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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Should I Stay or Should I Go was a song by the English punk rock band the Clash from their 1982 album Combat Rock. I liked the song but I had to look up this information. I was never a big punk rock fan. This song has been giving an earworm for the last two months.

The stay or go question is something that all of us will face at some point. Usually, it’s tangled in a job or a relationship. For me it’s a mixture of both job and relationship. 

It was a 9/11 response for my husband and me to take a leadership role in the coordination of a clothing room for homeless men in NYC.  At the time the clothing room was a mess, there was no organization, and no game plan.  We were spending all day, every Sunday trying to sort things out, literally and figuratively. It was exhausting work physically and stressful to constantly face people with needs that we couldn’t fulfill. It took us more than a year to get develop a process that satisfied us, the other volunteers and our guests.

Although the physicality and the stress never diminished, we embraced the challenge. Even after my husband passed, I continued, partially because it was something we built together but also because I was personally so invested in the project. It became a huge part of my identity, even more than my career.

There were some very tough times when I almost bailed, like the summer of the mouse scourge or the loss of several truly great volunteers. That was particularly difficult because we had formed a friendship as well and I enjoyed the coffee we shared after the volunteer shift. At that time, I was sad. Oh, I was very skeeved about the mice but I knew that was fixable.

This time it was different. I found myself asking the crucial stay or go questions. I realized that my discontent had specific origins. I wasn’t seeing any of the pre-pandemic regulars and our hours changed.  At first, I thought, they didn’t realize that we had reopened but as the weeks went on and they still didn’t return. I couldn’t stop wondering where they were and how did they fared during the pandemic lockdown.

The entire activity had changed. Many of the regular soup kitchen volunteers, that is the major operation on Sunday morning in the same space, were missing too. What used to be a cacophony of activity of Sunday morning felt like a ghost town.  It was unsettling but I figured I could soldier on.

Over the course of two decades, I had honed a process. It worked. The process was born out of plenty of mistakes and the rationale developed from years of observation. Long before Covid, the safety of my volunteers and guests was always a primary concern.  With the help of my volunteers, we provided a service with dignity and we earned the trust of our guests.

But when the new broom sweeps, it wants to make its own mark. I’m old enough to have friends whose careers ended just because, and an organization wanted something different.

I’m not burned out. I’m physically able. I’m also wise. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted and valued. My contribution needs to feel like it counts. In these crazy, modern times ‘clothe the naked’ became much more than a biblical phrase to me. My guests’ living situation was enough of a hardship for them. My guests wanted clothes that helped them blend in with the others on the street.  The clothing room, became personal. It tested and strengthened my integrity.  For that I am forever changed and grateful.

I can’t flip a switch to fit the new objective. I feel no sense of integrity or dignity in simply moving lots and lots of ‘stuff.’

Similar to the punk rock song, I was ready to be there until the end of time and now I won’t be. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another opportunity to contribute to such a worthy project.

It makes me very sad.