Juvie Hall

Saturday, November 7th

I’ve begun a new job.  I am managing a group home in the North Metro of Minneapolis.  My clients are between the ages of 18-21, mildly retarded, with various mental health diagnoses.  This is the end of week one, and I have already had to reprimand an employee and restrict a client’s privileges.

Maybe you understand.  I want people to like me.  I don’t like being the “bearer of bad news” or the new tyrant on the block.  But, I am doing what I think is right and fair. Sometimes I second guess myself.  Did I handle that well?  Could I have been a bit more understanding?  I am reaching deep inside myself to be firm and yet compassionate.

So, I’m working with the Little Rascals.   Sometimes I feel exhausted by just how much attention they crave.  They have been in and out of group homes, detention centers, hospitals, treatment centers.  Some have dead beat parents.  They have been abused emotionally, verbally and psychologically.

Monday, November 9th, 3PM

One of my guys is furious with me today because I restricted him.  He has made it clear that he’s going to make my life a living hell.  And that’s exactly what he is doing–cursing at the top of his lungs and banging walls.  He’s the oldest and he’s very good at dragging the others into his mayhem.

I just heard glass breaking.  Turns out, it was a window breaking.  One of the guys was tapping out a rap beat and tapped just a little too hard.  He felt badly and wanted to know if he was in trouble.  He said it was an accident and I believe him.

It’s the other one I’m worried about.

Not sure this job is right for me.  It’s stressful.  But I’m going to stick it out for a while.  Hey, at least I will have some interesting stories to tell, right?

5PM

On my break I drove to the store and picked up some cigarettes.  I came back to find everyone, including my support staff in the front yard.  They were all yelling something.  I came around the side of the house and found another broken window.  This one was intentional–knocked out with a broom handle.

I didn’t say anything to my client who broke the window.  Honestly, I don’t know how I am going to handle this one.  While the other guys went to the library, I hung back with him and talked.  He calmed down and finally expressed some remorse for what he had done.

7PM

I was almost home this evening when my support staff called.  A consumer was AWOL.  I turned my car around and began searching the thoroughfares and streets on the way to the group home.  No luck.  When I arrived back home the police had already arrived.  After we had nearly completed the report, my client returned home.  He had run home.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

All in a day’s work.  But why did it feel like a week!

Quiet Wish

Do you carry a quiet wish?  . . .  something you have only told your closest confidants?

I want to have children.

I want to meet someone special.

I want to do something meaningful with my life.

Photo by crookedbrains.net

Words have tremendous power.  Because words carry so much energetic and psychic weight, even the ones we carry around in the recesses of our minds must be expressed.  Wishes or words unexpressed swell within us like bubbles waiting to burst into reality.

Do you carry a quiet wish?  I do.

Today I will reflect on the quiet wishes within.  Though life circumstances may not represent the artistry I desire, I will have hope.  I will nurture my dreams.  I will breathe in fully and exhale on a quiet wish.

In Here

Ever wonder why life never seems to “arrive”?  We spend our prepubescent years wanting to be a teenager, our teenage years wanting to be an adult, our young adult years wanting to achieve success, our adults years wanting to simplify and so on and so on.  That elusive place of arrival is always out there–just beyond our grasp.

If only I could study harder, work more hours, have more free time, be recognized at work, have a family, settle down, have financial freedom.  The moments of true contentment and real peace sometimes seem few and far between.

As I am writing this, I receive a text from a friend of mine: “Help! Soul in CRISIS!  Not high, just wanting to act out. Arrrgh!  (Need) intimacy–affection–attention.  That and I feel like a lost soul.  Sigh.”

I told him I could relate to how he was feeling.  He’s an artist too. Perhaps it’s an artist thing?   Nope.  It’s just a plain ‘ole human phenomena.

Another friend of mine texts me shortly afterwards.  He speaks of a particularly difficult time he is going through.  Life isn’t adding up.  ”I’m beginning to realize this is a growth stage I’m going through,” he says.

The only way out is through.

Precisely what I think.  Growth is difficult.  Sometimes we think we got it wrong. Things don’t feel right.  We don’t think we have what we want–when the very thing we are going through is crafting us into the person a Greater Power wants us to be.

Random thoughts on life.  I don’t know if they make sense for you the way they do for me.

In closing, here’s a note I received from “the Universe” today at www.tut.com:

Now let me get this straight, John: You want things that you don’t yet have, people in your life who you don’t yet know, and events to take place that haven’t yet occurred, so that once these “things” come to pass you’ll feel happy, confident, and fulfilled; accomplished, desired, and appreciated; treasured, adored, and like one bad mamma jama, a beautiful sight to see?

But… wasn’t that your rationale for all the other stuff you wanted, that you now have?

Whatever, John, more of everything is on the way.

The Universe