Overwhelmed!

When I get overwhelmed, I get... sort of sad. I have been in some sort of insane whirlwind for a week or more, and honestly, I'm at a breaking point. People say the world goes crazy during the full moon, but mine always goes crazy when it's a new moon. It's a new moon.

OK so there's this kid -he's troubled. He's trouble. My husband and I have committed ourselves to trying to help him, and his mother. We never really "planned" to do it, it's just something that happened. It felt right, he needs us, he deserves a chance at something that, right now, he cannot even fathom for himself. Right now, he honestly envisions his future as an inmate. His father has been absent from his life, and has been in prison. THAT is his father-figure roll-model, and it has worked its way into his subconscious that THAT is all he can accomplish.

He got into my heart before I even saw him coming. My heart had decided that we were going to be there for him before my brain had a chance to object. My heart was committed (and Scott's too) before we had the chance to play out in our heads what all we might be up against, or what this effort might entail. It did not occur to me how much his past actions were going to hinder the effort. We never realized how much bad blood there was, following him around, that he/we would have to overcome.

It's been a long time since I saw someone I care about cuffed and shoved into a cop car. It's been a LONG time since I accepted a collect call from an inmate. And no matter how far back I try to remember, I have never been involved in the things that have followed him to my house and into my life. I find myself looking around and thinking, "What in the world is going on!?"

So he's been in trouble. He has a mouth and a temper that, I think, comes from never really feeling safe or having the knowledge that there was someone to protect him. His father isn't around, his mother has health issues, and I think he's just always felt alone, and like he had to be billy-bad-ass and protect himself. But he's a little skinny guy. So he's tried to prove how big and mean he is, and we're dealing with the aftermath, while simultaneously trying to show him the "right" way to handle things. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't know we're trying to inspire him to change, so they're still treating him like the lippy punk he has always been, and, frankly, even though I can see that he wants (and is trying) to change, old habits die hard, and sometimes he IS the lippy punk they've known over the years.

Yesterday 3 adult men chased him down the road and threatened him. He "flashed a gun" (NOT a gun, it was a lighter!) to get them to back off, and peddled his bike as fast as he could to my house to get to a safe place. Unfortunately, they called the cops saying he had a gun. They arrested him in front of my house and he went to jail. (His mother was able to sign him out, and the lawyer feels fairly certain that since it wasn't actually a gun, and he was being threatened and chased by 3 grown men (who have extensive rap sheets for fighting, and public intoxication) that the charges will be dropped.)

Later that evening, before he got out of jail, the same men chased my son and threatened him. He was going to the store to run an errand for me. He wasn't near their home, he wasn't running his mouth, he didn't even know the men would be at the house where they were, as it is not any of them's home, nor is it a place they're known to spend time. He also was NOT part of what happened earlier in the day, because he had been at home all morning before all that went down.

Anyway, they chased him, trying to knock him off his bucycle, screaming threats about breaking his neck, etc... yes, 2 grown men, both near about the same age as I am. Kory called the police, filled out papers, and the men in question are going to jail as we speak. However, that's the 3rd time in a week that grown adult men have felt justified in chasing down and threatening and/or attacking young kids. It is only the first time that the grown men have faced any consequences for doing it.

Unfortunately, I know that all that has happened this week has been in reaction to this kid's past behavior. And it never ocurred to me that I'd be facing all of this crap and drama. I went with my heart, like I said, and it just never ocurred to me that all this would happen. I suppose I've lived a sheltered life, because in my world, grown men just don't attack little boys.

I'll be glad when they're in jail for communicating threats to a minor. And we'll continue to handle things the "right" way, until something gives. I just hope that it isn't my sanity that gives way. This just isn't the way I have ever lived my life.