I had a nightmare this morning.
I dreamt I was married–which in itself doesn’t make it a nightmare, just an impossibility.  I couldn’t see my husband’s face, only feel him…his warmth. Dirt underneath ragged fingernails. The smell of concrete.  And then I realized we were not married yet, but that we would be, someday, in some world.
And then I dreamt my husband’s boss told him to go get something, to take his truck and go pick up something for work.  And my husband, who was not my husband but would be, did, and he was standing beside something heavy(a tree?) and suddenly there was a loud rumble.

And the trees fell on my husband, and crushed him.

It was the worst dream I’d ever had.  It was the most real dream I ever had.
I woke up and prayed, and prayed, and prayed for the strangest thing ever–my future husband’s safety.  The husband I don’t even think I will ever have. 

But sometimes, what God asks us to do does not make sense, and I woke up this morning from the dream, around 7 AM–I knew that God was asking me to pray for my husband’s safety.  And I still don’t believe I will get married…but I trust God. And I prayed like never before, even if none of it made sense.

And I have been carrying that with me all day, about things not making sense. About the horror of that dream.
About the horror of this world.

And then my new case files today; not details I can share, just broken children trying to find their way in a world that has not been kind to them.  I’m not codependent enough to think I can change their lives; change is not something one person can facilitate in another, it is something that must come from within.  I’m not foolish enough to think that I can change someone’s life by pouring my own into them; I choose, instead, to pour my time and energy and love into the black hole of broken hearts, knowing full well I will probably never see the results of my love. 
Is this codependency? That strange need some people have to be needed?   We learn in general psych that true codependents, not the Hollywood version, but truth, is that codependents are people who believe their worth comes from others, who have low self esteem, who often grow up in a family where anger and substance abuse was a way of life.  They grow up to find themselves caring too much about others, rescuing the ones they love from the natural consequences of their actions, tend to attach themselves and love only people that need them, feel guilty when they assert themselves, and can’t form proper boundaries.   Physically, they develop ulcers and intestinal tract problems, probably the result of pent up emotions and anger towards those they couldn’t save.

I deal with them every day, because they, who are usually women, seem to be drawn to adopting troubled children.  It never works out well.

I ask myself every day if I am in danger of becoming this way.  If I care too much.  I don’t think so, my therapist doesn’t think so, and none of my friends think so.  I have way too much self esteem for that. 

But if not this, what am I doing?  Why am I throwing myself into helping these lost causes?  Why have I chosen this as my life’s work? 

Solely this.

Because many years ago, I picked up the newspaper and saw a friend’s face on the front page.  I was not yet a teenager, and still startled at the cruelty and tragedy of life, the way it strikes those you least expect.  Those who have had too much.  And I chose to fight that cruelty, that tragedy, however I could, wherever I could.  It is like writing for me, this working with broken people; both my poetry and my counseling are my ways of coming to terms with the unexplained pain that I see, that I have felt. 

My poetry, my work with combat veterans, my work with abused children; it is all one and the same.  It is my way of trying to make sense of the chaos and the horror around me.  More than one person has explained to me how futile this is, how, perhaps, self-serving.  More than one person has shared with me the foolishness of expecting a loaf of bread to erase blood.  Ah, yes, the foolishness. 

Perhaps they are right.  Perhaps I have boughten into a childish, foolish thought.  Perhaps nothing I ever do will ever amount to anything; that I will never get married, or my future husband was never in any sort of danger two days ago, or I will never bind the heart of a broken child.  Perhaps nothing I do is, really, worth anything at all.

I don’t know.  But then, I was not asked to save the world, only to light the candle in my corner of it.