i just want to matter

I don't know why I can't seem to settle for an everyday life.  I always need to add a little chaos in to make myself comfortable.  My latest venture has been to become a foster parent.  In the course of getting licensed, you are asked repeatedly why you want to become a foster parent, and my typical answer involves the hole left in my heart after our last surrogacy attempt came to a close and wanting to help children.  This past weekend when a close friend asked, my simple answer was "I just need to be needed." It's something I never really realized about myself until hearing the words come out of my own mouth.  I have also recently found myself saying, "I just want to matter."  And it's the truth.  I would do just about anything to help a family member or friend.  I don't find myself with the opportunity very often, but when I do, I try to jump at the chance as much as I can.  It is a side of myself that I am not that comfortable with, and it is not really what I think people think of when they think of me, but the truth is that I am really just a little girl who wants to matter.

Three weeks in, and this first foster journey is pretty much kicking my ass, but every day I see more and more how I am mattering to these kids.  Little by little my family is able to repair the scars from the life they've led before coming into our home.  And at the end of the long and exhausting days, I know that deep down to someone, I have mattered.