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I've spent my entire adult life working for NGO's. Three years with juvenile offenders in a group home setting, two years in domestic violence. Ten years in homelessness. I chose this path; blood and guts has always drawn me, and in the drawing, there are sacrifices. Working more holidays than I can remember, zero money for retirement, living slightly more than paycheck to paycheck. The money has never really been an issue. We rent, our cars are each a decade old. We live simply and never have to worry about being able to buy food. My footprint is still larger than most.

But after all those years and thousands upon thousands of people nothing is getting better. Homelessness grows every year. It's getting worse. It's the lack of impact that troubles me, the terrifying notion that this has all been for nothing.

I am not sure how much longer I can do this. For years my entire identity was wrapped up in my work, was defined by it. With J and M things have changed. I am entirely grateful for that, to have something besides this to call my own, my home, my reason.

But a girl's gotta eat. And while I may be a hard worker, it's always been driven by passion. I cannot work to simply earn. I see the value in that, but I am too stubborn and too childish to do it. I can't bring myself to find a job. I've got to find a cause. Otherwise, I'll be fired in a week. I'd much rather be in Goa, Chile, Kenya. I'd be fired in a week.

So I sit here heartbroken. I'll be turning 37 in less than a month and I've spent my adult life working for a cause that is going nowhere. I am whining, a pathetic middle class angst, yes. I know. I know. But I have nowhere else to do this, nowhere else I can actually allow myself the space to heave. It's my blog, I'll write what I want.

Please, please, don't read this and want to make me feel better. You make me feel better all the time by all the support and community you offer. I don't need to feel better about this. I need to figure out what the hell to do. And it's okay to be heartbroken for a while.

If you finish a really big project and still get a D, does that mean the effort was for not? Or does it mean the project is incomplete? I don't really have those answers, either.

And there is an element of abandonment. Of giving up. Of knowing that just because I turn my face it doesn't mean it goes away. So that's worse, isn't it? Worse to give up before it's done. But it won't ever be done, will it? Perhaps it's the death of a long held ideal I am mourning, a belief that the world can actually be changed.

J has a theory that the government is thrilled by NGOs because people who are passionate about social issues work for them and spend their years spinning their wheels, and our attention and efforts go to the symptoms rather than the heart of the problems. We are safely tucked away whittling the years trying to plug all the leaks. But there are always new ones. And we are too busy with our fingers and toes in the other holes to notice, and before we know it the water has risen. And so we scramble to plug the new holes, never once thinking about how to stop the water on the other side.

And eventually everyone drowns. That's simple physics, right? Water will expand to the space it is given.

In the spirit of good blogging everywhere, I know I am supposed to end this post with an upbeat, I'll be fine! Really, just prattling on about nothing! Perhaps, I am. But who knows. So instead I'll leave you with this.

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle! - Alice in Wonderland