Bittersweet

I labeled this post bittersweet because Friday was my last day of work at Rise, inc. and it really was bittersweet. I have worked there for about a year now and have made a lot of wonderful friends. I will sincerely miss all the girls I have worked with, they are amazing. I will also miss all of my families that I worked with, both the foster parents and the children with disabilities I supported. They are amazing and inspiring individuals. I have known for a long time that I would be leaving at the end of May, but it feels surreal to actually be done. At the same time, I feel so relieved to finally be done and not have the ginormous responsibility that my job entails on my shoulders anymore. This past year has been the most stressful ever. When I made the decision to major in social work people always told me what a difficult field it is and how easy it is to get burned out. I always brushed those comments off and assumed I could withstand. But I quickly realized that when you are dealing with other people's lives and their problems and are required to pretty much be on-call 24/7, burnout is inevitable. With my two + hour commute, tons of driving on the job, late nights, early mornings, and cringing everytime my phone rang in the evenings or weekends, I knew it was time to be done. My prego body had withheld all the stress and strain it could! I have learned so much about myself this past year. While in school, I never even thought I would end up working with people with disabilities and I was a little uncomfortable with the idea, but I have learned that these amazing individuals have so much to offer and have such good hearts. They have the same goals and desires that anyone else does and they have every right to work towards achieving those goals and having a better quality of life. I will miss each and every one of them. Because there are two of us at Rise that are pregnant, Meghan is due only three weeks after me, my coworkers threw us a joint baby shower before I left and it was such a blast. The baby got a lot of great stuff and everyone was so generous! I hope to keep in touch with all of them, luckily Meghan only lives across the street from me.

The two pregos with our diaper cake that my boss made for us...isn't it so dang cute!