¿Para qué trabajo?

For our community spirituality night this evening, my housemate Mike shared a book.  One of the main messages was "Don't take the 'social' out of social change."  I like that motto.  Sometimes I feel like we spend too much time in meetings and sending emails and whatnot, forgetting the individuals who we are ultimately trying to "help".

My workload has definitely been ebbing and flowing, but this week is likely to be especially hectic.  So I will try to remember the people who I am serving with my constant phone calls, emails, and faxes:
-I will smile when I think about the middle-aged Mexican men who keep hitting on me by telling me that I speak good Spanish and that they can't believe I'm not married, and then inviting me to random meals in their homes.
-I will giggle when I think about all the super awkward questions I've gotten by phone thus far, including "If I have white spots in my poo poo and an itchy anus, do you think I have worms?" and "I'm 52 and had a hysterectomy four years ago, so if I'm bleeding after sex, do you think it was too rough? Or do you think it's just because I had gone a few months without sex?"
-I will let myself feel frustrated with our immigration system when I remember the Mexican man who came in today to make a new patient appointment.  When I asked him if he had pay stubs or something to prove that he made 200% or less of the federal poverty line (it's just a formality- we never really reject people who need care), he said no.  But then his friend said that he in fact did, but that he had used a fake ID to work, so the name on the checks wouldn't match up to his actual name.

I'm grateful that almost everyone who calls wants to tell me everything that's going on in their lives: their hemorrhoids, their positive HPV tests, their UTIs, their itchy and painful rashes, the death in their family, and everything else imaginable. These phone calls no doubt prolong my work day, but they never fail to remind me why I am doing my job.  They also serve to verify my choice to not go into a clinical profession: I am so much more interested in helping people access what they need than I am in diagnosing their various ailments.

So my baby brothers start college tomorrow.  And St. Joe's students had their first day of classes today. I'm far away from many of the people I care about, yet I feel like I am exactly where I need to be right now, constantly learning some strange and beautiful lessons.