Meaning

Having teenagers of any kind is a roller coaster. Add mental illness, organic brain damage due to substance abuse, and emotional behavioral disorders, and it becomes a zoo. One minute your proud beyond belief of accomplishments made, and then next minute your shaking your head in disgust at their poor choices. And when you have a lot of them -- as in six like we do now -- it's a crazy ride.

We have created a life of peaks and valleys. The stress we live under is of our own choosing and we know this. When we started out our marriage we wanted our lives to mean something. And so we sought meaning, and our life is bursting to the seams with meaning. Maybe too much sometimes.

Bart has a meaningful job. He is dealing with the spirtual lives of hundreds of people, responsible to care for them spiritually and emotionally during the best and worse times of their lives. He marries them . . . and he buries them. He baptizes their children and then confirms their teenagers. He is there when they are sick, when their marriages fall apart, when they get their Boy Scout Eagle badges, when they get engaged, when they are diagnosed with a life threatening disease. A job filled with people, and with meaning.

I have two meaningful jobs. Adoption is one of the most personal journeys that anyone can take and I am involved with people from the minute they start thinking about adopting until long after they finalize their adoption. People tell me of their most significant personal struggles and I help them work through the difficult times. Again, I am riding their roller coaster with them, just as Bart is doing so with his parishioners. They tell me of the joy when they first hear the word "Mom" or "Dad" after waiting for years . . . and I hear about it when a child is expelled from school, sent to juvenile detention, or attemps to commit suicide. It's intense.

And then we have our parenting, which is definitely full of meaning. Ten lives, all different, all from various backgrounds, all with their own personalities and their own needs. Every moment is a challenge. Always attempting to determine the best ways in which to deal with behaviors, how to teach values, how to keep things steady and sane.

And so, with all this meaning, we attempt to make the best decisions as to how our time and money should be best spent. We have very little of either to spare. Yesterday I spent a full hour trying to get into Salinda's head and figure out what is going on with her lately. I had many other more pleasant options of how I could spend my time, but that is what was needed at the moment.

Today there is a parade in our area and we have a wild morning ahead of responsibilities and expectations. Rand is helping with the food stand and float at the church. Ricardo is at soccer. Jimmy's job has a float, so he is going there. The boy scouts also have a float, so Tony will be there. The rest of us will be watching the parade and hanging out with friends and some will be gathering candy.

For right now Bart is upstairs entertaining the children. I just heard a snippet of the conversation, so typical of his annoying pre-teen age group.

"Hey Dad, I know Dominyk's cell phone number -- 1-800-Dominyk's a Fag". And now Bart is having to do the "you know that is not appropriate" speech. But when you're a boy, and heading into 7th grade, the last thing in the world you want to be is appropriate.

And so, packed into the meaning of it all, is the rediculousness of it all -- the sillyness of preteen boys, the moodiness of teenage girls, the patheticness of "man-boys" who though they are of the age where they are supposed to be making it on their own, they certainly aren't.

And at the end of each day, we go to bed shaking our heads at the wonder of it all, exhausted, but knowing we'll get up tomorrow and do it all again.