It's like the bad part of an indie movie, really.

Dilemma, dilemma, dilemma...

I had a weekend filled with Blog Worthy Events of a positive nature, all of which I've been systematically organizing in order to, as luck would have it, blog about them!

I also had a day where I spent almost 3 hours talking to a kid who's unbelievably depressed, thinks about killing himself every day, and reminds me more than anything else of The One From High School.

I just...don't want to think about happy things anymore. This, you might note, is ironic as I spent those 3 hours brainstorming how we could make this kid happier.

I want him to be someone in my life I can hug. I want him to be someone in my life I can shake, or scream at, or call at 2am and say "we're going for a drive - you're snapping out of it." I want to have that power in his life, and I want to have it as a friend.

What he needs, I imagine, is what I actually am: an authority figure. I'm someone who has to tell his counselor if he tells me these things. I'm someone who's required by law to say and do and be certain things.

Today he told me he doesn't think of me so much as a teacher, but as a complete person. I don't think he meant it insultingly - he meant to say he thinks he can trust me. I value that trust so much, but I feel like just having it betrays it. I'm not his friend, I'm his College Planning Advisor, I'm a middle-man counselor. I'm not even certified to talk to him about his emotions (that may, at the end of the day, be on the 'frowned upon' spectrum of actions).

It'd be easier if he were just...not so much like friends I used to have. He hits close to home, this kid.

I gave him the link to the happiness project and told him to google MPDGs and why they're an impractical solution to sadness, alluring as they sound.

I tried to say Intelligent and Adult things.

I told his counselor.

I do not want to think about happy things right now.