Challenging Everything He Knows...

Youngest: "You know, sometimes I don't think that we need to be gluten free.  I think maybe it's not really a real thing, like because we can have small amounts and be okay."

Me: "Okay..."

Youngest: "So I ate a whole bag of pretzel goldfish"

Me: "And?"

Youngest: "Oh, it's real.  I feel like crap."

I'm not sure why he has chosen the last six months to question everything, literally, about who he is. For those of us who love him it has been an extremely difficult ride.  Intellectually I know he needs to find his way, to figure out who he is, and more importantly, who he's not.

There have been many ups and downs.

He's struggling with ways to cut back and or be sober for a day or two at a time. 

He really loves longboarding. When his anxiety kicks up he's out the door, rolling down the street.  Often he's back in 10 minutes, but with a clear head and focus.  

He's spending a lot of time at the beach and the pond.

He's trying to incorporate more regular work outs and time to eat real food.  He joined us out for dinner the other night.  We noted the bill was higher than it's been in a long time because all four of us where together. At first he contested, and then really reflected on how long it had been since we all sat at a table together.  Months.  He'd been absent for months.

He's struggling with his sexuality, dropping on us that he thought he maybe bi. After some discussion, and meeting the boy of his affection, he's reached the reality that deep down he's into girls. I'm not sure what he thought our reaction would be, or why his revelations wouldn't be met with adversity.  But when it wasn't, it was much easier for him to work though. And while the boy was very nice, in the end he's seems to have found a nice local girl, with whom he's decided to be exclusive with, at least until he leaves for school. Focusing on just one girl has allowed an all over calmness to him which has been really, really nice.

He's been camping, alone, randomly in the woods.  Sometimes he pitches a tent, other times he just hangs a hammock.  He says he just sits in the quiet and reads. At first I was concerned because he was literally just picking random places in neighboring towns. But recently he has acquiesced to my requests of camping at his aunt's field.  With 3 acres, he can camp in the field out front, be on private property out of danger, and pretty isolated from people. And he loves the sound of the train at night.

He's spending more time at home, watching TV, cooking his favorites.

We are fighting less. Some of this is because of better choices, and more respectful behavior. Some of it is because I have just given up.  It's just not worth my effort. He knows how I feel about certain things and somedays he just doesn't care.

He tried shocking us with thoughts of getting a tattoo.  Again, I don't think he was expecting our support. So much support, that we helped him find the perfect image for what he wanted, discussed the best placements for him to weigh out, and called the shop to schedule an appointment with a world renown artist. And just like that, his urgency to get it, cooled down a bit.  I still think he'll get it, but instead of something rushed that he'll regret later, it will be well placed, meaningful, and exactly what his original intent was.

His uncle on his dad's side is circling around again.  They went out to breakfast a few weeks ago, and are going again tomorrow.  It's been 8 years since he's contacted them. I know this is something they have to work through, but I feel as if they are being set up for something.  That family is severely dysfunctional and while they know all about it, the momma in me is really having a difficult time letting them walk freely into shark cage.

He asked me last week if we could go dorm shopping.  He doesn't need much, but he wanted to pick up a few things. He picked out a back pillow, the color of which needs to be ordered online, and coordinated the micro-fridge rental with his roommate. We found quite a bit of goodies at TJMaxx, so much that we needed a cart.  As I was rolling around the garden décor, he came to me with this...

Hard to believe that we'll be packing up and moving him and his plans for world domination into is new home away from home.

26 days and counting.