Back to Work Stress

Warning: Bitching below.

I have bags under my eyes today. This is new for me. I've been back in town all of two days, and I have bags under my eyes. We had a Christmas party last night with the youth group, and holy cow. I've realized a couple of things.

One, I really don't think I can relate to these kids. I don't know what's so different that I can relate with the kids twenty blocks south, but not to these, but I just really don't understand these kids. They're wild. Not all the time, but enough so that I feel like I'm lacking in the control that I need to have to run this group. I spend enough time feeling anywhere from helpless to hopeless that I am seriously doubting my ability to succeed in this position.

Two, they don't listen to me and they don't respect me. Maybe I'm trying too hard to be heard, or maybe I'm not enough of a disciplinarian. Don't know which. What I do know is that I have to scream to be heard, and I hate screaming almost as much as I hate throwing up. I don't want to scream anymore.

Three, if this were a regular job and I got paid for it, etc., I would have quit last night. I would have walked away and not looked back. This is a scary and upsetting realization for me. I don't want to be the person that walks away. I don't want to feel like I can't do this job. I don't want to feel that this is a "job". I want this to be my mission, my calling, my... my desire. I want to want to be here.

The last two years, I have had the supreme luxury (and I'm not being facetious) of being able to say to myself, "I choose to be here," whenever I was having a bad day. But I've had a enough bad days here. I don't want to be here. I don't get the kids and they don't listen to me or care what I have to say, and I was ready to walk away last night and this is the first time I've had this problem since I've been in Chicago, and I don't know what to do with it.

The Big Question now is: Am I reacting to having a particularly bad night, so that I am seeing a pattern that doesn't necessarily exist, or, have I just finally accepted that this pattern exists? Did I have such a wonderful vacation that coming back was a shock? Did I get my hopes too high while I was away? Did I expect everything to be perfect, and now that it's not I'm failing?

I don't feel right now that this is a result of last night. I feel that I stopped making excuses last night and that I've finally accepted that I'm not doing okay. I'm fucking up. With a small group of these kids I do fine, but get twenty or more and they're crazy and I can't get it right. I can't do this. And I'm sick of trying and failing and saying it's okay and trying again and failing again. I'm sick of feeling like a fuck up, and then telling myself that this isn't what I want to do with my life, it's just for now. I don't want to do this now either.

Jeez. I need some words of inspiration. I need someone to remind me that all youth ministers go through this. Because I've been in youth minister meetings and everyone has a story like this-- the awfulness of feeling useless and being ready to walk away and thinking you're the worst youth minister ever and then... something... something would happen to remind you why you should stick it out. Where is my something? I don't have it in me anymore. I don't have the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing I've done something worthwhile. I don't feel like I'm doing shit in this current position. I'm not making anything better. I'm not helping the world. I'm just feeling bad.

Two days. I was feeling so good when I came back from Tennessee. I got to see family and friends and it was such a nice relaxing trip. I was rejuvenated. And now I'm sitting in this black cloud. I feel like this cartoon version of myself, actually sitting with a black cloud surrounding me and I can't see past it.

I gotta get out of this funk. It's either gonna work or it's not. I've either got to try or move on. I'm gonna talk to Fr. Marino and Ms. Susan today and see if they can guide me with their years of experience. I'm gonna talk to John later on, see if we can figure some things out. Something's gotta happen. I've gotta get out of this funk if nothing else. I've got to be not pissed, and not hopeless, and I've got to feel like I'm not completely fucking up. I've gotta do something. Because this, right now, these bags and this stress and these realizations I've made, this sucks.

Sallymas

It's my mom's birthday today, and Michael has dubbed it Sallymas. Of course, she doesn't know that yet, because she's still at work, but she'll find out soon enough. The very exciting part of Sallymas is all the presents. I know what two of them are-- the one from me and Michael, and the one from Dad. Mom doesn't know what either of these are yet-- but she'll be happy once she does.

I think I have fallen into the slippery slope of consumerism this holiday season. I decided, for several reasons, that I wanted to get my family good presents this year, because I always feel like my presents to them suck. So I made some stuff and I bought some stuff, and overall, I think I did a good job with getting together some good presents. But then I was like, well, gotta get stuff for my friends too. And what about this guy? Oh, and I forgot her... and on and on it went and now I'm feeling guilty for not having gotten people gifts when I never get them gifts anyway.

The holiday season has officially sucked me in. I even watched a Christmas movie the other night with my dad and Michael. All the way through. And I've stopped cringing quite so much when Christmas music comes on--although, mostly, I just drown it out. Insanity.

