A look way back

Adrienne at Irwin Beans started a blog series today entitled "Old School Sunday." I like the idea, so I'm going to try to post a few of my old musings.

I wasn't super dedicated to keeping my old blog (on xanga, no less), but I had some rather deep thoughts in my first couple years of college. They were definitely wordy, but I was working through a lot of stuff.

So the post I'm sharing today is from 2007, written during my final summer at camp. I had just declared my double major at that point, so you can see the sociological/criminal justice sides of me both in this entry. I can also remember being so sure of what I was supposed to do with my life. It's funny now, because while community policing still appeals to me, I never thought I would wind up in an office job. Re-reading it, a lot of feelings came flooding back. I'll have to get into them at a different time. Let's just leave it for now as that was the first time at camp I had broken down at the end of a week (in four years), and I had a hard time explaining it to my co-workers who were living it. It'll take some work to word it in such a way that it makes sense to people who weren't there.

All that said, here's the post (from Thursday, July 5, 2007).

I'm so confused...we had Camp Angel Tree this week. It's a sponsored camp in which every girl that comes to CMV has at least one of her parents in prison. (The guys also host at Caraway.) Many of the girls know about where their parent is, others do not. Some live with one parent, some live with grandparent(s), others with other family members, or are in foster care. Some come in and are perfect little angels. Others come in with so much pent up anger and other deep-rooted issues. Some are Christians, others never go to church. It was a tough week. But the reason I'm confused is that we as a society seem to be failing these children. Some staff were made at decisions that parents had made. I'm not; in some ways, I believe these girls can have better chances at life BECAUSE of their parent being in prison. They go to a foster family that can show them real love, or live with other family members that can take real care of them. But I'm not saying that I don't have issue with choices their parents have chosen to make. There is a problem when you rape someone in front of your child, or rape your child. There is a problem when you murder in front of your child. There is a problem when choices you have made so deeply hurt your child that they don't know how to safely release their feelings. No, I'm angry that we had fourth graders that didn't know how to read, and girls that had panic attacks because something spooked them, or girls that just wanted to hurt other girls. I'm angry because I found myself getting really frustrated with them, when I really just needed to love them even more. I'm angry because we couldn't show each of them the amount of attention they needed, cryed out for. I'm angry because they are the forgotten children. Yes, I know that I'm a criminal justice major, that I want to put people behind bars. I still do. Some of the parents of these girls I would have liked to personally caught. But just because their parents did something wrong is no reason for society to forget about the children. Our educational system is too bogged down to help the girls that can't read--that would require individual instruction, and teachers don't have the time or resourses for that. There's a problem when a girl is kicking and screaming, but the people who came to pick her up don't want to care enough about her to even try to calm her down, instead just say that they don't want her in their vehicle like that. There's a problem when a girl is screaming over and over because she is terrified, and some people just want to send her home--making her feel unwanted. All in all, I see that we have problems in our society, but of course, we all already knew that. But what can we do. We, meaning our generation, are going to have to make a difference. We need to get involved with communities. We need to see that love is the way. I know that's hard. I know that sometimes, love is the toughest thing to give. But I also know that it can make a difference. I've seen it. Repeatedly. More than anything, this week just reinforced to me that I am meant to work in communities. Law Enforcement agencies are developing a system called COP--community oriented policing. It works more to keep the community involved to help cut down on crime, to keep the community informed. It's having programs in schools to help children. I know that it's hard to change things. I know that I can't change anything on my own. All I know is that, one day, I would like to be able to talk to kids that are struggling, but see that they are going to be ok, because enough people care about them. I want them to feel loved.