logo

7:53 PM Today wasn't so bad. I got to help with an unofficial Special Olympics type event for work, which my coworkers and I expected to be a fair bit more stressful than it actually ended up being. The student I typically am the 1-on-1 for wasn't there, so I instead got paired up with another student that tends to be a bit more hands-on. We got rained out toward the end of the events and switched to an indoor arena, but the student I was with got overwhelmed pretty soon after and we went back outside so he could chill out. It was only sort of sprinkling by then, and I love to be outside when it is a bit rainy so I was quite pleased.

8:48 PM Work was awful today, but I got to come home and walk barefoot in the wet grass with my son to go watch a train pass by on the tracks behind our house. It was a much needed moment of peace in an otherwise hectic string of days. Between the brutality that is working with aggressive and violent special needs kids, the never-ending creep of problems faced by a new homeowner, working a second job most evenings, raising a rowdy toddler, being a full-time online college student, and my grandfather's funeral yesterday, I've felt well and truly beaten down by life here lately. For good or ill, my child is too little to be burdened by my grandpa's passing, so I will wear a heart heavy enough for us both. I hope he will look back at pictures of them together from the past couple of years and smile. We weren't the closest, Pawpaw, but I cherish the many weekends we got to come visit you this year. Truly it is a shame that there will be no more, but I feel it ultimately might be better for you to have passed on than to keep living the way you were toward the end. If your faith led you to the afterlife you sought, I hope it is all you anticipated and more. I will listen for you in the wind sweeping across the fields, and look for Grandma in the wild lillies growing therein.