Little Wonders

 Dear Journal -

When I opened up my laptop and saw the date, the first thing I thought was..... I think today is Ben's bday! (Benjamin Nunez) that's not his name! so I was like, well I'm too lazy to grab my phone and look on FB to see if it is, and I never remember my FB password so can't do that either, so I googled him and of course he popped up everywhere as he has been blogging for years and has many followers and actually gets comments on his blog, not like me I get zero! but I did see that my page view had gone up, which always makes me happy cause it's nice to know that people (hopefully strangers) are curious to read something or that my blog came up on a search or something.  I can't tell who reads my posts but I can tell that there were hits to my blog.  So on the web I found out that he also has a YouTube page and I started to listen to one of his videos and 2 seconds later I was like, well, I don't care and I went onto this blog to start writing this post.  It so weird to me how he doesn't matter to me now but once upon a time he was all I could think about and now he is just another person to me.  He was meaningful though, without him I would not have this blog, he inspired me and that's why here I am still writing! I often get mad at myself because I feel that if I would of stuck to my writing, I would likely have more followers or readers by now and also that I could of thought of so many interesting things to write other than my probably boring life to the masses.

Tonight I'm going to write about my very first experience in my current role, because this story has to be told as it is pretty sad and happens way to often in this world.  My current role is working as a social caseworker, working with justice involved youth.  I am really excited about this role because when I was in my teens, I feel that my HS counselor changed my life and while I cannot at this time say why she changed my life, I can say that the impact she had on my life was pretty meaningful, so I believe that working with youth is meaningful and can be life changing and I only hope that 20 years from now someone can say, this woman Jazzy who was my social worker changed my life! that would be awesome!

So I get my first case and I'm supposed to meet the family so I call the family and talk to the dad and he tells me that he's grateful to get any support he can with his son, who suffers from mental health issues and that he is really out of control and ran away and they have no idea where he is (this is all I can say about the story) I had a long conversation with dad that morning and we agreed that I would meet the family once son was found and back home.  Well, when I reached out to the family the next time, I find out an hour after I message the family to touch base, that the child had passed away presumably from an overdose.  

My reaction to this news was to start to cry really hard! (I didn't get the news from the family, I got it from my boss over an instant message) I was so devastated that a child had just lost his life to drugs! anytime someone dies of a drug overdose it reminds me of the huge problem we have in this country and all over this world with drugs.  It also reminds me of all the people in my personal life I have lost to this horrible disease! I was so sad for this family and felt really weird because this was my first experience in my current role.  That day was rough for me, I kept thinking that I don't know if this is the type of work I want to continue doing, yet I feel that if I left this kind of work, I would probably miss it.  I am not sure but sometimes I just feel that this is what I'm supposed to be doing and that life's journey has brought me here to this moment to this role.

I'm going through many different things right now, so I really like to listen to the song I will post at the end of this post.  I like it so much because it takes me back to my room in my apt. in Brooklyn, where I first started writing this my journal.  This song reminds me that I overcame so much stuff in my life time and that I'm sure that I will overcome so much more.  Some days when I'm really down, I think of those who have taken their own lives and I think to myself, I can understand how sometimes life can be so hard and so challenging and so sad and I can understand almost why you would want to just leave it.  But, do we really know if death will be better than this what we go through here? I hope and pray that if anyone ever feels that way especially a youth that I'm working with, that they can talk to me about it, who knows, I might just direct them to my blog and say...... You want to read about sad shit, check out this blog! sure I mainly post my sob stories, but I assure you I have had so many happy moments as well.  Life is like a wave and you just have to know how to ride it and if you fall, you have to get up and try riding the wave again and again and while you will probably never master it, you will at least learn how to cope.

While I was in my car crying the other day and the song came on, I thought to myself, why am I crying? it could be worse, I could of just lost my 16 year old son! and that made me cry even harder because I will never know what that poor family must be going through and how they must be blaming themselves about what happened.  I only hope that they will not break apart and that they will find comfort in each other.  I hope that this angel is resting somewhere beautiful and that maybe there is a better place that we go to when our time is here.

I leave you with.................