The Sophia Coppola movie that struck me was Somewhere, which she made after Lost in Translation. An actor with some emotional issues breaks his arm and is forced to heal at the Hotel Marmont in Hollywood. He’s a single dad who’s been out of touch with his daughter. But, she wants to come visit him at the hotel. She wants to hang out. She wants a relationship with her dad.
It’s what all kids of divorced parents want. A relationship with BOTH parents. Sometimes, the hurt or angry parent will make that continuing relationship difficult. My ex-wife would forget to ask the kids to call me before bed. I’d start texting about 7:30. They did not have mobile phones yet. I’d get these texts from my ex-wife the next morning. “Sorry, I’m just now seeing this.” Bullshit.
Twice in my adult life I moved into my mom’s house. Both were the result of some catastrophic failure in my life. The first one was after my ex-wife filed against me with the AG’s Office here in Texas. I was trying to refinance my mortgage with Wells Fargo at the time. She knew what she was doing. I was one week late (with full disclosure and assurances of full payment) when she decided to put my entire financial life in collections. The restrictions would remain for nine years, until my youngest was 18 and done with the school year.
And for that entire time I was a deadbeat dad on my credit report. Even if the status is UPTODATE, the mark “Child Support Enforcement Account” was enough to kill several job opportunities. At one point, when I was applying to a credit union, I asked my ex-wife to provide a letter to go in with my final interviewing sessions for the job. “He is up-to-date on all payments and a good father.”
Oh holy castration. Probably written by her spectrum-ish husband. Oh joy. I got the job. It lasted two weeks. The first day I joined the Monday staff meeting already in progress. My new manager, being sarcastic and truthful said, “You are already two weeks behind on your project, John. How does that feel?” WTF? I’m not sure why she hired me unless it was to deflect the project failures that were already happening under her watch, not mine. I was supposed to be one of the fixes. It didn’t work.
With no training I was asked to become a Salesforce Admin Level user. Um, why wasn’t this part of our interviews or on the job description anywhere? And guess what you get when you only have access to the free online training for SalesForce? Um, you don’t learn anything that will help you solve the issues with a custom-coded solution. I was brought in to fail. Or was she just that bad at managing people?
I laughed at the joke. “Oh, I’m behind but I’m full of energy and optimism,” I said, looking right at my new manager. Might’ve been a mistake. Managers really like the introverted and quiet ones who just get their work done and never ask questions. I was not that guy.
It was the last straw with my alcoholic fiancé. It was me, obviously. The wedding was called off. Well, it wasn’t actually on or planned yet. She did book the honeymoon in Spain already, though. She was quite the travel enthusiast. I was shown the door on day 15 1/4. My fiancé wouldn’t understand. Heck, I didn’t understand. I had been interviewed and probed, and background checked for three weeks to get the role. And didn’t last that long. It was a set up.
About a year later, I was looking on LinkedIn and there she was, my former dickish manager, and she was now an independent consultant for banks and credit unions. She didn’t last nine months after she skewered me. I did not reach out.
This was the second time I lived with my mom. Everything I had would fit in two pickup truck loads and a few runs in my Mazda. My previous bedroom, when I stayed there with my kids, had been repurposed, or used for its original purpose, my mom’s painting studio. So, this time, I was in the guest bedroom on a single. My stuff in boxes on the floor and filling the small closet. I tried to feel the sadness. I watched Eat. Pray. Love. which did the trick for a minute when she said, “If you’re going to love me, love me. I’ve moved on.” But, mostly it didn’t work. I was numb. I was hopeless. I was the napping dead.
My mom was lovely. Kept out of my path. Offered occasional dinners. Encouraged me to find a new therapist. And was very proud of me when I landed the cashier job at the organic grocery store.
I learned what a shit job was like. For ten months I worked as a cashier, with two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch. The breakroom was just row upon row of lazy-boy chairs and a big tv on the cooking channel. We were all supposed to be foodies now that we worked at a grocery store. Christmas that year was poetic. Big snows in Texas are rare. I watched most of the holiday weather out the big glass doors facing the parking lot. It was beautiful. Sad.
What I knew: isolating at my mom’s after a breakup would kill me. I needed to get out and about. So, I got a job. I got a job I didn’t really want, but I also didn’t really know if I could do it or not. How long could I just “show up” at a shitty job. Like, a really shitty job?
The biggest horror moment was the women pushing one cart and pulling a second, piling their produce, unmarked or identified, on the belt, and piling, and piling. Swipe swipe, price check, swipe. At least I had a bagger most of the busy periods. A few months ago, I asked my son about work. “I’ll take any job. I just need a job.” That was not true. I pointed at the same grocery story I had worked at, we were having lunch, and said, “Okay, this place. Would you do it?”
“Fuck no.”
“So, you’re not really interested in any job.”
Just a week ago he was supposed to work for three days in a row at a day laborer gig. The first day he went but left after waiting an hour. Lied about it. I guess, he figured I wouldn’t have any way to find out. The next morning he was trying to make us late. “It’s probably too late to go,” he said, coming in from an extra long morning cigarette. “Nope. We’re going.”
