Man Sized Boy Children

This job makes us laugh. And I mean seriously, laugh. I live with one man, and five boys each the size of a man. That equals me and six man sized creatures. Kind of like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ... except I have seven dwarfs, and my dwarfs are actually giants.

In our cottage, we sing a lot of songs, we dig for gold, and I even talk to the little animal creatures outside. The songs are rap, country and screamo... Though there would be a lot of screaming if they found out I was calling it that. I find loose coins all over the house, every golden penny gets added to a jar. And outside, I find new creatures every day. This weeks creatures included roaches of variable sizes, biting anoles, and the famous annually appearing black racer snake.

Austin and I do a lot of laughing in this cottage. We laugh, when the man sized boy creatures throw tantrums like two year olds. And laugh at their facial expressions in response to finding out that we not only have a facebook account, but we also know the lyrics to Ed Sheeran's newest song. We laugh when we trick them into doing chores and when they catch us singing to each other as we do dishes. We laugh when they laugh. It's contagious really.

What is also contagious in a different way, is the weight that they carry. It surrounds them them like a cloud, a morning fog that never lifts; anything that settles in the valley is also clouded by the fog. The more that we learn their stories, the pieces that they share, the parts that they don't, the fog falls on us, as we settle in their valley. Those are the times where no amount of laughter can lift the fog. And it can be depressing.

Austin and I just ended 15 days on. Sitting at our favorite Farm to Table restaurant in Deland, we talked about the week. We started out by laughing, sharing favorite moments of things that made us smile. But inevitably, this turned quickly into stories that had been shared with us. Moments when the man sized boy creatures let us peek in their hearts. And it just hurts. And no amount of laughter can clean that slate.