Anger 28 January 2016

What happens when you are so angry about things that have happened in your life that you can’t see your way clear to anything. And when you feel that way and you’re only fifteen, wow, is there any hope? Of course, there is always hope, but we don’t always see it. They say that adolescence is the time to thrive, to flourish. But when you’ve let your life so far, do nothing but weigh you down, it’s hard to remember how to use the muscles that make your wings unfurl.

You never notice the possibility in the rising of the sun. You never notice the little girl with the huge heart that greets you every single day when you walk into the classroom-you pass right by her. You never notice all the camaraderie because you’re too busy trying to sabotage it. You never notice when you’ve written something so profound that the class sits with their mouths open and your teacher is moved to tears. You are bent on your own destruction and I can’t find the way through your haze of rage to help you find the path out and back into the bright sun and the blue sky.

The irony is, that little girl, the one who cheerily greets everyone each day, lives with rodents, may not have enough to eat because she’s shared what there was with her younger siblings, never has new phones or name brand clothes, and on her birthday, there is no cake and candles because her parents are still working. Her smile fills a room with light and joy and she is so proud of all of her little treasures. She has been dealt no better hand than him, but she sees the world completely differently. She thrives.

So I seated them together this week, with the idea that some of her pure joy, love, happiness, and enthusiasm for living will seep across the short distance between the desks and wear a little crack in the steel of his closed up soul.