Reminding Myself to Relax and Read

It's been a weird week.  You know what I want to do?  Take a night to enjoy a campfire and stare at the stars!  Or dive back into a series I'm reading.  Jennifer Armentrout's Covenant series is really good, and I don't fangirl ever, but I think I'm crushing on Aiden!  Damn Jennifer wrote a good series.  Picked up Half-Blood by chance a couple years ago and recently realized that it was part of a series.  Yeah, sometimes I'm stupid when it comes to realizing there's a series.  I'm weird like that.  However, reading has become one of my favorite ways of relaxing, up until I get obsessed with reading and I stay up until 4am.  Since the vast majority of my books are on my Nook, I'm not helping my eyes.  After so long, I get a headache from eyestrain then I'm forced to lay down and go to bed.  But what I really find funny about myself is that I used to despise reading.  Wouldn't pick up a book unless I had too.  Even then I would drag out my excuses to keep from reading.  Then sometime during my third year in college, a switch flipped.  I picked up a book I had bought years earlier because I thought it looked good and I couldn't stop.  That year, my dad gave me a Nook as a birthday present and I still say that was the best gift ever!  I read between classes, between needing to study, whenever I could really.  Talk about obsessed!  Then writing wove its way in and I still have no idea how I graduated.


Since then, I've had my share of ups and downs and twists and turns.  Nevertheless, tough weeks like this past one have become regular.  None of it because of me.  A girl I know has been calling for help and my dad and I have been there for her.  But the drama surrounding this kid is driving me insane.  So I may be gripping my Nook a little tighter as of late.  The girl was dealt a terrible hand from birth and everything just keeps piling up.  Doesn't help that she doesn't make smart decisions.  I kinda want to pick her up and shake some sense into her.  Yeah, been interesting with her around, thus my weird week.  But oh well, I'm too nice for my own good.  Guess I need to start scowling more, huh?

So what am I supposed to do when my patience is tested and I'm at my wit's end?  Personally, I try to take a step back and think things through rationally.  Works for a good five minutes in my current situation.  Then when I try talking to the girl, it goes in one ear and out the other.  It seems that nothing I've said reaches her.  All I'm trying to do is help, give her advice.  Some of what she's been through, I have experience in.  So when she doesn't listen to me or my dad (who she looks up to) I feel useless.  Why help if I know she won't listen?  She knows that I can help, I've gone to college and my major is one that is useful to her.  I know I'm not telling you her problems, I want to, but it's not my place to say.  All I will say is that most people in her situation would be either in juvie or on the streets.  So, not good.  Yeah.  But alas, there is hope.  She wants to change.  Despite whatever else is going to happen, she just needs someone to encourage her and be a good influence.  She's a good kid, just been misguided.  Crossing my fingers hoping all goes well.