Happy accidents

Last year a kid came into my office and told me his uncle was killed in a car crash.  Turns out he was suffering from a broken heart and made up a lie so he could find a way to voice his heartache.  He sat in my office for hours and I watched as drops of tears cascaded over his acne. Figuring out the lie was the first challenge, consoling a tough teenager as he wept was the second.

In 12 months I've watched from afar and seen this kid transform.  I've been a witness to his growth, physically, but emotionally too.  I've seen him prance down the hallways gleefully as he showed off for the girls on one day and I've seen him trudge through the same stretch, miserable, the next.

I've heard stories of his mom's coocoo stick, which you can imagine serves a single punitive purpose, and I've seen his eyes light up with curiosity at my stories of adolescent rollercoasters. 

He used to pop in every once in a while, just to say hello, just to check in.  And then it stopped.  As if I knew too much, he stopped saying hello in the hallways, stopped poking his smiley face in my office at the end of the day, he seemed to retreat altogether.

And then, just like old times, he stopped by for a quick visit today, hallway pass in hand.  I noticed how much older he looked.  He asked me what I got for Christmas, told me about his, and my heart warmed because I realized I did everything right with this person.

I was angry when I found out he lied to me, but it opened a window into himself, that could have just as easily been shut down, like it probably had been so many times before.  We got to talking about his father, about anger, about girls, relationships.  We got to talking, and sometimes that can be really difficult for a teenage boy to do.

So yeah.  I'm tootin' my own horn today.  But only because I've been watching this whole story unfold.  And because I sat there and I listened, and I really feel like that made a difference.

Hallway chatter,
Katie