Today....

What's goin' on, Mama?

Somethin' just dawned on me,

I ain't been home in some months...

Yeah, I'm sorry that I called you so late

I just miss you but anyways...

Thought you should know

That all those prayers you thought you wasted on me,

Finally made their way on thru.

Yeah I know you've been worrin' About me,

You've been losin' sleep since (two thousand three)...

~Morgan Wallen

I need people to stop telling me he will come back.

Once he gets on his own, he'll understand.

He'll come back in a few years and you'll see the son you raised.

He'll come around.  He just needs to grow up a bit.

Because the truth is, the boy I remember may never come back. Our relationship is forever changed from the last three years. And while I may see glimpses of the old him, he may never come back.

I may never have the relationship I had, or want, with Youngest. 

And it's easier if I let go of the hope that I might.

Odds are he'll move away.  Start his adult life. He may never come back other than holidays; if at all. The relationship I had with him before may never be the same, because he is not the same. 

He's making small talk again. Offered to make a special pizza for us. We cleaned through some of his old life in the garage. I asked him why he was cleaning it out now, he said he wasn't ready before. His medication sits filled, untouched, on the kitchen table. He's agreed to start taking it again, but he's not ready yet. He's paying bills. Keeping money in the bank. Exercising. 

But these moments come and go.

The sense of humor, that unique quirkiness that was all him, is gone. His bold head fastness into challenges is lacking. His confidence has waning. The bottle that holds the lightning that has always embodied him, has so many cracks. I've never been the praying type, but I pray every day that he finds his way, that he finds his peace.

Some days it's a struggle to understand the young man that stands in my kitchen. 

Most days the Morgan Wallace song brings me to tears.

Every day I need to not hear that, someday it will be like it was.

Today, I need to be okay with what we have now.

Because, tomorrow is unknown.