90 percent work and 10 percent play.

you know when you get together with family or friends and you hear yourself talking and talking about one thing and in your head you're like, shut up, these people don't care.

but you're just obsessed and can't seem to focus on anything else. that is what has happened to my life with my new job. travis, bless him, listens to me ramble on and on and on and ON about the kids i work with. i'm just in love. even when they yell at me, swear at me, and lie to my face, like one girl who spilled milk on the carpet and then quickly tossed a magazine on top of it and then played dumb when i told her to clean up her mess, i still love them.

it's unbelievable how exhausted i am after working an 8 hour shift. the first week of work, i found myself acting very snippy and short tempered. i went to a family party and found that the usual patience i have with certain family members who make me crazy was dried up. no patience left in the reserves. i couldn't figure it out and then i realized, oh, i put up with bullshit all day long. i don't have any more room for bullshit putting up with after work. yikes.

what kind of bullshit you ask? it comes in the form of a girl yelling "it's none of your damn business" when you ask her how things are going with her mom after she gets off a pretty intense phone call. it's dealing with a girl who has borderline personality disorder and trying to decide which lies to call her out on and which ones just aren't worth it. it's hearing a boy who has a juggalo background tell racist jokes and trying to explain to him why that's not appropriate when he has a lifetime of indoctrination saying otherwise.

oh and then there's the heartbreaking stuff. like the boy who is filled with grief and shame over stealing an older woman's prescriptions, and then her family assuming the older woman can't remember where she put them and then putting her in a nursing home. the girls in groups therapy agreeing that they will probably never be with a sober guy because the sober ones are too boring. it's the girl who tells you stories about her mom's boyfriends coming into her room late at night. the hopelessness in a girl's eyes when she tells you she is out of options. that her choices are to run from treatment, or go back to her 25 year old boyfriend, or go live with her mom and her pedophile boyfriend, or go to foster care. what on earth am i supposed to say to her to make her okay? last night, one girl was talking about these cute hot pink shorts she used to have. and how she doesn't have them anymore because she was pushed out of a window at a party when she was drunk and high and the paramedics had to cut her out of those shorts. one girl talked about how her mom had stolen her paychecks to pay rent. there are a thousand stories just like these.

and then you start to realize how impossibly hard it is to change the world.

but there are the good moments too. the moments that keep me driving back to work. like when a girl tells you she has decided to stay sober. and not to run anymore. or the moments when you are out back playing catch with the boys and they just seem like regular kids, not kids who assault police officers or steal prescriptions or shoot up. or like yesterday, when i finally got the girls to do a workout with me and seeing their pride in accomplishing something hard, like holding a plank position for two minutes or doing a certain amount of lunges. or having a guitar lesson with a boy who is so shy but so incredibly talented. and then watching him teach his peer what he learned. oh these kids are so full of potential!

working with adolescent boys is tricky. they are all so sweet to me, and i'm not stupid; i know why. it's tricky to put those boundaries in place, like what do you say to the 16 year old boy who keeps calling you "darlin" and what do you say when at dinner, one kid announces that every boy the unit has a crush on you. "sorry, i'm happily married." i replied. but i am always wary of advances or flirting. my parents worry about those adolescent boys assaulting me. but i want to have faith in them, even in spite of what my past has taught me about what boys are capable of. i just love them. i don't know if i completely understand unconditional love, but i think that's what i feel for these kids.

see, i told you all. these kids have taken over my life.
but there really are other things going on. sort of.
 the week before last with all the fires, travis worked 130 hours.
 yeah, i didn't know there were that many hours in a week.
so we kind of just work. a lot. but this week we made it a point to squeeze in some summer fun.

 travis and his crew hard at work. 

 mountain biking with my dad

 my mom and i doing our usual thing

 

 day at the pool together

 kayaking and swimming in east canyon 

 getting slurpees on 7-11, naturally.

we are all about work around here lately, but i'm thankful we were able to spend a little time together this week. 

please don't have children if you don't plan to even try to teach them right from wrong.

thanks, xo