Friday, August 17, 2007

Parenting

Though I'm not a parent (or a shrink) I feel as though I often play one in real life. Working with teens for the last five years, I've been beyond lucky in sharing their joys, dreams and triumphs from scholarship awards and college acceptances to learning to drive and cool concerts. I've also felt devastatingly vulnerable when witnessing their pain from break-ups and depression to discrimination and death.

I can hardly imagine what it's like for a real parent to live so vulnerably everyfucking day. It's honorable how they manage and succeed. I find myself tonight uneasy as I was an utter failure in helping a student deal with what was messin' with his/her shit.

I'm usually pretty good at this stuff. I'm not tall, fast, strong, a great musician, a great writer or great-looking. I can't sing, draw, paint, figure out cars or cure diseases. But honestly (and this is not bragging, but even if it were a teeny bit, it would be better than false modesty) I am better than average at connecting with people, teens in particular, and helping them not only learn to write and express themselves, but just deal with life (at least I like to think I am). So when I totally come up snake eyes it fucking sucks. I feel just powerless.

I hope that this too shall pass.

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