Throwing In The Towel, Or Rather Selling It....

 "Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, 

not the child you thought you'd have." 

~The Water Giver

Youngest has returned home. Barely. He's abiding by the rules, briefly spending time at home when no one else is around. I added that he must stay overnight a minimum of 4 nights a week here and make it home on time if he wants to continue being here. This was conveyed via text of course because he is hardly never around to talk face to face, and responded to with the standard ok.  He is barely taking his medication, much to my disappointment.  If he leaves for good he won't take them anyways, and maybe if I stop harping on it, he may opt to take them on his own. The withdrawal is visible though, such a shame since it took 6 months to get them right. 

The Husband mentioned yesterday that he was scrolling through his phone and was overwhelmed with  sadness when he stumbled on old pictures of him a year ago.  So healthy.  Wrestling.  Eating. Focused. On a pathway for success. I told him it was time to let it go. It was time to take the HS wrestling and the college stickers off the truck.  It's not who he is anymore. And if by some lightning strike of a miracle, he pulls his head out of his ass and comes to his senses, he still won't be that person.  All those things do, the stickers, the hat and college alumni sweatshirt, is serve as a painful reminder of the path not chosen. 

He's forever changed himself. 

I calculated how much he will owe me for summer session.  I asked him at a brief encounter last night when he would have it for me.  He insists the session is not over and that he still has the chance to get a B, and until it is officially over he still has time to pay up his half of the money. He's passed in 2 more assignments.  His grade has gone from a 51 to a 56. Again, I'm reluctantly letting it go. The child that had focus and drive is now non existent, lost in a puff of skunky smelling smoke.

I texted him some highlights of our upcoming trip. He's not sure he wants to go as he may not have fun. I suggested that he look over some of the links, as you should never make a decision without knowing what you will regret not doing later.  I have no idea if he's taken the time to look at them or think about it at all. Communication is not something this new child does either.

I did the best I can with him, and I if I'm being truthful I'm not sure I could have done anything better. I know I was the right and best mother for him.  I think he just fell off the rails and now he's just being dragged along. Oldest sat on the couch with me last night, more in an effort to steal the good blanket, but we sat and watched TV nonetheless, chit chatting about nothing. It makes me furious that the sadness and loss of who Youngest was prevents me from fully enjoying the awesomeness of Oldest. Youngest is so much like his father it's becoming very hard for me to distinguish the two. He mentioned that it sucked, that the only person who could ever support him right now has been dead for ten years. Of course I cut him off, and told him he would not be supportive of his choices, simply because he knows how hard his life will be.  His father made all the same choices he is now, and his life was exponentially hard. He shrugged it off as usual, another invalidated truth now that his father's gone. 

I am tired of his playing the victim.  That he's somehow been wronged, or had a bad hand dealt.  These are his choices.  He chose to be homeless for the week.  He chose to puff his day away. He chose to distance himself from the family.  He's chosen to not do the work, and possibly fail out of school. I have supported everything he's ever wanted to do, karate 6 nights a week for 2 years, wrestling 3 hours away 5 days a week for 4 years, tournaments, hotel stays, Boy Scouts, even sending him a thousand miles away for the National jamboree. I sat in teacher conferences, advocated for him, and indulged every crazy idea he's ever had. Yet, if you ask him, we've never supported him at all. 

So I'm slowly letting it all go., and accepting this notion that he will ever be more than the childish, selfish boy in front of us now. I am selling off the dorm sheets and towels that have gone unused. I am scraping the stickers off the truck.  Packing away the championship jackets, the ghi for both karate and jujitsu. I am cancelling his med check appointment. I am giving up trying to save the child I raised for so many years.

And praying like hell the child he has become will save himself. 

Evil Eyes And Mushrooms...

 I'd like to say that things have been boring and uneventful here.

Oh, how I'd like to say that.

But the day after my last post we were back in the ER with the hubs for further investigation of his mystery illness. Turns out it was in fact pneumonia, but it was unresponsive to the original medication, so it had gotten worse, much worse.  While at the ER they noticed elevated cardiac enzymes as well so he's scheduled to have a follow up on that.  It took 4 days on another heavy duty antibiotic to get him headed in the right direction, but it was touch and go for a bit.

It has rained a ridiculous 21 of 24 days this month here. Some days are worse than others or course, but all the days have resulted in mushrooms, everywhere, bigger and weirder than ever...

Now if only we could keep the dog from sniffing them.  Thankfully she has no desire to eat them, so we can rule out mushrooms as the cause of her newest illness.  On Wednesday she had what appeared to be a seizure.  She was disoriented, shaking, and could not use her back legs.  It past in about a minute, and in about a hour she could walk again. I took her to the emergency vet, they checked her out and ran some bloodwork. She was sent home to be monitored since she appeared to have had nothing tangible wrong with her.  Today she had another episode, which upon reflection, looked more like a small stroke. So again, we were off to a different ER that had more specialists on staff.  And again, they had no idea what's wrong with her.  So we were sent home with meds, on the wait and see approach.  We have been given strict instructions to video the next one because without seeing it, there's not much more they can do, aside from running neurological tests to the tune of $3K.

