in so I don't have to worry how my kids will act in the restaurant. Before my current job I didn't have to worry about people judging me because I only hung around people who's lifestyles are similar to mine.
Now I have a job, where I live with broken children who at any moment could decide- or not decide and just freak out- to stop doing as I ask, or could start hurting one of the other kids, or could start cussing me out, or any number of things and I can't control that. I can't control the totally fucked up decision to send one of MY GIRLS back with her Grandparents, which I know is going to fail, and her and her brother will end up right back in care. Most likely another group home, because they're aren't any empty beds in town and as soon as she's gone I'll wind up with another girl. I can't control how they do in school, or who they hang out with, or the choices they make, or the truly stupid choices their councilor/case workers/ family make and it drives me nuts. I feel helpless, and completely powerless, and useless, and god it is driving me mad. I have no idea what to do with myself. I don't know how to let go. I don't know how to be detached.
Just think instead of spending thousands of dollars on retreats to learn Zen philosophy I get paid to have it forced on me. If I don't figure out how to let go of my need/desire to control things I'll either go crazy or have to find another job. And honestly right now there is nothing I could do to make the kind of money I make right now, so realistically I need to learn to let go- dammit!!!!