A Week Unended

I have no idea what my title is supposed to mean. But today feels like a Friday, yesterday felt like a Friday.

Work has been busy, somewhat comical. But long days are growing longer slowly. Yesterday I apparently was the party planner for happy hour after work. I had no idea of this and went home around 7. I got a phone call from the 'party' who wanted me to drive allll the way back to the office and go to Happy Hour. It was actually quite funny.

My community had a sad incident yesterday as well. A 19 year old was arrested for having 83,000 images of child pornography on his computer. The story was all over the local news and the media was outside the mother's house. I feel so sorry for the mother. This is a small town and now her son will forever bear the badge (and rightfully and legally so) of the worst sex offender. They lived, unfortunately, across the street from the Presbyterian church where there is a playground, a .25 miles from the elementary school, about the same from the local park and apparently he was applying for a job at WDW. It makes me sad that someone so young could be so sick. He's only 19.. There are registered sex offenders out there whose crime is they were convicted of statutory rape by having a 16 year old girlfriend when they turned 18. Teenagers today (and I know they say this about every generation) are not as naive as my generation was. But they also are far more immature, as teens have always been. I am always sad when a teenage mistake becomes a mark you will bear for your life. In this case from Thursday, however, the blessing is he was caught at 19 and not at 59. Who knows where this obsession would have led as he grew older. Hopefully he's young enough to receive some meaningful help and hopefully the legal system will help make sure the children of ours and other communities are safe from him. And I hope whatever they confiscated can be used to liberate and help the children who were used in those images and movies. That would be the best thing that could come of this - the children can be helped and the monsters that did this to them are punished far beyond our imagination.

No matter how you look at it, it's a deeply sad situation for that family and for our community.
Though our community may forget once the commotion and media are gone, the effects linger. Children will continue to have to have play dates behind secured doors. It seems like the only time the neighborhood is buzzing with adults and kids playing out side (in the manner I remember and loved as a child) are on holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Day and Easter. I love those days because when I have my windows open, I love hearing the sounds of an active community. It makes you feel safer knowing people are out and about. A community that is outside and involved is a safer community than one behind closed blinds and doors.

Anyway, on a personal note - I find this to be very difficult to journal about. However I write this, do not mistake the amount of hurt, betrayal and anger I feel about this. But I have a nasty habit of writing with acid and am going to just refrain from making myself angry today.

A week and half ago I went to NASA's Kennedy Space Center with my family - my sister included. We spent a nice day together enjoying the educational experience. At no time did my sister mention she actually happened to know an astrophysicist. Seems like that would have been a reasonable time to mention that. Sort of like when I go to Epcot, I mention I know a person who manages this attraction, that ride etc. Sort of like when I go see an orchestra, I mention one of my friends is a violinist and relay their experience. Or when I go out with my friends to a furniture store and they mention their brother in law makes handmade furniture. It's part of communication and sharing.

The only reason I'm mentioning my sister's absence of communication is because less than a week later, she would tell me she's engaged to an astrophysicist. I never knew she was dating anyone, never knew she met anyone, never knew anything about this at all. I feel less like her sister and more like someone on her mailing list. But, that also means that I was never really close to her the way I thought I was. So her getting married is a blessing for her because she is truly the loneliest person I know.