No shady secrets in MY background!

A lot of good businesses in America have policies in place to give back to the community. I want to follow the same good business practices while I'm gearing up to begin a business, so I signed up with Partners - a youth mentoring program in Ft. Collins that is similar to Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

I filled out an application and had to go in for a confidential interview where they ask deeply personal questions about your life. Then they submit your fingerprints to the FBI for a background check and they send reference forms to 3 people you know asking why those people think you'd be a good candidate to mentor a child.

I hadn't heard back from them and thought maybe they found something in my past that even I didn't know about! Background checks are wierd. I don't know about you, but I begin to feel really paranoid when I am under the microscope.

I seriously begin wondering if there is something in my past that I don't know about... like in the soap operas... maybe I was in a coma for 3 yrs, was used as a surrogate mother, had a child without knowing, and some nurse at the hospital harvested my baby and has been raising it, unbeknownst to me, somewhere in New Jersy.

Maybe I'd been hit in the head during some sort of drug bust and I'm living a false life in the fog of amnesia while my first husband, a Columbian drug lord, has been combing the world looking for me!

I thought it was odd because my job with the Federal guv'ment requires me to have a background check.... so I'm thinking - wow. They found something even the FEDS don't know about me!

Well I got a letter the other night and I opened it suspiciously thinking - "well, here it is. This is where they will tell me what horrible thing they dredged up from my life that even I don't know about!"

Nope. It was my letter saying I'd been approved for the program, I need to attend a 3 hr meeting and then they'll match me up with a little girl. * GULP *

I'm nervous.

First of all I HATE meetings. What can they talk about for 3 hours?? I keep telling myself that I'm giving back to the community... I'll be making a difference. The commitment is 3 hrs a week for a year. It doesn't sound like a lot but I know some weeks we get SO busy and I worry that somehow I won't be able to make the commitment. And what if I get a child who is way more than I can handle? I don't have children. I have goat kids, horses, dogs, cats... animals that I can squirt with a water when they are bad or put them in a kennel or hook them up to a lunge line and work the bejeezus out of them... and last time I checked, people sort of frown on treating human children that way.

My meeting is October 15 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm. Wish me luck!

The last time I volunteered for anything, it was shortly after the Columbine incident. There was an outcry for people to be more involved and to volunteer to make a difference in Colorado. I volunteered to work at the House Rabbit Society. Yes. The House Rabbit Society or HRS. I'm telling you - I REALLY like animals. I was in my 20's and was working in the high tech industry and wanted to connect on some level back to animals....

For about a year I'd drive two times a week to the HRS president's house, decend into her basement filled with probably 30-50 bunnies of all ages. I fed them and cleaned cages....

One day I looked around and thought, "I'm not helping anyone in my community. I'm in some crazy lady's basement with a bunch of rabbits! How is this bringing good into the greater community, much less the world?!? OMG - what the hell am I doing here?!"

Somehow I think working with a child might be a bit more helpful and contribute to the greater good of our world!