Two (contrasting) things

1. Thank you for all the birthday wishes. Fortunately I did not get ambushed with some tacky death-themed over-the-hill party, and hopefully I can avoid the same next year. (One of the good things about looking young for your age - and being fairly closed-lipped about personal matters IRL - is that there are probably quite a few people who know me who aren't quite aware of how old I actually am).

Also, our secretary - who is usually the instigator of such things - had to take a personal day yesterday (one of her kids had knee surgery and she had to look after her). (Not that she's ever done one of those horrific parties but she's the person who reminds people about birthdays.)

And then there's the second, not so happy item:

2. I would call this, were I writing the post only about this, Big Giant FAIL.

Last night did not go well. One of the kids in the youth group is 13 and is having those horrible adolescent defiance issues (which, in my experience, seem to be worst in the youngest kid of a family, which this guy is). He would do nothing I or my co-leader - who happens to be his grandmother - asked him to. He wouldn't take his ballcap off indoors (which is kind of a rule we have. Well, he did take it off for the blessing before dinner, so at least he still respects God). He wanted to go and pick something up from a friend's house near the church and when we told him no, he needed to wait, we were going to do the lesson, he refused and wouldn't come up to the youth room. So finally his grandmother called her husband (his granddad) to come pick him up, that she would deal with him later.

He wound up begging to stay but then wouldn't play the game that everyone else was happily joining in on, after the lesson.

So he just wanted to be miserable and the unfortunate result was that it made everyone else miserable around him - I could tell several of the other kids were uncomfortable, they were looking around like, "What's up with that guy?"

The other problem is that kids from another family - a boy and two younger girls - just went through a divorce. So they were acting out, at least until the boy fell asleep during the lesson (I'm guessing, because he's the oldest, he's being charged with looking after his younger siblings, so I forgive him for sleeping). One of the little girls got so upset over something she got physically ill, and one of the other adults that was there (helping with the dinner) had to drive her home...

And again, I kind of understand why the kids are all messed up, why they're acting out. But it doesn't make it any EASIER. I kind of lost my composure last night when Kid #1 was refusing to do anything as part of the group, and Kid from Broken Family was arguing with his sisters and yelling at Kid #1. At one point I just looked at my co-leader and said, "I'm going home. Let's cancel the lesson and games. I cannot deal with this right now."

Well, after that people kind of calmed down, but it wasn't a very good lesson. (Well, maybe the lesson I prepared wasn't very good, I don't know).

But it frustrates me. Part of it is, I think, these kids deserve someone who can be more devoted to the program - not someone who's coming in after a full, full day of work (and a full day of dealing with difficult students and colleagues and computer malfunctions and all of that). They need someone who's fresh and who isn't almost used-up by the day, like I am. (And my co-leader is in the same boat; she is caring for very aged parents, one of whom has dementia).

The thing is, every time I bring this issue up -that maybe we should HIRE a college-student intern to do this, or at least get someone who isn't so busy, everyone immediately jumps to say what a terrific job we are doing, how important it is, etc.,etc.

That is not exactly answering the question.

What I am saying is NOT that I think we're not doing a good job (although some weeks I wonder about myself); it's that the kids deserve better - someone younger, someone with more enthusiasm, someone who's not already tired. Someone who's not doing it as an add-on to an already busy life.

I think they also need someone who's maybe a little more resilient than I am. Someone who's less prone to look at all the brokenness (and learning about the divorce of Kid #2's parents doesn't help) around me and just want to crawl in a hole and avoid people. Someone who can either tolerate or, better, squash the defiance of someone like Kid #1 instead of standing there and ineffectually saying, "PLEASE take off your ballcap; your grandmother asked you four times to do it"

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Moses stuttered and Peter was impulsive. That still doesn't make me feel like there isn't someone who could do this better than I, it's just that no one seems to want to step up or even investigate getting someone else. (I suppose because we've had problems keeping employees in the Mother's Day Out program, there's reluctance to have to go through the whole interview/background check/hiring process for a youth leader who might only stay a couple months)

So anyway. I'm glad it's over for the week. I hope next week will be better.

Part of it is there's also just a lot of "drama" - real and manufactured - floating around. People with broken relationships (real drama), people getting needlessly upset over stupid things that happen and then wanting to spend hours "discussing" how bad they feel about the stupid things and how it's an insult to them to have to deal with them - and they want to do this "discussing" with someone who's already swamped with work and is sending off subtle "go away and leave me alone" signals.

I don't know. If this particular person tries to suck me into his Vortex of Gloom today I think I'm just going to look at him and go, "I have friends who just divorced, friends who may be divorcing, and other friends who are moving away. I can't deal with any more bad mood making stuff right now" and just cut him right off there.

And I'm really glad now I made plans to visit family over spring break, sometimes when I start getting that burned-out-I-want-to-run-screaming-from-this-place feeling going to see my family (who are SANE, who are calm, who are loving, who don't have unnecessary bad drama) helps a lot.