Crooked Trails: First shift, then Vegas

My first shift was more fun, funny, and wet than I ever expected. I was the only female in a group of seven males (two other staff and five clients). I heard “legite”, “epic”, and “badass” more times this week than in my entire lifetime.

The first 72 hours it rained non-stop. As with all things, the rain eventually passed and the sun came out. At least for a little while until it started snowing. They tell me that this was a bad as it gets as far as weather goes…We’ll see.

Despite the weather, I was fortunate to be in a group with clients that were grateful to be spending Christmas in the desert. While each member of the group had been here for different lengths of time and were in different places, all had undergone the realization that they needed to be here and were thankful for a second chance.

While wanting to be with family may be expected and typical around Christmas, for these guys, it truly was remarkable. We reflected on the difference between this Christmas and their last. Last year they were all with family in warm homes, and had every material possession they desired. This year they were with strangers in a cold and wet desert, and had no TV, video games, music contraptions, etc. However, last year they saw no value in their relationships to family, and were making themselves and everyone else miserable. Extraordinarily, this year they did not want gifts, but wanted to reconcile and reunite with their moms, dads, brothers and sisters.

As additional bonuses, we (the staff) doused a dead tree in gasoline and lit it on fire to serve as our Christmas tree. Also, there were two Spanish speakers in the group, so I was able to speak Spanish a lot during the week. Something I never expected to do here, so that was a real treat!

After my shift I went straight to Vegas to ring in the New Year with some fabulous friends from high school. We are now scattered all over the country, but amazingly all made it to a central place other than Alabama (thank you Evan!). We had a marvelous time, and it’s a good thing that I had two days to catch up on sleep before my next shift!