I still can’t tell you how this is going to work out. Prayers are useless. Texts and emails go unanswered. We are the enemy. Well, I hate to be lumped in with my ex-wife and her husband, but here we are. Even his 12-step coach is aligned with the enemy now.
And I’m concerned he doesn’t have an empathetic ear to share his woe with. Oh, my folly even makes me laugh.
“Friends,” he says. “They’re all online. In different time zones. I wish I could be in a different country, right now.”
Texting, “Okay, but it’s Thanksgiving. Your mom is traveling. I’m open all day. Happy to pick you up. We can do breakfast or lunch depending on when you wake up.”
I’m certain he woke up. In the sober house, you can’t stay in bed past 10 am. Well, they are not as strict with the rules as they might have told the parents, but hey, he’s alive, in a safe place, and doing fair.
Is he doing well? Or is he seething even harder than he was nine months ago when I took his drugs and his guns? It was a banner day for all of us. Nothing has gotten much better. There have been changes, for sure. The sober house is good. Better than having him here in zombie-airpod mode. I couldn’t make him do anything. Even his “coach” was begging for him to take a few steps toward his goals.
Oh, goals. Well, he’d need to have some. Other than “making lots of money so I don’t have to talk or live with these people.” I’m one of these people. In some ways, I suppose I’m the worst villain in the story. I heard about his second phone and I dove into the deep end to find his secret. Now, he’s just hopping mad. More mad? I don’t know. More hopeful? No. More self-motivated? Again, no. More what, then?
Well, as they up his Prozac dose he’s going to get even more bullish. The is anger tipping toward fight mode. So, rather than say something unkind, he ignored my Thanksgiving offer and shut himself up in a “shitty day,” as he would tell his coach. He doesn’t get an excuse for not responding. Nor, does he get a hall pass for forgetting my birthday. It’s always around Thanksgiving. This year, it was the day before. Not a peep. He’s got more pressing matters to attend to.
Go to work. Don’t get fired. Tucked in by 10 pm. Pee in a cup on Sundays.
Oh joy.
I’m not sharing this to shame him. I’m shaming myself if anything, but to point out a fact: you can do everything you can think of to support your kids and they are still going to be dicks sometimes. So, he’s in a dick-phase of life.
For Christmas this year I was thinking of flying to Paris alone and enjoying some distance from the darkness. Of course, I know, the darkness is within me. Follows me. Knows me. Until I befriend the darkness I am powerless to resist. And the ticket prices have gone up 200% since last week. Okay, I’m here, then. My daughter is here. My son, in his limited capacity, is in the vicinity. Bah humbug.
