Is it Friday yet?

The first week after a return from a vacation seems to be both long and too short. It is only Tuesday. Yet, I have been very busy, so the time has gone quickly each day.

But it is only Tuesday. I want to have time off. It feels as though I have been back at work much too long already.

The piles of work still surround me. New work keeps coming. I am hopelessly behind on almost everything. I don’t know how I will ever catch up on all of the paperwork.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am very happy to have a job. I love having the money to pay the bills. I enjoy working with the clients. My clients are teenagers. Them, I usually like.  Parents on the other hand, not so often. I feel for my clients. They are struggling with almost every challenge you could think of, and they have few skills to meet those challenges. The court system is truly not set up to help. For the most part, even juvenile court is focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. This is a small, often rural area. We get kids who use a vacant house as a club house. They decorated it, for pete’s sake, putting carpet samples on the floors, setting up a weight room, and hanging out. We don’t get the gang kids here very often. One of the few robberies I’ve ever had was for a piece of chewing gum. And it was against another kid who had been the source for drugs. I can handle those kinds of cases-no problem.

We do have LOTS of sex crimes. Lots of incest, kids who have been abused, abusing other kids. I have lost count of how many 13 year-old sex offenders I have represented. Sad, sad, sad.

The weather hasn’t helped. It is below zero F now, and the highs during the day are in the single digits above zero F. I rarely feel warm (well, unless I have the assistance of a hot flash). Even the dog shoots in and out as fast as possible, coming in shivering and looking to snuggle.

So, I am already looking forward to time off.  I want a trip to look forward to. Anywhere. As soon as possible. Money will be an issue, making sure that my mom is going to be okay while I am gone will be a new issue to face.

This is the time of year that I really have to fight to keep the darkness of the season and my work from taking me down. I have realized that this is my trigger time.  I’m going to try to stay positive, and I have some good things going to help with that. I am enjoying the  River of Stones project (see the tab for that page, above), I have lunches and dinners with friends scheduled. I have my family nearby, and I’m looking forward to the new grandbaby’s arrival.  I just learned that a good friend is also expecting a first baby.  These things are helping.

But for now—-Friday. I just want it to be Friday.

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