New Insight

My volunteer placement is with WEAC; basically my partner and I get to hang out with the ladies in the center and we will hopefully be working with the ladies to do some community organizing. Instantly I felt a surge of affection for the women I'm lucky enough to spend time with - they're funny, kind, compassionate, ridiculously blunt and I love every second of the time I get to spend there. It always flies by.
Before I started the placement, I was really worried that the women wouldn't give us the time of day, that we'd offend them or that we were going to discover that our minds weren't as open as we thought they were and that we were assuming way too much. When we showed up I was really nervous, but once we sat down and said hello, most of the women approached us first and most of my concerns about offending them or anything of the sort floated away and I focused on getting to know the ladies and enjoying myself. I don't know if I can describe my feelings of joy when I left, knowing that this placement would be everything I hoped for and more.
The day after meeting the ladies I was driving home after work and saw a woman working the corner of the street I live on. This isn't anything new, I don't live in the best area and women frequently work that corner. On any other day I would have done as normal, hoped that the woman on the corner had a good night, that she was warm and that she would have a safe night. I never realized before that night how detached those thoughts were, often by the time I got into my apartment the thoughts of them had left my mind and I was focused on whatever it was that I needed to do that evening.
This night was different - I stared at this woman, looking for familiar features, wondering if she was one of the ladies I had met or seen the day before. I found myself hoping it wasn't one of the girls I'd met the night before and when the normal thoughts of safety and warmth popped into my head my concern was so much more real than I'd ever considered before.
I do not like that I wanted this woman to be somebody I hadn't met, it was selfish. Instead of accepting the new insight I had into this woman's life just by recently meeting women who have worked the streets, I reached for anything I could to put her back into the safe place that I had placed so many women into. As if by wishing them well I was doing them some service because I wasn't one of those people who looked upon them in a negative way. I now realize that even though I wished them well, I wasn't doing them any favours because I wasn't doing anything. Maybe it's understandable that I didn't approach these women, but until this moment I've never volunteered anywhere that I could actually make a difference in these women's lives.
Regardless of my hope that this woman was not somebody I had met, my concern stuck with me - I live close to WEAC, any of the women I am fortunate to spend time with could walk to that corner and sell herself. I remain rocked, I worry about the women who work the corner beside my apartment. No longer do I look at a woman working the streets with the detached sentiment of hope before moving on with my life, this has become so real to me now. How easy would it be for one of the ladies I see twice a week to go out for a night and get hurt or never come back? How many of them or people they know already experienced violence like that? Violence in general?
It never occurred to me how naive I was. I recognized my experiences of trauma, crime or homlessness could never compare to these women's lives and experiences, but I never realized how detached and impersonal my feelings could be towards woman who are in the same position as the ladies I spend time with at WEAC. I considered myself a compassionate, helpful person - which may be true- but subconsciously, although I acknowledged these women as people deserving of compassion and respect, I saw them as somehow outside of me and my world because I had no personal attachment to them. Perhaps I had to meet some women who have been in the position where they have to sell themselves before I could ever truly begin to grasp the reality of working the streets, I will never understand it the way they do, I will always be the 'other' when it comes to understanding how these women are forced to live. I will still go back to my privileged, safe life while they contend with struggles I could never imagine.
I am truly thankful for this new insight, I feel like my eyes have finally been opened a little bit more to the realities women face and developed a new appreciation for what an amazing privilege my placement is.