Moving On

Today is my last day working at a community mental health center in Philadelphia. Most of the clients I worked with were living in poverty, with dire childhood histories, victims of societal marginalization — virtually all of them diagnosed, at one time or another, with schizophrenia. Some used to abuse drugs. Some had been homeless at one time or another. Some never got beyond 10th grade. Yet I learned as much from them as I did in three years of grad school. And I don’t say that to be a pollyanna. I really mean it.

I saw 150 of them every day in a program that is trying mightily to change their lives and give them hope, a sadly unfamiliar concept. People who had never been to an art museum were going to see exhibits at the PMA. People who’d never seen the ocean went to the New Jersey Aquarium for a first look at marine life. People who had never seen a movie thought about seeing a movie — and sometimes just thinking about doing something is the first step.

I witnessed so many first steps. I met one of the finest poets I’ve ever read, in any context. I talked philosophy with a man who broadened my ideas about religion, and its failings. I watched a baby kick and squiggle in my pregnant colleague’s growing belly. I worked with a gospel group leader who taught me what it is to speak up and value my voice. There’s so much more.

It’s hard to leave a place I feel this way about. The program participants made me feel joy every day. My colleagues made me laugh harder than I’ve ever laughed. I learned a lot of R&B songs that I now know I shouldn’t sing along to because I suck.

Yet it’s time to move on. Why? It’s hard to say, exactly. I guess because my true self is a journalist and a writer, not a Certified Peer Specialist. The mental health system hasn’t quite decided what to do with Peer Specialists. And I haven’t quite decided I want to be one. My colleague who’s a gospel group leader believe I can change the world by writing; it’s macro, he says. I thought being micro would be more immediate, and it is. But I miss words. I miss shaping opinion. I miss editing, perhaps most of all. And — go figure — journalism pays a (comparatively) living wage. So it’s time to go.

Change is hard, under any circumstances. But it also makes me feel alive again. This next week, I’ll be on vacation at a dude ranch, of all things. After that, I’ll be back at PW full-time. But I won’t forget the lessons I learned during the year-plus I was away — both at the Pennsylvania Prison Society and at the mental health center (which I’m not naming due to HIPAA laws). I’ll always fight for those who have less. I know the program participants as friends now. And some of them will be in my life forever. As one of them said, “You’re not getting away now. I have your email address.” So true.

Getting beneath the headlines, beneath the text of the articles, is invaluable. I was never one to leave the PW building much. I didn’t report as much as I should have. I didn’t insist upon it enough from other writers. I’ll never make that mistake again. I did nothing but “leave the building” every day for more than a year now, and I return to the paper a new person, a new editor and writer. A better one, I’m sure.

[Photo by Liz Spikol. Me.]

liz | 10:57 AM | Uncategorized