Nothing and the Long Weekend

Before the Fourth of July, my manager insisted I go out of town for the weekend. (This weekend, he did not. Which is fine. It is not his job to manage my social life, but that is not the point here.) This weekend, I have a few formal plans, but otherwise I have nothing to do. I have an empty weekend ahead of me.

Sort of.

But before I get into to that, some background.

Thursday at work about a half hour before lunch, I started to feel frantic. When the Boy was in Wilderness, I was taught how to do the Four Feelings Check: how are you feeling in your heart, mind, body and spirit. I was able to tune into this sense of panic right away. It was kind of weird that I was immediately able to tune into the idea that I was racing. But why was I racing? I was at work and work was moving along fine, but I felt like I had just drank fourteen cups of coffee, which for me is like taking a line of coke (which I have never done, but I can imagine.)

I realized I was panicking because I was behind in my personal life.

List of Shit I am Behind on:

• Renew overdue library books (done)
• Call the bank about the interest they charged when I mistakenly made a cash advance from my credit card instead of transferring money from my savings account because I fat fingered the banking app on my phone. (ugh)
• My homework for the Boy's boarding school (filling out surveys, reading all of the emails)
• Finish my writing assignment for my writing group, which I love, which means I have to decide what happens next to my main character, Betty. What problems will arise and how will she continue to ruin her life? (done, but continuing saga)
• Read the chapters from the other people in my writing group where I am in a long-term relationship with all of their characters.
• Pay the bills, figure out money
• Paint the bathrooms in the condo

In the empty space of my weekend, I am going to try to get some of this stuff done, along with a few social events.

Thursday night, I didn't sleep well at all. I was up from 3 until 4:30, and then up at seven. Friday was a slog. Midday, I wanted to take a nap. I watched the clock crawl to five, and then I wanted to go home and go to bed.

At Wednesday's lunch discussion, my manager assumed I went to Pike Place Market twice a day. I don't, but the assumption made me think "Why not?" I should go to the Market as often as I can  to get food for dinner. Instead of going home and going to bed, I went to a seafood place and got scallops. I went to the vegetable place and got English peas and arugula. I went to the creamery and got cream (because cream.) I then wandered into a used bookstore, Lamplight Books* (because books) and poked around for twenty minutes. 

I went home, turned on the end of the movie I had started on Netflix a few weeks ago and cooked. The scallops were delicious, which was surprising since I am not that great of a cook. Jack did most of the fancy cooking while I made pasta with tomato sauce a lot. After dinner, I worked on my jigsaw puzzle, watched Season 3 of "The Good Place" on Netflix, deleted 82,000 "promotional emails" from my gmail account and walked Fox.

In short, I did nothing. I sat around and relaxed by myself. I can't remember the last time I did nothing and was okay with it. I believe in being intentional with my days and time, but sometimes that means doing too much, or never getting a break. Sometimes I spend time with friends which is restorative and relaxing, but that is doing something.

Friday night was my day of rest.


*  I just googled "used books Pike Market" and I found there are five bookstores in the market. Five! No wonder I love living here! I was looking for a Jon Krakauer book yesterday and there it is in one of the pictures on this blog post! He is a Seattle writer, so local bookshops should carry his stuff.

Groups Big and Small

This past week, I was at a couple of events -- a birthday party for a friend who turned sixty-five and a work lunch. These are kind of normal everyday, regular people things to do, versus, say, attend your son's wilderness graduation and then take him to therapeutic boarding school. Mostly, I've been avoiding groups, preferring to hide on the sidelines in one-on-one conversations with a very small and select group of people.

The only person I knew at the birthday party was the birthday woman. The invitation promised dancing, so hell yeah I was going. The birthday woman is in my writing group and therefore knows all of my shit. Writers are supposed to write about things that shouldn't be said, so when we talk, nothing is off limits. Things that might cause embarrassment or shame or would show extreme vulnerability are our daily bread. We scrape the corners of our hearts finding heartbreak and love, and bring it to the table to share.

"Isn't it nice to be in a room where no one knows your shit?" she said. I looked out across the dance floor and saw her twenty-something daughter shaking it up with her friends. The same daughter who wouldn't get out of bed for four months in eighth grade. The daughter who will soon become an orphan as her one mother died two years ago, and her other mother--the birthday woman--is dying of colon cancer.

Yes, it was nice to be in a room where no one knew my shit, the hard and tragic and tumultuous parts of my life that I share only with close friends and my blog readers, who are the same. For four hours, I didn't talk about my family or son or any drama in my life. I was simply a guest at a party.

