Building Walls Of Cardboard Boxes...

 Youngest's house hunt is not going so well.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure how hard he's trying.  He's out in the garage with friends, clearly getting ready to do... something. He rushes in, asking for something that he can't find.

He proceeds with more attitude as I'm putting on my shoes to go find it for him, rambling on about how I shouldn't be moving his stuff. The same stuff I moved THREE months ago, after giving him 4 days notice that his grandfather was coming, and the entire garage needed to be cleaned up, and accessible so we could get in there for tools and not break or damage any of his stuff. He did not in fact, do any cleaning, so I moved all his stuff into boxes and stacked them neatly in the back of the garage, three months ago.

I find the item in less than a minute. It's in the same box he left it in, along with some of my higher end kitchen stuff, now destroyed, that he has commandeered without permission, for his many projects. Irritated, I return to my Hallmark movies inside when the flurry of texts come in.

Now furious and frustrated, I go outside and tell him to be an adult and talk to my face instead of passive aggressively sending texts. The yelling starts.  He heads into the kitchen to clean something and drops it in the sink.  Before he breaks the other dishes in the sink, I tell him to get out.

He starts packing up the garage. He thought I meant to move out, not get out of the kitchen before he broke something. Voices are high.  We are both exhausted and frustrated with each other. Now he's packing to move out, with no place to go, but can't save face and settle back into staying, even though he's been told that that was not what I meant.

It takes him hours for pack it up and stuff it in his car.  One friend has to walk home. 

He has nowhere to go. he's undoubtedly going to couch surf with far from reliable friends.  The entire encounter was somehow different than others. Our heated exchange never got out of control, perhaps because we are just too tired for real emotion. We have done that too many times now. Just two hours before we had a productive conversation about his next steps. Now, my stomach feels as if someone has ripped half of it out.

He returns later, says nothing, drops off a backpack, picks up another box. 

He doesn't return.

We leave for work this morning, my stomach still in knots. It hurts to breathe.

I check the cameras, he's returned to get another box from the garage, which is still full of his stuff, and grabs the backpack.

The entire thing is heartbreaking. My brain says it's time, my heart is broken. Perhaps if he had an actual place to go, I would be better, maybe even helped him pack. Because in all the back and forth, he has not taken any clothes.

None.

Not even his toothbrush.

I'm not sure how one moves out without their underwear.

But if there's anything I know for sure, it's that if anyone can do it, it's my son.

*sigh*

If he doesn't return before the weekend, I will clean up the mess, boxing up all the rest of his stuff and putting it aside, so undoubtedly, he won't be able to find anything. 

Irony at its finest, I guess.