“You’re probably already doing too much.”
Time to stop doing. Let go. Let god. Today, he has been released to others. To his higher power, our 12-step coach, and his mom. Time for him to find his next step without me.
Flying away I am both sad and happy. NYC awaits. All ghosts and opportunities, entertainment unlimited. Whatever there is in the world, you can probably buy it in New York. My hope is to stay on the inspired side of my creative bloom. Now, with guitar in hand. I will find myself deep in the woods of upstate New York in a few days, far away from any wifi signal. Off the grid. Into the wild with three amazing musicians and a bunch of campers. Three of a Perfect Pair.
All these motions and projects in-flight and my harbor is still empty at the moment. Let’s see:
- The AI book
- The new Buzzie album
- This book
- A new consulting gig < yes, please, the money is running low
- A potential friend in New York or San Antonio, but nothing of note
- And the big one, the kahuna, the big fish, the prize, my son’s decision to join the rest of us in recovery. Sure, he’s not an alcoholic. Neither am I. Yet, we share something. A chemical marker, a neuro pattern, a sensitivity to moods. Moody motherfuckers.
How can I give advice to my son? I am the issue. Withholding cash and cars and guns. Now, we wait it out. I am providing a safe haven. That’s it. Support and love. Food even. And a bed in a house filled with guitars and songs. We are not singing. He’s off in his own cone of AirPod isolation, moving through my house more like a spirit than a person. I feel him. I cannot rescue him. I’d try if I thought I had a chance. But, we’ve done that one. He dropped the ball.
His insights into his own condition are killing him. He knows what needs to be done. He is refusing or is unable to move forward. He can’t see a path up the mountain. So he prawns in his bedroom, the music room, and blazes his brainwaves with some random Austrailian podcast.
“What’s it about?”
“Nothing. Just noise.”
His cigarette habit is the only thing that gets him out of his room. He shuffles to the screen porch and smokes. Staring into the distance. Aching for some miracle or the end of it all, hard to tell. Even when I leave food (food he picked out at the grocery store) around for him, he ignores it. I think he forgets to eat. Nothing is pleasurable. That’s sort of what depression is: the lack of any pleasurable ideas, activities, or objectives. There is no objective. At the moment, mindlessness might be the comfort his overactive brain needs. Let the wiring cool down. Give his entire body and soul a chance to collapse into a soft void. Dad’s house. Not a great place for a twenty-three-year-old man.
And boy do I understand that. My first mom-timeout was after my ex-wife tossed my financial future to the Attorney General’s Office, for her pound of flesh. Her goal was to hurt me, and disrupt my semi-charmed life with 30% of my kid’s time. Yay, deadbeat dad here.
The second time I ended up at Mom’s was after my engagement to the alcoholic. It took my friend’s encouragement, “I’ve got a truck. I can help you this afternoon.” We were playing tennis. “Okay, that would be great.” And I was back at Mom’s.
The climb out of depression is a slog. It’s hard work. There are many detours, false starts, misguided dreams, and fuckups. It’s how life works. It’s a process of learning. This feels good, do more of it. This hurts, do less of that. And all the fluctuations in between the polar ends of HIGH and LOW. The good news is “The darkness always ends.”
For my son, he doesn’t have the inner voice of reassurance. For a while, I lost mine as well. My wife was pregnant with our second child, 9-11, which had destroyed my business and income, and we were reporting every Monday morning to the neonatal surgeon’s office to take a reading on our daughter’s blood-oxygen levels. A rare blood disease was causing mom’s blood to attack her daughter’s blood. We were racing against my wife’s immune system to bring my daughter to term.
Along the way to the sonogram breakfast meeting, I lost my hope. It was gone. I wasn’t sure if I would survive. I knew that I would never work again. I knew that my life was over. Maybe my daughter would survive, but I could see nothing but loss, pain, and fear. That was the first time I remember feeling the fist of anxiety. A fight-or-flight grip in my solar plexus. Sure, the anxiety meds would calm me, but they had their own fog of limitation. It was the loss of my inner “it’s going to be okay” voice that frightened me. Even in the mental hospital, I could talk myself into a dull dumbness. My zombification had a monologue of encouragements. “This is going to make a great story. Winter will end. One more day. I can do this.”
I’m only able to imagine my son’s pain in terms of my personal experience. He is an island in the middle of rough seas of his own making. It’s as if, I offer an idea, his internal teenager says, “Fuck that, I’m going the other way.”
As I release myself from his orbit, I too am released. Exhaustion is part of depression too. I am not exhausted. I’m taking a moment for myself. My own recovery requires attention to self-care, healthy habits, and time in quiet reflection. Here I am. On a plane. Next to a couple watching The Great Gatsby, Wolf of Wall Street Edition. One of my son’s favorite movies. I prefer the Robert Redford version.
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