Perfect in my Mind

Perfect in my Mind

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Week one: Success.

As of today, I've contributed 25 hours towards my summer internship.  Although I'm not even close to being finished, I feel like I've learned a lot.  

Until this week, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my degree--or if my degree would even be useful to me in the future.  I'm a pretty indecisive person.  I've been at University for three years, and have changed my major five times.  Awesome, right?  Well, this week everything clicked.  I love working with the elderly--and (gasp) I'm actually good at it!  With this in mind, I want to pursue Geriatric Social Work.  

This week, I've worked in the memory care facility at an assisted care center.  Everyone in this facility is struggling with some form of Dementia, and need a lot of special attention.  I've grown to love each of my residents, individually--even though they usually don't remember me from day to day.

Here's a (particularly bloated and unflattering) picture of me and one of my new friends.  Resident C and I are very close.  Apparently, I look a lot like her daughter.  She calls me her baby and loves to hug me and dance with me.  Yesterday, I saw her sitting on the couch and approached her.  She had great big tears welled up in her eyes--so I tried to comfort her.  It turns out that she was crying because she thought yesterday was my birthday, and felt bad for not making me a cake.  I assured her that I loved her, and that she didn't need to worry about the situation anymore.  Minutes later, we were dancing and singing together.

I love my new job.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a sweet memory, Chelsea. This assures that you do have a special gift of love and patience to give when working with the elderly. We had such a good time with you and James and Mary Anne and I finished our painting job. It looks nice. Now to put the house back together again. Thanks for making us feel so much at home in your home.

Love and a hug,

Dad T.

Laura Eve said...

i love emerald point residents! thats awesome you've figured out your career path, i am still SO lost! oh well.

Kristen said...

Sounds like the perfect career choice for someone as special and sweet as you are. You are going to do wonders for those lovely people!

The Meiers said...

Your are such an amazing person :)

Anonymous said...

for one of my classes, we went and did music therapy at a memory care facility. i was standing up at the front, and one of the women came up to me and said "you look beautiful tonight." i said thank you and continued to sing. she leaned in close and kissed my cheek, took my hand and said "let's get out of here" while pulling me down the hallway. my instructor laughed and just said "bye" to me!

they are such a joy to be around, and i'm so glad that you want to help them with your talents! <3

The Harrison's said...

I can definitely see you doing this. You have so many talents that are perfect for this job! We have a Social worker at Kolob and they are so awesome in working with the elderly. The elderly are awesome! I've been working with them for just over 3 years now!

I'm glad you also figured out what you are going to do :)