Member-only story
We Can’t Save People and We Can’t Fix Them Either
Because it’s not our job and not our fight
When I was a little kid, used to do this weird thing. I would stand at the bathroom sink and run water slowly into my cupped hands. I’d hold my hands together as tightly as I possibly could so that this basin I created was impenetrable.
It never worked. Water always got out. But I kept coming back and trying time and time again. There’s a lesson to be learned there that took me far too long to figure out.
People are not unlike the water. You can’t save people any more than you can hold all the water. People slip out, too.
When I did my student teaching I had this lovely young lady in my class. She was smart and kind and beautiful. Athletic and prom court royalty. She also had a wicked eating disorder.
She would come down to the community center that I worked at after school and on the weekends. She trained in the weight room with a friend of mine. We knew she had issues. If we could work on a healthy self image with her, perhaps she would see herself as beautiful as we did.
