I Just Decided To

I'm beyond exhausted with the amount of bad news and bullshit I am exposed to everyday (the fucking nonsense with Starbucks cups pushing me over the edge), so much so that there is no word for the level I have reached.

So I'm volunteering at Boys & Girls Club, starting tonight.

I miss the kids I was working with at Big T when I was doing their Fun Club program, of course, but to be fair, a lot of them are now in middle school, and I don't get done with work until 4:00pm which is when they would need to start, and until someone invents teleportation, I can't make it a half hour across town to make that happen. So now, I am going to be working with K-12 kids again, teaching theater and improv basics, maybe even doing something with vocal music in the future if my schedule will allow it (the county-wide coordinator is making a huge push for more performing arts activities, and the Loveland branch needs people for both theater and music), and I cannot wait!

It's easy to be sad and angry at everything, with depression or without. It's also easy to feel better. Don't get me wrong, I've been working my ASS off with my therapist to make it easier for me to feel good, and that's in addition to all the work I've put in since I was 14, but one thing I had to learn and work on is the concept that being happy can be easier than I believed it would be. And what makes it easier is helping other people. If you're fun and sincere and doing what you can to help, other people, especially kids, don't care about your faults. They don't know about your (perceived) failures, they don't hear all of the horrible things you say to or think about yourself, they don't worry about all of the drama in your own head. What matters to them is if you care enough to be there and are interested in their lives. Hell, most of the teachers I loved when I was growing up were the ones that made me laugh, or got me interested in something, or showed me how easy something was that at first glance seemed to be daunting, or made me excel in the areas I was already gifted. I know I have the ability to do that for other kids (said the 30 year old that still identifies herself as someone that needs adult supervision), and I have the opportunity and time to do that now that I have settled into a job with a comfortable routine to it. So if there are going to be depressing things in the world that just refuse to be resolved, then I am going to do what I can to make my corner of it happier.

The rest of the afternoon is going to be reviewing what I'd like to cover in my first class with 9-12th grade kids. I haven't worked with that age group in years, so I don't quite know what to expect, but I'm really hopeful that they'll pick things up quickly, and I won't have to spend most of my time feeling like I'm herding cats (which can happen with younger kids very easily).