This week's column

Too much fun and not enough sleep
My normally boring, humdrum life was interrupted last weekend, in a good way.
I teach a class of 8th grade girls on Sunday mornings at my church and we had a weekend gathering at my house.
The evening started with lots and lots of food. We had enough pasta to feed two armies. The food fest continued throughout the evening with various forms of junk food and candy.
They are a good bunch of girls that enjoy sitting around and talking as much as anything else.
My dogs also enjoyed their visit. Duke, my corgi, got more attention than any dog really needs, and Boo, my rambunctious chocolate lab, even got to come in once in a while for small amounts of time when he wasn’t wound up.
These girls overflow with joy and excitement. It’s almost contagious.
They introduced me to some pop music, most of which I had to admit I never had heard of. They talked about their friends, school and the daily trials of a 13-year-old.
We also played a few games. One of which was truth or dare. One of the gals kept picking dare, which resulted in making her face up like a clown, a strange hairdo and forcing her, a U of L fan, to wear a UK sweatshirt.
You’d think she’d start picking truth after a while, but I guess to a 13-year-old, truth can be more dangerous than a dare.
At around 1 a.m. they decided to watch a movie. Now, I’m not normally a night owl, so I was already half asleep at this point. About an hour into the movie I had to wimp out on them. We had to get up at about 7 a.m. the next morning to be somewhere so I knew I had to get some sleep so I wouldn’t be a grumpy stick-in-the-mud the next day.
I heard the next morning that they headed to sleep at 3 a.m. but they did more talking than sleeping.
We all got up the next morning to do the Clarity Solutions for Women Walk for Life. I expected grumpy faces that would gripe the entire time. I got just the opposite. They got up ready to go and excited for the day. After little sleep, they still had enough energy to walk way ahead of me and get to the destination way before I did.
We hung out at Barnes and Noble and had a fun lunch together, and then the girls went home. Boo and Duke both spent the rest of that Saturday pouting because they missed their new friends.
It took me at least a week to recuperate from staying up late one night. It was one of those “I’m not as young as I used to be” moments.
My point in writing this isn’t just to describe a class overnighter. It’s to encourage you to be active and involved with the lives of young people today.
I, in no way shape or form, am considered “cool.” I don’t have an exciting life. I don’t even have cable. You don’t have to be hip or cool to interact with teens. You just have to show up.
Teens today have more hurts and worries than I could ever imagine having when I was their age. They don’t really need someone who’s “cool.” They just need someone who cares, and anyone can do that.
Take the time to listen to them, they can even sometimes be insightful. You might learn something.
Invest yourself in the lives of teens; they are our future.
And judging by the teens I hung out with last weekend — Mallory, Anne Alyse, Riley and Qarman — our future looks bright.