My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love.

I am full of profound feelings and thoughts right now. I’m in my training to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, and am sitting on a bench next to tee-pees used for camp outs at a mansion in Redlands that is owned by a philanthropic oil entrepreneur dedicated to enriching the lives of underprivileged children.

In training this morning, a social worker who’s been on the job for 26 years, the span of my life (which, trust me, the insinuation was not lost on me) was explaining the sense of loss and mistrust the foster kids we’ll be advocating for are bound to feel, and why. How so few of them succeed in life, or continue in the same cyclical poverty and abuse they were raised in, passing the abuse to the next generation. How we, as CASAs, have the capability to be the factor that changes the course of that child’s life, by simply staying true to our word, by BEING THERE because we care to volunteer our time, not because we’re paid to be there.

As soon as we had a break, I went outside and called Jacque. I wandered up a grassy knoll to a shady spot under an orchid tree and asked her how her leg was doing, found out she went back into the hospital for an infection and deliberately didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to worry me, et cetera. Eventually, I couldn’t hold the fact that I was crying from her anymore, and she fretted. “What’s wrong baby? Why are you crying? You never cry.”

I thanked her. I told her how much I loved her, how people can only achieve as much as they are willing to risk, and I have always been so driven because I knew I always had people who have my back. Jacque, my foster mom, who was there on the nightly basis that the cops told me I had to find a place to sleep or they’d have to remove me from the home, and I knew I could always go there. My aunt, when it was time to take me out of my home for the sake of my own safety and well-being. She took care of me to the best of her abilities, handling a teenage girl, which she’d never raised firsthand, in all of my angst.

My mother was pivotal in loving me from the beginning and establishing the trust I needed to be able to trust the right people later and survive, but ultimately, it has been people who were not obligated to loving or raising me that have helped me be who I am today. Two bachelor degrees, with honors. On my way to grad school. Ambitions of becoming a published writer and a business owner and getting a doctorate.

I feel that becoming a CASA is one of the truest things I have ever done. When I took guardianship of Becca when I was 18 and she became my sister, my family didn’t know what to make of it. Who is this girl that calls herself your sister? Hm? But they grew to understand that my unorthodox upbringing freed me from the standard definition of family, and that I am blessed with the ability to love people like Becca, and Jay, and my Cataldo and Thompson and Foster families as if they’ve been with me since birth. This is one of my purest strengths, and being able to try and give the support that’s been given to me to a teenager that needs it is a calling to my innermost.

I feel a new drive. New goals developing. Becoming a foster parent isn’t an ambiguous goal that lives somewhere in my future. I will be a CASA until my life is together enough to foster a teen, but my goal is within the next five years.

I had a waiter tell me last night that I’m enigmatic. One of those perpetually unattainable women, that look lovely and engaging but always separate, unapproachable, because I am too far away. I smiled at him, laughing and asking if this was him trying to be slick and “attain” me. But he blushed and said, no, I just wanted to tell you. And I felt that a divine power had spoken afterward when I recounted it to Milla. Sometimes, driven people just need to be solo forces. I can’t imagine how a partner would enrich my life at this point. All of my relationships lately have been juvenile, wrought with miscommunication and ultimately wastes of my time and energy. I don’t have a lot of time in this life, and I have a lot I need to do, so staying focused on the goals ahead are quickly diminishing the societal standard of husband and marriage that have consumed so much of my last 2 years.

I feel pretty done with that chapter. I’m on to the new, the paying forward of what was so freely given to me my whole life, to living a life worth having, and fighting for, and being deeply satisfied with.

Needless to say, this whole week since my birthday has been a growing revelation. I feel very connected to my soul, which in turn makes me feel acutely connected to the ones I love, including God. I imagine heaven will be a swirling love-energy mass where what I feel for them is tangible and visible in the matter that makes up the universe.

My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love. But that’s okay. In my heart of hearts, they’re swirling with me all the time.