Well. I realized two things today:
1. No matter how many years I’ve been doing this, or how many stories I’ve heard, or how many hurt kids I’ve seen, or how well-trained I am, or how supportive an agency is: some days will just be hard. There will always be thirteen-year-olds committing suicide. There will always be live-in boyfriends beating little kids up. There will always be caregivers dying and overwhelmed teachers flying off the handle. There will always be anniversaries of deaths and seven-year-olds whose first response is to stab someone with a crayon. Kids will always make fun of other kids’ teeth and shoes, even if their mother has just died. Even if the kid is an excellent singer. There will never be enough resources. I will never go home and feel okay about it.
2. In New Orleans, sometimes a crazy guy will run after you with a boiled crawfish and say, “Good mawnin! Good mawnin!” moving the crawfish’s little mouth up and down like a puppet, and you won’t know it at the time, but at the end of the day, you’ll feel overwhelmed and discouraged and crawfish guy will make you smile.
Hello 
there may be days where fifteen year old girls cuss me out, throw food everywhere, flip over tables, and throw lamps, but at the end of the day, i can always think about you and read up on your day, and it will make me smile.
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you are so very right. we can only hope that there is a crawfish guy everywhere we may live… just in case we need a smile at the end of the day!
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and Sprinky, it will always make me smile to imagine a giant linebacker fifteen year old girl trying to charge you.
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me, too. sort of.
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why you gotta call me out like that?!
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Only my 286 friends will see it.
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AMAZING THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES…:)
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mmmmm, crawfish!
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Brooke, someday you have to publish your facebook notes in a book. They are always awesome to read. Thank you!
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Thanks, Phyllis :)
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