Sallymas is a much better holiday than Christmas. It's a newer holiday, so it hasn't yet been bought out by the advertising companies. And plus, the main iconic figure of the holiday, Sally, was not created in looks or image by the Coca-cola company. I'd say that I think everyone should celebrate Sallymas, but then it would just turn into a consumer holiday nightmare. So instead, I'm going to write a short treatise on why people outside of... whoever I think should... should NOT celebrate Sallymas.

Here goes.

In the year of our lord, two thousand and five, my foremother celebrated the XXcensoredXX anniversary of her birth. This grand celebration was indeed dubbed "Sallymas". This is a truly great holiday, filled with presents for my foremother, and eating, probably at a place known as Out, but even still, despite the wicked-awesomeness of the holiday, I really must insist that no one advertise it or allow Coca-cola to have anything to do with it.

Here, Here.

I can't tell...

... if I'm a masochist, or if I just get bored too easily.

I'm sick today, but I'm not home. I started to stay home, but it didn't work out so well, because I found myself hiking the half-mile (through the snow) (uphill) (being attacked constantly by ninjas) to work this afternoon. True, I have stuff I needed to get done, but it could have waited. I was ready to go back to bed a block outside my house, but I kept on. And here I am.

I'm actually glad that I came in, because even despite all the whining and complaining I felt obligated to do, I was still pretty productive. But this is already boring, so I'm going to change the subject.

I made chicken soup, and it got rave reviews from the house. But now we have gallons of chicken soup, and nowhere really to store it. I'm gonna have to figure that one out soon. Probably should have already.

We've had a foot of snow over the past few days. A foot. It's awesome. It's all powdery and light, so not really the type of snow you can have a good snowball fight with, but that didn't stop us from trying. And that was awesome.

This is boring too.

I'm giving up on this entry, officially, because I'm apparently in no mood to be entertaining. I mean, if I can't even hold my own attention, I have no business trying to hold anyone else's.

The end.

Elevenses (has nothing to do with Elevenses)

I had a long day today, and I want to unwind a bit before I go home. I need a hug and a beer, and I'll get both of those things shortly, but I'm gonna do this first.

It's been awhile since I've updated, but there have been several things that I wanted to talk about. So I'm just gonna give you guys the hot skinny on my life for the past few weeks.

Two weekends ago, roommate John and I made cookies. It was originally going to be a community thing, since most of us had families that made cookies during the weekend after thanksgiving when we were kids. But really, John and I were the only ones fully supporting the idea. Ellen and Dan laughed at me for supporting something that had to do with Christmas, when I'm already known for my hatred of Christmas music, and they know that I generally won't buy presents, although I'll make them, or sometimes get practical things. Michael, during our initial discussion of holiday cookie-making, simply said, "You people and your damned functional families," and allowed that to be his general humbug against baking. Then I suggested that we all sing show tunes and Britton yelled out, "What? You want to sing Christmas songs?" and hijinks ensued.

But everyone got behind the eating of the cookies. It was an activity that all could enjoy.

I made Mimi's famous shortbread. That's what I titled it when I wrote down the recipe a couple years back. Everyone agreed that they were the best cookies of all our batches, and that was my cheers to my grandmother who always had shortbread on hand whenever cookies might be needed, or come in handy, or just because.

Last weekend we had an open house. It was far more successful than our open house last year, which had like five guests. This one had dozens, and it was even snowing outside and hell-freezing-over cold. Well, maybe not that cold, but still. I made hot apple cider for the first time ever, and half-way through the three-hour open house, Britton went on a grocery run to get more apple cider supplies because it was in such high demand. I even got a recipe request. That it was from the crazy guy only made it more special, and that he vowed to make it for the last day of Posadas just took the cake. We kicked everybody out when it came time to watch the Simpsons. You DO have to set your priorities in life, and even hospitality cannot beat Sunday night animation. Okay, I'm mostly kidding. :)

On Monday we had our community outing-- we went to an arcade. A busted-ass arcade. The thing was dilapidated, or at least nearly so. Half the machines were broken, but we made the best of it. Actually, it was a really fun time, and culminated in skee-ball and using our tickets to buy fuzzy dice to put in our car. Awesome.

I'm not gonna write about today at all, because I haven't yet figured out something good to say about it. Oh, wait, here's something. My teens love me. One of my girls from Holy Cross told me today that I'm the older, wiser, mature adult in her life that she can turn to and who will listen to her. And her boyfriend feels the same way--which is especially flattering to me because he doesn't trust anyone, and with good reason, really. And my St. Paul teens tonight at youth group spent a good hour telling me that they love me (and that they're sorry and am I still mad?)

There. That's it. I reached the point where it's funny. I can laugh about it, and now I'm gonna go home. And I'm gonna get that hug. And probably the beer too. But it's the hug I'm really looking forward to.

peace, y'all