After I was there in the parking lot, he texted me, “You could probably leave. Sometimes this takes awhile.”
“It’s okay. I’m good.”
An hour later, he texted, “Can we go get food?”
When your late arriving it can take hours before you get an assignment. The first day he skipped the job after an hour, UBERed to my house at 10:15 and lied about where he was. I was texting him. He came in the house around noon, as if he’d been at work, or cut from work, or something. His stories and what he was texting me didn’t add up. On the second day I waited until he got his assignment. On the third day we got there earlier and he was only waiting an hour before he was off on a job. The forth day, the final day of his commitment, he said, “I’m sore. I can’t work today.” He went to sleep and didn’t get up until about 2 pm. This was not working out.
When I was cratering in my mom’s spare bedroom she came in and checked on me from time to time. “You’ve got to get up,” she said. It was 10 am. “You can’t sleep all day.” She was right.
My son is not listening to me. Any advice or ideas I provide are obviously wrong and a cause for more attitude. So, I guess he’s getting what he wants. To be left alone. Except I know, we all know, isolation is the killer of depression. It’s important you get up and dress. Move around in the world. I knew I needed a job or I would continue to wallow.
It’s now been five days since my son went to work. Now, he’s facing the consequences. I guess. Except he’s going to walk out of the next rehab facility too. Why wouldn’t he? He’s not buying the ideas. Doesn’t have a higher power or any belief in God. And, of course, he’s not an alcoholic.
Even his mom is on the clueless train. “What’s the percentage of people in treatment who are in for something other than alcohol?” she asked the intake treatment team. It’s the wrong question. It’s the question of someone who doesn’t understand recovery or addiction. Perhaps, while suffering from some issues herself.
What scares the crap out of my ex-wife and her husband is “family systems” therapy. Guess who goes under the microscope as well as the patient? The entire family goes into “recovery.” I think this is the primary reason she and her husband have been fighting against the 12-step approach for over a year. They don’t understand it. But, more importantly, they don’t want to give up their prescription drugs, their drinking, and their Adderall(tm) habit. They don’t want to get sober. And, they will not get sober.
My wife pontificates, “Maybe it’s not the addiction that’s the problem. I mean, he’s not using now.”
Holy crap, did that just come out of her mouth? I held my tongue. Fortunately, my Zoom camera was off as I shook my head over and over at her deflecting inquiry. She’s got a lot of concerns.
“Don’t you think you would have the same concerns no matter where we were sending him?” I asked her on the team call with the coach and her husband. “Yes, but…”
There is no but. So, she’s throwing a wrench into the system. “I’m not saying he doesn’t have an addictive personality, but I’m wondering if that’s the primary cause of his problems?”
Right.
The job was a good tonic for me. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that my ex-wife was getting 50% of my already low wage. After taxes and child support, I was making about $8.50 an hour. Not enough to make my car payment. My son, who’s never had a real job, doesn’t understand that his two $1oo dollar days, would not cover his car insurance. If he had a car. He totalled it just before agreeing, reluctantly, to go to treatment. The one he walked out of a week early.
We’re in the same movie a month later. We’re trying to get him to agree to a new treatment facility and my ex-wife is wondering aloud and to all who will listen, “I’m not feeling great about this 12-step part.”
Well, he can’t stay here and sleep all day, not talk to me. He doesn’t put his dishes in the sink, heck he leaves them all over the house. He mopes about like a zombie. I’ve gotten two words in the last three days. “Thanks.” When I ordered the pizza and texted him. And “Okay” when I told him, “Your breakfast is under the bowl with the blue sticky note on it. I made it for you a few hours ago. You can warm it in the microwave. The eggs will still be good.
My mom knew as well as I did, that unlimited down time was going to cause me to become a down boy. My son is in the same movie, but refuses to take any alternative actions. Read a book. He keeps his AirPods in all day, phone and podcast in hand at all time.
I remember a year after I was able to move out of my mom’s with my two kids I was reflecting back on the time. There was a part of me, I had moved in with the alcoholic, that knew I had made a mistake. There was another part of me that wanted more time with my mom. Of course I did. Perhaps my son wants more time with his mom. But her husband is preventing that from happening. So, he’s stuck here. For now.
Since he’s not working. And he’s not going to school this semester. He needs a “higher level of care.” It’s the phrase we keep saying. Yes, a higher level, but what? Mom had no clue and instead fires dumb questions at smart people. They can’t make sense of her question. We are here.
At some point in the future, will my son will look back on these moments of unmolested depression as GOOD or BAD times? I don’t know. I’m guessing while he was in rehab 3 hours away, he was thinking he would like to be back at my house, smoking on the screen porch, having unlimited sleep time, and meals on demand.
Well, he’s only now getting the picture that he’s fucked this one up again. He is not going to be living with me much longer. The time has come for his “higher level of care.”
It’s not me.
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