Yesterday I wrote this thing about teenagers and how they are perceived vs how their lives really are. I talked about the pressure these kids get. I forgot to talk about how their bodies are depleted because they are growing and they get little sleep.

Towards the end of what I wrote I talked about the ones who can't bear up under the pressure. Cannot tolerate the parents who push them to be what they are not. The ones who are bullied, pushed down the stairs, the ones who are mocked for reading or being smart or wearing glasses or not having the right clothes.

The kids who decide it's not worth it. Who've given all they have, taken all they can and they end it all. In whatever fashion. I see four ways they do it.

They just stop. Their grades bomb, they sleep a lot, they spend time chilling when they could be studying. They give up on college. Some of these kids go on to college around the age of 25. But it's harder then because they generally have a full time job and it's hard to work and go to school. Not to denigrate anyone who worked their way through college, I certainly worked when I was in college but it somehow wasn't quite the same when I tried college the first time. It was easier to juggle everything.

The second way is to start drugging and drinking and fighting. Sometimes they work out of this and sometimes they don't. It's sad to me that kids need to escape so badly that they do stuff that permanently affects the architecture of the brain. Sometimes they start dealing for the easy money and come to a bad end.

The third way is they go on a shooting spree. I believe that the general public thinks that Columbine was the first. But it wasn't. There was that girl who shot up the school because she didn't like Mondays. There was a drive by when I was in high school. There have been shootings in schools for many, many years. It wasn't until the white upper class kids lost it and did something very stupid and wrong that the media attention really focused on what is going on.

Even then the media tends to ignore the poorer schools. There was a shooting at a white high school oh maybe two years ago. Nobody was killed. It was all over the news. Same day, about 20 minutes from my office six black kids were shot. Nothing in the papers or on the news. Maybe a tiny five line article. It's discrimination if you ask me, but nobody does.

The fourth way is suicide. These are the kids who die and their parents say what happened? He/she was so perfect. They were on the football team, they played an instrument, they volunteered at the SPCA, they got straight A's. They were popular, they were going to go to a great school and be a lawyer or a doctor and they were perfect. What happened?

Nobody is perfect. Trying to force your child into the perfect mold leads to anorexia, depression and/or death.

I wrote an essay about this and more yesterday. And today I open my browser and the first thing I see is a headline about four dead teenagers. This is not the first time I have written about something that is bothering me and then it shows up. Danny said it was because I am an empath.

Regardless we have a tragedy and why? I don't know yet. I just think we should ease off on our youth and let them be themselves.

But who am I? Only a single mom who does the best she can with her own kids and her kids' friends when they need advice, when they need someone to listen, and gives out hugs to those who look lost and frightened.

One teenage friend who used to come over when he could was in prison because his father beat him and then had him arrested for hitting him. Nobody would take his calls from prison so he'd call me and I'd give him encouragement. I'd tell him to write his feelings down. To write his music and he'd be able to play it when he got out.

He used to call me Mom and say I was the only one who cared about him. He was writing songs for the film Dan and I should be making right now. And then right around when Dan died he took off. Stole some guns, violated parole and supposedly went to Mexico. I don't know how I failed him.

I wish I knew where he is.

I hope that he's as okay as he can be.

I hope he hasn't done something that can't be undone.

I hope the Lord shines sweetness on his soul to quote Life is Beautiful, one of the posters at the message board I moderate would say.