Oldest is now dating the girl he met a few weeks ago.  She spent an extra weekend here, and he's spending an extra 5 days in California after we leave on vacation.  Ironically his happiness set off Youngest into a spiral, and he left the house. His "moving out" lasted a week.  He got nothing accomplished while gone, sleeping in his car for a few days, and then at a friend's, spiraling himself into a worse place, forgetting to take his meds and not completing any of his homework assignments for school.  Tonight he told me he opened the computer, got overwhelmed, and shut the computer down. So that's awesome, not only will he be taking the class again in the fall, he'll be paying for it again as well. On the plus side, I have channeled my frustration and stress into a T-shirt quilt for my niece. Did I mention I HATE quilting? It's every shirt from all her activities since she was 4... it's a surprise for her graduation next June, so no telling. Oh, and I broke my grandmother's sewing machine in the process and had to borrow my mother's spare, so there will be no more quilts made, like ever.

I did manage to get into an extra therapy session on Monday this past week.  My regular appointment is 2, but since I was being forced to work my day off, we moved it to 4.  Normally it would have been a challenge to make it there on time, but I managed to get out remarkably early so I took myself to lunch.  After lunch I  realized I had time to get my eyebrows threaded.  Seriously, it's been like 3 years since I've had them shaped.  So while I was there I noticed that they can now tint them as well. I have very blonde eyebrows, mixed now with a significant amount of gray, making them virtually invisible. So I figured why not, right? Except I forgot that I have a scar above my eye that makes my eyebrows uneven....

So for the next 3 weeks I need to give the evil eye to everyone so they balance out. This, friends, THIS is the reason I should not have free time and $30 extra dollars.

*sigh*

I feel a mental breakdown coming in 5...4....3...2....

Just The Status Quo....

 I'm hiding away writing for a bit today. 

I have already been thoroughly drenched by the morning's rain while attempting to walk the dog and running a few errands before my doctor's appointments start later this afternoon. I say attempting because she was adamant that her Dad walk her this morning and I was literally dragging her down the street in protest at 630 am before finally caving and bringing her back, soaking wet, to his bedside. But mostly I'm hiding from my husband who has relapsed into another mysterious illness, for day one of his vacation, rendering him unable to help with his normal sidekick duties.

It appears that when you tell the whole world to wear a mask for a year and to stay inside whenever possible, that the minute you tell them they can resume a normal life, the germs do as well.  And when that announcement corresponds with pollen season, it will not go well.  Oldest ended up with a sinus infection, Youngest, walking pneumonia, and for myself and the husband, bronchitis.  My cough still persists, mostly due to post nasal goo. The husband's antibiotics didn't work, so he returned to the walk in clinic yesterday for a reevaluation.  They found a spot on his lung that they are treating as pneumonia even though they can't hear it, and are hoping it just goes away. Seriously... this is the medical advice one gets with GOOD insurance. *sigh*  So he's binge watching excessively loud TV shows making it impossible for me to concentrate, sleeping alone in the bed so I don't wake him up unnecessarily, and gasping for air when the coughing gets excessive. 

Oldest recently revamped his dating profile on Tinder, adding more humor and a few buzz words indicating he was not looking for a casual thing in the hopes that he could narrow his field a bit. Tings like not looking for anything serious, just a wife and two kids... and fluent in English, sarcasm, and superheroes. The next day he got a reply from someone, also not looking for anything  serious, just a husband and two dogs.  They have talked everyday.  She had changed her radius, as she was vacationing on the Vineyard, and had found his profile since we are within an hour of there. He went to visit her for the day and they hit it off.  Her Mom allowed her to change her flight out at the end of their month long vacation to include a small detour in Boston this upcoming weekend so I will get to meet her this weekend. As it turned out, she lives 30 minutes from where we are vacationing in August, and she's coming back in October to see her best friend in Boston who is attending school next door to Oldest's University. Currently she is headed for college in California, but being that her first choice had been Suffolk in Boston, if this continues through Christmas, I suspect we have not seen the last of her. Part of me wants him to proceed with caution, the pother part of me thinks this could be really good for him.  We'll see how it all pans out.

Youngest's lungs are clear, and a visit with his regular doctor has confirmed that his daily vomiting is in fact Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome or CHS.  And because he won't quit smoking, he's now on another pill twice a day to limit the damage that regular vomiting does to the body in hopes that he will come to his stupid senses sooner rather than later.  He and the girl have finally split for good this time I think. He's stopped working in the ice cream place, which is good, but hasn't looked for another job, which is not good.  He continues to work for door dash, which brings in money but has no set routine which is what he needs. He continues to tell me he's doing his schoolwork, logging in on time, and completing most of his assignments. In September he will be in person, fulltime, for school which will provide some much needed routine and hopefully some new, drug free, faces. He's been all over the map lately between wanting to be part of the family and being a total jerk. He didn't come home again last night, calling me to let me know, so I could take my cough medicine to sleep soundly which was considerate, but then we found him sleeping in his car at the pond this morning, which was stupid. Some days it's easier to shake my head and walk away. I texted him to ensure he was alive, got a text right back, sent another to see if he was coming home soon, and got no response. It's been 2 hours. There's a huge part of me that wishes we lived where he could afford to be on his own. Or, that I could afford to buy a small investment property for him to rent from me. Our relationship would be much better the less I know. But until the market crashes or his frontal lobe develops, I guess we'll just keep playing the lottery. 

So, yeah.. currently hiding away in my bedroom attempting to block out the noise inside and outside my head today. I may take a stab and working on my niece's t-shirt quilt as the day progresses and the house fills with even more noise.  My work space is in the basement which is quiet, and I need quiet, especially as it's my one day off for the month, and at the rate I'm going I'll get nothing done unless it's behind a locked door and padded walls.