What Does It Matter?

They called off schools here for the rest of the year. Youngest is a Senior this year. 

And despite the fact that he seems to know it all, he doesn't in fact know, what he doesn't know.  So he is not remiss that he will not have a signed yearbook, or a traditional graduation. Even if it is allowed, it will likely be delayed way off into the summer and have multiple layers of restrictions. His championship wrestling jacket, All Star Certificate and T-shirt, scholarships, and athletic awards will all be handed out in a big pile, at a set appointment, with no special recognition to it.  Just a big pile of stuff.  He will not see his name engraved on the Wrestling Wall Of Fame within the school. He will not be presented with his captain pin, his Eagle Cords, or his parade through his elementary school. Yet, none of that stuff matters to him.  

Online schooling has been an ongoing challenge.   Grades close on Friday for 3rd term. Hopefully they will be a combination of the grades already earned and the pass/fail of the last 3 weeks.  I suspect they will roll out how 4th term will be handled this week, as some local school have already called the Seniors done. We will have to wait and see. We fight a lot about his lack of ambition regarding high school. The Senior Slide is real here folks. I am fearful he will lose his merit based scholarships if he slacks too much.  He tells me not to worry about it, that none of the busy work they are assigning matters.

His time management skills are horrendous, and we fight about that too. He breaks curfew, which he still has at 18, because we have rules here. There are rules everywhere, he just has to live with that. He snuck out the other night. I caught him. He came right home. It's not what he's actually doing, but that he's being deceitful. And while this may be small stuff for some, it is big stuff for me. He insists that he wants to live here, but if his actions don't match his words, none of that matters.

He's started back on his medication so at least the fights have been more civil.  His anger is more rational, and the lows do not make me think we should check him into a hospital. His behavior, mannerisms, and words are reminiscent of his father which is hard for me, and I have to walk away. He works hard to not be like him, and yet before he decided to go back to his medication, he was more and more like him everyday. Like a biological trait that can't be suppressed. His choices concern me, and at times make me furious. But they are his choices to make not mine, and his consequences to endure. If he fails, he fails.  If he needs to live somewhere else, he will.  

Choices. Actions. Changes. Consequences. Matter.

And yet, deep down, he's still Youngest.  The kid that likes stuffed animals, weighted blankets, and Mom cooked dinner.  I stumbled on a clearance Easter llama for $1.24.  I brought it home after a particularly difficult span of days with him.  I wrote him a little note and left it on the tag. Last night as we were *discussing* his sneaking out I noticed something on his corkboard.  Among his awards, Spartan medals, and pictures of things he loves, was the blue sticky note. He had stuck it there, among the things he holds important.

"Sometimes you just need to be reminded that you matter. And you matter to all of us."

Because no matter how bad it's gotten, or how many questionable choices he makes.  We're still a family, and that still matters.

Today...

Today was a rough day. Nothing exceptional to speak of that made it that way, aside from waking up to three inches of slushy snow in mid April, but rough nonetheless.

Truth is, I'm tired.  I'm tired of hearing about how horrible it is for some to be stuck  in the house, when sometimes that's all I wish I could do.  I'm tired of feeling like I shouldn't go anywhere besides work, and yet grateful that I have a paycheck coming in when so many others do not.  I'm tired of fighting with my son to do the right thing, when truthfully all he's doing now a days it what I'm doing... going to work. I'm tired of seeing face book photos of people being applauded and supported for drinking wine at 9 am so they can make it through the day, and then not understanding when their kids just need a break from isolation.

I'm tired of following lines on the floor of the grocery store and having to apologize when I can't get it right.  My mind just doesn't work that way.  I hate wearing a mask 8 hours a day.  Wearing it in the office, out of the office, in the mail truck, alone, not alone, tight, not tight, fogging up the glasses, wearing contacts, not wearing contacts because I'm touching my eyes. Wear gloves, don't wear gloves, run out of gloves, can you get more of those black gloves? It's exhausting. I'm tired of having to accommodate everyone's fears, real or not, and listening and supporting everyone's political ideas, irrational or not. Open the country, don't open the states, flood the beaches with people, and fight for your second amendments.  What. The. Actual. Heck?

