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DAY SEVEN: Dildly spends much of the day helping to make Christmas decorations for a holiday fundraiser at the shelter. But her efforts get slightly thrown off track by the prospect of reconnecting with her biological family. "I feel like when I get myself together, and I'm 100 percent of what I know I am, that's when I can allow other stuff," she says. "Even though I left my foster family and their drama and their craziness and whatever, that would mean I'm dealing with another family ... and their mess and their drama and their crazy stuff. I don't want to add on one stress to another. I do want to eventually find out who they are. But, I didn't want to see my birth mom and birth dad [because] I feel like: 'You gave me up.' I always wanted to know who my siblings were. My foster family, see, they're miserable and they wanted to make everybody else just as miserable. What they were trying to put in my head was: 'Nobody else wanted you.' I have to heal from that, too."
DAY EIGHT: It's another day of anxiety for Dildly — this time stemming from some of the other residents and the numerous personalities at the shelter, as well as from the fact that she hasn't heard any news about the applications she's submitted to potential employers. As she sits in the computer lab, searching for a job online once again, she takes a detour and visits a meditation website. "It was wonderful. I did two meditations and I almost fell asleep. I think that's what I'm going to start doing to relieve stress — just meditate," she says. "Being here, I really don't have any quiet space."
DAY 20: After a long stretch, Dildly reconnects with her foster family. The reunion, unfortunately, comes about as a result of a health scare: "I had a lump on my breast and I had to have an ultrasound. They didn't know what it was and they still don't know what it is. So, I have to get a biopsy on the 25th of this month, and then I will see if it is cancer or not. The doctor said because of my age that it's rare but there is still a chance. Since they don't know, I'm going to have to sit here and wait. The doctor was like, 'It shouldn't keep you up at night.' Not knowing whether you have cancer or not doesn't give me the best of hope! But I was praying in there. I know God can deliver me from every and anything. So I was just saying, make some miracles happen. Even though it's rare for a person of 23 to have cancer, it doesn't mean that it can't happen. But, I'm fine.
"But anyway, because I was there before, when I had a migraine, all of my information was underneath my mother's name. So, when they wanted to call and verify my appointment, they called my mother and not my cell phone. I'm in the back ... talking to this lady who had a rough day, and I'm trying to motivate her. Only thing I hear is: 'Is Octavia back there?' I was like: 'Who is that?' I peek my head back, and I see my mother, my baby sister and a friend of the family. I hadn't seen them in over a year. This April was the first year I didn't speak to them. It would have been two years if I hadn't spoken to my mom yesterday. It was kind of like a bittersweet moment to me, because we didn't leave with a good note. And, you know, I gave her my cell phone number, and it was good.
"So, I had to meditate today. Just being here and having my personal issues as far as me talking to my mother again and being here in all of this crap and having so much, like, built-in negative energy. Even though I released a lot today, I still feel a little tense. It's going to be in the back of my head until I find out ... when they do the biopsy. It's going to be in the back of my mind. Just because the doctor says don't worry about it, it doesn't mean I'm not going to worry about it. And then seeing my mother on top of it; but, I'm not going to have a pity party. I'm just going to keep it going. And if I don't get good news, I signed up for this program that they have at Presbyterian where if I need surgery that it will be paid for. I wouldn't want to go through chemo. I love my hair. I do. I love my hair. That was my thing. But if the doctor gives me some bad news, I'm just going to shave my hair off. If I have to go through chemo, then I know it's going to fall out."
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