Hello Beautiful People,
On Monday I went to a wake. For a young man who was 24. For a young man who was very loved. For a young man whose life was cut way too short.
Yesterday in my class, I had a student tell me that kids use heroin cause it’s like…a flower, Ms. Min. You know, it comes from the ground.
And before I lost my mind…I just started at my student.
Dumbfounded.
Completely, and utterly dumbfounded.
HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN.
HOW DOES THAT EVEN BECOME A THOUGHT IN THIS CHILD’S HEAD.
Heroin, is not a flower to be enjoyed.
Ever.
It’s a drug. A horrible, insidious, terrible drug. That destroys families. That destroys lives. That puts the nails in the coffin. It is what sucks out all the air, and life, and love in a human being.
Flower? A harmful little flower?
I think not.
…
Sometimes it can feel like a battlefield, my classroom. It’s a battle to get these young minds to understand that their recreational drug usage is slowly killing them.
See, they always think that they’re superman; that the claws of addiction will never have them in their grasp. And believe me – I assure them that they are not immune, that no one is immune. I urge them to find hobbies. To find passions. To find things that fill their souls and not their lungs or nostrils. I urge them to find purpose. A reason to get up in the morning that has nothing to do with blow or pills or dope or blues or crack.
I want them to find something that fills their souls.
And they look at me like I’m a little nuts. That I’m old. That I don’t understand their plight. That I don’t understand what it’s like to be a kid. A teenager. A young adult.
And the battle begins again. The urge to help them fight their inner demons. Those nagging distractions that pull them from their goals, from the person that they could be, from the something better that they could achieve.
Cause that’s the thing…they could all find something better for themselves. Something better for their lives.
And I tell them. Oh how I tell them that they could be a better version of themselves. That they could do something better. That there is goodness and greatness that lies within each and every one of them. And that I’m sorry that they had a bad start in life – that I wish so very much I could take that pain away…but, unfortunately I can’t.
But I can acknowledge it. I can hear about it. I can help them through it.
I tell them this all the time.
And even though the funerals still come, and the lives still fade away – I still tell them.
Cause the bottom line is, I don’t know how to stop fighting for them. I don’t know to give up on them.
The day I stop fighting for them is when they start to learn how to fight for themselves. For their own futures. For their own lives.
And oh, how I will celebrate that day.
Live, Love, Learn,