After 4 months of working with the agency to become a certified foster home we finally received our certificate a week ago. The weeks of classes and endless paper work was not the part that disturbed me most. It was the background check. Not the standard run of the mill background check but “if its out there we will find it” type of check.

Its not like we have a secrete life or anything worth hiding but its the thought the every logistical detail of your life can be narrowed down to 2-3 pages of information. Think about it, your whole life in a small manilla folder. Our trainer could help but mention “Ms. Davis ya’ll have moved around a lot” ” and ya’ll do have a ton of tickets.”

Every place I’ve lived in my life I know it very well. I can tell you where I was in my life and what i enjoyed most about that place and time. Most importantly,I remember how the younger me was a complete mess.

The background check doesn’t have a section for character or a place to put the narrative of life. There’s no where to explain that all the tickets I received were on the way to work , which was 45min from where I lived in the next county over. I left my 1st job at 4pm to be at my next job by 5pm back in the town where I lived.

There’s no where to explain that after we were married my husband got a job out of town and every weekend we drove back & forth to see each other for the first 4mths of our marriage. So yeah, I got a few tickets in the process of trying to get from A to B.

But the great state of MS doesn’t have a commuter train.