Time, where art thou...

Damn. For someone who is supposed to be cutting down on his workload, I sure seem to keep busy. Blog, I have neglected you and I am sorry. Apologies also to the three people who read this thing.

News...

Big Brothering again
After much hooing and hawing, I have decided to be a Big Brother again. I did it for a year and a half in the Bay Area and found it to be, at turns, very difficult and incredibly rewarding. It taught me an awful lot about myself and a lot about just how messed up some families can be. Suffice to say, there was much work to be done in my empathy department and I was constantly being exposed to problems and drama that I wasn't really prepared for. My "little" was twelve when we were matched. He had waited three years to be matched with a volunteer when he finally got me. THREE years. I often thought of the impact that I could have had on his life if I had been matched with him when he was nine. At twelve, the hooks were already in him and much of our time together felt like damage control. He was basically self parenting because half of the family was addicted and the other half was busy enabling them. Rough. Great kid though. Smart, resourceful and really funny. The good times that we had more than made up for the screaming matches I would often walk in on when I would bring him home. Best thing I learned is that, as much as you want to be Superman, you can't fix everything. You can't stop the addiction, you can't adopt the kid, you can't make him raise his grades. You just have to be there and do the best you can. Be creative and show him new options for every situation that he encounters. You just hope that if you "walk the walk", that he will too. And he did, mostly.

So, after my first experience, I was ready for a little break. We moved to a new state, we needed time to settle and, besides, I had seen enough tragedy for a while. But one day I decided just to call the BBBS office to see what the need for male volunteers was, and it turns out that it was pretty dire. There are currently 98 boys in Durham alone who are languishing on a waiting list. To make matters worse, male volunteers are also on a steady decline. So, that kind of made the decision for me. That, and the fact that I feel like I'm ready again.

My new "little's" name is Alex and we will probably have our first meeting next week. He is eight years old and we like a lot of the same things. Sounds like a great kid and I'm pretty excited about it. It will be interesting to see how this experience stacks up with my first one. In a way, I feel that my first experience was a bit of a trial by fire to prepare me for any situation and now I'll be a much better "Big" this time around. We'll see.