Practicing Self Care

In light of everything going on, I'm trying to practice more self care.  It does no one any good if I am not healthy, and stress will be my undoing.  I have found that getting back to the basics, writing, painting, crafting is incredibly soothing when my life gets crazy.  It's as if the stress rolls out onto the canvas, off the keyboard, or into the bag of scraps to be pitched later.

Every year our grapevine gets cut back.  Some days I wind the vine into a wreath and give it away, other years I've made a new seasonal wreath for the door.  This year we only got a small wreath.

And since I only have one front door, I decided that Oldest should have one for his door in the city...

He'll only be in school for 12 days during December, so I got twelve fillable ornaments and made him an advent wreath.

Will he like it?  Who knows.

But with treats like candy and gift cards, and stress relievers like a yo-yo and light up alien baby bouncy ball to get through finals week, I suspect he won't hate it.

And in this moment, I am stress free.

And have left over chocolate.

Win-Win.

33% Empty Nesting...

*phone buzz*

Me: Who's that?
Him: Sally
Me: Like Sally that lives behind us?
Him: Yeah.  She goes to a college in the collegiate.  Her dorm is right behind mine.
Me: Seriously?
Him: Yeah.  She lives on the 12th floor.
Me: So she still lives like, 500 feet away?
Him: Un huh... and she found me on Tinder.
Me: It's like the universe wants you to date or get a restraining order.


And that my friends, is where I'm at currently with Oldest.  He has, in fact started college and after a six month stent of ups and downs has settled in to his new home.  He is, on a good day, 45 minutes away. On the day this conversation happened, it was a 3 and a half hour ride home thanks to never ending construction, and everyone wanting to take advantage of one last good weekend.

We got a late start to the college tours, finishing them up at the tail end of the summer Junior year.  One school was an outright no. While he liked the program, walking a mile through the city to get to humanities classes in the snow/rain/heat, and the underground  tunnel system smelling like musty subway crossed it right off the list. Another he loved, but the price tag and wait list were daunting.  I made him apply to a safety school, just in case, which in hind sight was a giant waste of money.  He never wanted to go there and being a state school he go ZERO in aid. In the end, he ended up where he'd always said he was going.  By chance he landed in the Civil Engineering program figuring he could switch second semester.  Now nine weeks in, he's decided to stick with it.  It combines his interest in architecture, design, mechanics, and job security that will ensure he can pay off his student debt.  He currently has straight A's, with exception of Physics which none of us are particularly worried about. He has plenty of time to rebound the grade and be just fine.

Settling in has been a bit of a challenge.  One of his best friends attends another college in the collegiate (not the one above) and she stumbled quite a bit in the beginning.  Making poor choices and disrespecting their friendship, he finally had to push her away entirely which was difficult for him.  She seems to be coming around and finding a balance, and they are working to repair their friendship at arms length.

He's confessed he upgraded his Tinder account.  While I'm not a fan, he's nearly 19 and is using it mainly for entertainment and to meet people in other schools.  He's got a few girls that he's interested in at school,  some of them have boyfriends, (of which he completely respects the boundaries), some of them don't.  He's exploring the city, making his own way, and trying to figure out how to sleep with sirens and constant noise in a suite of 9 boys with no filters. He's made real, actual in the flesh, friends with students on other floors, in other dorms, and other schools. None of this online gaming friend crap.  Actually, he has little time to online game which I secretly love.  We'll be bringing his desktop computer home over Thanksgiving since it's just taking up space at the dorm.

The first weeks were rough.  At home he has his own room, a queen bed, and sleeps to the sound of crickets.  A far cry from city life, sleep deprivation has been a struggle. We set up a tentative schedule of when he'd be home and when we'd be up to visit to help him trudge through the tougher days. Somewhere around week 3 I got a text in the middle of the night that he wanted me to know how much he appreciated all I have done for him as a mother, and that he loved me.  Then a quick follow up text to assure me that he had not in fact made poor choices, but was just genuinely thanking me.  It was greatly appreciated because in today's day and age my mind immediately went to him being in a horrific situation.

I miss him every day. I look at his room, clean and absent of half drank water bottles, and long for the balance that he brought to the house daily.  But I know he's off making a life for himself and there is something oddly comforting about that. We trained for these days, worked hard to get him ready, and he's proof of that. I think about how well he's doing and find reassurance that I am not a complete failure as a mother. He will be home in 5 weeks for Thanksgiving, and we'll likely visit him for his  birthday, but all and all he's doing just fine.

Now if we could only get the other two on track, that would be great.

The Hoodie...

The hoodie.  For most, it's a simple hooded sweatshirt, for others it's a fashion statement.  Worn as a trendy accessory it can complete the ensemble, providing a touch of warmth when the weather gets brisk. Just a simple hooded sweatshirt, it can give the wearer a sense of comfort on dark and lazy days.  Or, it can convey a sense of sneakiness, concealing the wearer who may be up to no good.

And then there are the necessity hoodies.  When the lights, sounds, and chaos of the day gets overwhelming, the hoodie is a place of refuge.  An instant barrier from the crazy, like an invisible fortress surrounding them, keeping them focused when the world insists on distraction.

Youngest's hoodie was a necessity hoodie. His sensory overload often caused anxiety, which lead to melt downs, aggression and running away, daily and often.  When he was in second grade, during one of his toughest years, his teacher gave him one of her son's hand me down sweatshirts.  The hood went up, and the rest is history.  It became his tell when he was teetering on the edge of crazy or when he was highly focused.  There he would sit, in his tiny desk, hood up, writing away hand gripped around a fat pencil slowly forming a story all his own. In middle school it became his invisible bubble, allowing him to move through the halls, without incident, among the hundreds of other kids during the three minute window.

High School came and the hood was down more often than not.  He found his own way among friends, and made a place for himself without barriers.  He has about 6 different hoodies that he wears regularly.  Some he's gotten as gifts. There's a short sleeve and a no sleeve for the gym. And there's the wrestling Sectional Championship one that has his name on the back, commemorating his 2nd place finish. He wore that one for Senior pictures.  About 8 months ago we were discussing something and as his frustration grew he sighed deep and threw his hood up for the first time in years.

I laughed.  He had had enough.  It was his tell, and I left him alone.

Now, it's his senior year.  We fight more than we talk.  The lines of appropriateness are gone.  He's trying to find his way, not making the best choices, but making enough of the *good* ones to keep him afloat. The stress of college, poor choices, and questionable friends have put a tremendous strain on our relationship.  His seventeen year old conviction of invincibility makes him very hard to live with and I find myself walking on egg shells not knowing if the grenade is coming from a blindside or if he'll hear me and just walk away. The husband is done. His brother has distanced himself.  I am left with a giant hole in my soul.

Parenthood, my friends, is not for sissies.

I used to hate when he'd shut down and hide under the hood. He could hide for hours, immovable in his stubborn ways.  But he'd always emerge. Now I long for the visual que, the subtle but deliberate flip of the hood, even though deep down I know his proverbial hood is always up.

And all I can do is pray he emerges from underneath it undamaged by the choices he's made.