Friday the 13th gives way to St. Valentine's Day

It was Friday the 13th and all was well. Then I got a page for a crisis out at the juvenile detention center. I wasn't on call, (and nor should I ever be actually, but that's far outside the point). I tried to respond, but I was too late. My own colleagues gave me the total brush off. They were too far along in whatever they were planning to be bothered to hear what I had to say, nevermind it was my client for several months they were dealing with.

So another oppositional teen will be admitted tonight into the psychiatric hospital, only to be turned out in a couple of days with much grumbling and little good done by the staff of that place on her behalf. One dump begets another. I'm sure there will be another 2 or 3 at the detention center over the next week who will try similar stunts to get themselves admitted. I can't even go into all the different reasons this type of scenario bothers me, and it happens all the time. The fact that it's easily avoidable probably tops the list.

Maybe it's Valentine's day.

Lots of kids I work with went nutty this week because of Valentine's Day. Sort of a hormonal charge to the system, all that thinking about love. Too much adreneline.

Dead mothers

I don't know what it is, but so far this year of work has been the year of the dead mother. That's a terrible, terrible thing to say and the paranoid side of me says, "SHHHHHHH...." My own mother, thank god, is very much alive and healthy and a big part of my life. But the kids I work with, my god, it feels like their mothers are dropping left and right. Out of a private practice of around 13 kids, 4 of them lost their mothers. Three within the last year and two of them lost their mothers within the last month. Especially creepy given that my induction to learning about children who've lost their moms early came last year when my high school best friend Elaine was tragically killed. At that time I had to really grope in the darkness when it came to learning how to befriend her very sad and stressed out offspring. Then I realized that in most ways, it was the, her kids, who took me under their wings and eased my own grief with their resiliency and their warmth.

Tonight due to a scheduling glitch I did back to back family sessions with families where the mother has been dead less than a month. It was a very odd feeling. I have been thinking more and more about wanting to actually be a mother and having those nagging thoughts about my age and what it will be like to begin motherhood after 35, which is when it would happen if it does. I wonder how I'll feel if my kid is 25 and I'm into my 60s. Not such a big deal, but I worry about dying on them when they still need me. But you know, I can't think of a time when I'll ever feel "ready" to lose my own mother. No way. I will be devastated if I'm 80 and she's 104.

And then I think of these kids I know - their moms died when they were very young and their kids were, well, kids. Elaine died at 33 and her kids were 5, 8 and 10. One of my kids' moms died at 39 and he was 15. Another woman died at 48 leaving a 16, 13 and 10 year old. The other somewhere in her mid-thirties, when her daughter was only 10. And I come once again to the truism, one never knows. One only likes to think one will know and will have time to put affairs in order.

There's such a gaping hole left in a family when the mom dies and her children are still children. But the funny part is, the kids don't need a whole lot to be okay. Just reassurances and for other people to be there for them for whatever they need. It isn't actually the kids who fare the worst.

I really have to wonder sometimes why I do the things I do with my life. I wonder how it came to be that I got all these kids with dead moms within a year of Elaine's death. I can't help thinking how Elaine's death is something that altered me so, and how I keep referring back to that awful experience in order to get my bearings with the kids I am responsible for helping today. And I feel for whatever reason that I can actually help them, and that it truly doesn't involve much more than being there. And listening, of course. Listening should always go without saying.

A Number of Longer Days

Here is the latest Prosolar Mechanics song.

I was only thinking
I had a fear in me
Then my fear came true
It was overwhelming.
No one could believe
What happened to me.
I had to take myself
Out of the ring.

The new year feels long
I see an early winter coming on
I feel young
But early winter is coming on.

I feel young
But my look gives me away
A number of longer days
This year I will face
In a short time
Young is a state of mind
But I am preoccupied
With the day ahead of me.

I'm not having any fun
They say it's temporary
A step along the way
To a full recovery
And a life beyond
I see an early winter coming on.

This year feels so long
I need a place to place my fear upon
I know what it is to feel young. It's gone.
An early winter is coming on.
And early winter is coming on.

If you read the entry before this, you know what it's all about and who I had in mind when I wrote it. I never used to disclose my lyrics. I don't know why. Worry that people will see through them. Worry that they aren't good enough. Now I don't care. My lyrics are never brilliant, but they are usually honest and of course, when you actually hear them in song they feel much different. That's why I love lyrics. The difference between what you hear in your head when you read them dry from what you actually understand when they are sung is mind bending. And you know, I like bent minds.