real quick

the teen ennui in this house is thick enough to choke a fucking horse.  it's not even funny, regardless of the joke i just made.  part of it makes me angry and confrontational, and i say things like, "how can you say you don't care about anything? you really, honestly, just don't give a fuck?! how is that a thing?"  the math that goes on in an adolescent head is like the new math, it's like quantum physics, it's truly dealing with imaginary numbers.  when i try to calm down, to speak rationally, to not just ground everything that walks past me with a stink eye (you're next lulu), stop and think "you know, i might just not get it, and that might be okay," it works for like five minutes and then i'm all rant-y and rave-y and back to wringing my hands clean off.  i swing back and forth, feeling alternately annoyed and then terrified that i'll push one of them to suicide and that will really teach me a lesson, a lesson in suffering, a class i will take for the rest of my life and whose final exam i will fail every time.  shit, i bet the ennui is contagious and now i have it.  i feel overwrought and fraught and in a funk. i love these kids, i really do, and i don't love them because i'm "supposed" to: i just do it because i feel it and i have moments when i wish i didn't give a shit because that would be so much easier.  if i were their bio-mom i could use the argument that i'm the mom, so of course i love them, no questions asked; but not only am i the step, but they have a bio-mom who shoots that theory in the foot.  one of them actually said to me, "you're here because you have to be here," and i was like, "nuh, uh, no fucking way. i'm here because i chose it." i picked this.  this is the work that i want to do, even when it sucks. i signed up for this team. if you had to stick around then their mom would live in state, would do more than answer random facebook questions about them, would make them the occasional dinner or at least order out, she would give a single solitary fuck and she wouldn't have bailed because parties sounded like more fun.  she made her choice the same way i made mine, and while those choices are obviously based on different things, even when i get this worked and want to do some drinking or yell or throw my hands up in disgust, i do my best to just try to let them be the people they are.  all i can do is tell them how i feel, i can't convince them with the power of my mind. i can hope they listen to me, and trust me, and don't do anything too stupid.  i am doing the best i can, and i'm sure i can do better, so i'll try that too.

seriously, though, nihilism was invented by teenagers.  you can't convince me otherwise.