I'm tired of the judgement.

Did you sanitize?
Where are your gloves?
Did you wash that?
Who were you with?
Why are you talking?
Are you 6 feet apart?
Is that essential?
Are YOU essential?
Why the F is there no toilet paper?
Who possibly poops that much?
We need more toilet paper.
Who stole my Lysol wipes?
Did they sanitize it before they stole it?

It's a deep, dark, rabbit hole. And I am hanging on for dear life today half way down it.

Worst game of cooties ever.

April 13th

"I didn't see anyone today."

"Excellent.  You saved a life"

Of course, if I had to count how many days since this all started that Youngest didn't see anyone with exception of work, that one day would be it. The daily struggle is very real.  And while he slowly gets it, he is uneducated about things, in denial, fiercely fighting the man. Yet, everyday I chip away.  I throw in random facts. 

Only 4 deaths in our county today.  Yesterday we had 11.

The rate of cases is going up, down, etc. I am comparing us to this other county, they have roughly 30% more  people but are spread over nearly twice the land area.  But their demographics are the same. I've graphed our information against ours, look at what's happening.

I'm dropping 70 masks at your old therapist's office so they can be safe while seeing clients. They can't get masks because they've never needed them before.  So they have no resources at all.

The death rate is actually higher than 2%.  Italy only has a 55% recovery rate.

The young will be the next wave.  All the vaping, they will be the next demographic.  They are starting to link the damage to the lungs with excessive vulnerability.

Some of it sinks in.  Much of it doesn't.  He is still seeing an occasional friend, unable to sit bored in the house.  There have been many fights.  I have grounded him from the car again. His brother and I had to stage an intervention for his behavior a few nights ago.  He's agreed to be more truthful.  Get rid of some of the old demons he still has lurking in his bedroom as proof he's done with that.  Work on better communication with his family, to try and restore the damage that's been done. Did it help?  Time will tell. 

Until then he is working 40 hours a week.  He has picked up a job picking and delivering groceries for people too scared to leave the house. He wears the mask I made him at work, while shopping, and while delivering the groceries. I know, because I spy on him. He is researching and buying stocks while the market is down. Nearly all of the money, he has assured me, is being saved for college.  Again, only time will tell.

And then of course, there's his school work.  Not an online learner he is struggling.  New learning has started.  Classwork is mandatory.  He has logins and assignments for every class including gym. He is frustrated, but of course can't communicate that.  I get daily emails from his teachers, councilors, and vice principals.  Comments written in frustration that have gone askew provoking more emails. He is frustrated, hell, everyone is.  His brother has agreed to help him when he gets stuck in pre-calculous.  Details on the advanced placement tests are out, and they are only being help accountable for information taught until March.  His college plans were made long before this, so there are no virtual tours, no colleges to decide on sight unseen. And while he may miss out on incoming orientation traditions, that still is a long way off. A longer way off than graduation, which he claims not to care about, but I suspect, secretly does.

I go to work everyday, as does my husband.  Bonus brother does as well, and aside from our knock on his condo window as a well being check, we have not seen him. His brother struggles through remote learning 4-6 hours a day, playing video games loudly in the off hours. The husband complains about the lack of protection from work, the stupidity of people coming in for one stamp.

I make fabric masks,  350 to date.  I sit and sew when I am not working.  The boys see this. It's impossible to not hear the clickity clack of the machine chugging away. It keeps me busy, gives me something to control.  But even in that I feel the range of emotion.  Happy I can help.  Useful.  Angry that I have to do it in the first place. Fearful that we will need them for far longer than I can make them. 

It's all so,  Unprecedented. Uncertain. Unstable.  Unknowing.

And it's making raising my last teen, getting him ready for college, nearly impossible.