A few days later at work, I had a team lunch at work in honor of our manager's birthday. Here, I knew everyone. These people are my everyday. They know my life, some more than others. Yet in this case, I didn't talk about my personal life either, or I should say, the rough and scratchy parts of my personal life. The conversation turned to the difference between how men and women assemble Ikea furniture (conclusion: women read the instructions, men don't) and grocery shop (conclusion: men buy only what they need, women search for what they might need). The two other women in my group were very curious about how and where I shop for shampoo and toilet paper living downtown. They understood that I buy my vegetables, seafood, butter and bread as Pike Place Market, but where do I buy deodorant and toothpaste?

The lunch was fun and light and the most I've laughed in a very long time. The group had a healing power that was different that my one-on-one conversations with friends.

I'm in grief groups, too, with other parents who are struggling to help their kids heal from inner demons, or more gently known as dragons in Wildie. I am on probably one of the smallest Facebook groups ever with three other women who had boys in the same wilderness program as the Boy. We posted messages sad and supportive back and forth during our kids' stay.

In another group, I found a miracle of social media. I'm a member of two larger Facebook groups for parents of kids who are in wilderness therapy and in residential treatment centers. Yesterday, a friend of mine from college sent me a message. She, too, is a member of those groups. Tonight, we spoke on the phone for two and a half hours that flew by.

First Day of School and Old Women

Today was the first day of school for both the Boy and Claire-Adele. For the first time since Claire-Adele started kindergarten, neither one of them are home for this event, and this is kind of sad for me.

Yesterday was a good day. I spent it with old women. For the midday, I ate lunch with my friend Eleanor who is 98. I helped her start her first blog, which is exciting. Once she gets a few posts up, I'll share her blog here.

Then I went to a dance/birthday party for a woman in my writing group who turned 65. She has colon cancer and is now on palliative care. It was interesting to have my day bookended by one woman who is very old, strong, sane, sharp and healthy, and another woman is not that old, but is strong, sane, sharp and dying. Both are very aware of the short time they might have left and want to use each moment meaningfully.

My mother has Alzheimer's, so my go-to older and wiser woman isn't there for me. I have wonderful aunts who live in Chicago and I should reach out to more often than I do. Nevertheless, I am so glad that I have found older and wiser women here in Seattle, and that they allowed me to be part of their lives, especially as they might not have much time left. I want to soak both of them up.

The Tank Top: A Funny Story

Claire-Adele said she stopped reading my blog recently because it was "too angsty." Angsty? How about filled with turmoil and desperation? Angsty. Ha! I am WAY beyond angst.

When we all were in Montana dropping the Boy off at boarding school, we had to take him shopping for school supplies, like a sleeping bag and a backpack for weekend expeditions. At the outdoors place, they had women's tank tops on sale so I got one for yoga and biking. (See below. This is not me, as you can tell. This is the model from the website, in case that needed explanation.) I never wear tank tops, but I guess the idea of dropping my kid off at boarding school gave me some kind of jolt that I felt like I needed to try something new and wild and exciting or whatever. So I bought a tank top. I know that is not most people's idea of wild and exciting, but it was for me in that moment.

Yesterday, I thought I might workout, so I put this on in the morning along with a pair of black tights. I went to pick up Fox from a friend who was watching him while we were gone and then Ellen calls me up for lunch. Instead of working out, I went out with her instead. I was wearing a sweater and a scarf when I went out with her, so the top was a little less revealing.

Later that afternoon, I am still wearing this top, though I dropped the scarf. I kept the light-weight sweater, but it was still pretty obvious I was wearing a skimpy little tank top. I was back downtown and I needed to run errands. I figured the odds of me running into someone I knew at Pike Place Market and World Market would be about 3%. For comparison, if I were going to U Village, it would be about 65%. Past of the joy of city living is anonymity--I can be out in public but no one knows me. I remember when I was living in Chicago in my twenties and I saw my awful high school boyfriend from Columbus, Ohio walking down the street. I had just gotten back from the gym and looked like crap. If I was in a smaller town, I couldn't ignore him. But walking in downtown Chicago, I looked at him and thought nope, I do not want to talk to him and I kept going. It was easy to justify that I might not have recognized him because there are almost ten million people in the Chicago metro area. In Chicago, I could go out and look like a post-workout gym rat and no one cared. I am sliding back to my city roots: who cares how I dress when I am running errands or walking the dog? No one.

Back at Pike Place Market, I go to buy my vegetables, seafood and cheese, and head over to World Market to get some hand soap. When I walk in, standing right in the front of the store is a Vice President of the company where I work. He is looking straight at the entrance and sees me before I see him and he says hi.

Oh shit.

I wasn't indecent but I was wearing a tank top for god's sake. This VP is super tall and hard not to notice and I couldn't sneak by and pretend like I didn't see him. Plus, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with this guy and I don't even know if he knows my name. I smile, say hi and walk in. His wife was at the checkout and he was hanging out by the front door. I figured he'd be done by time I picked out and paid for my hand soap.

Nope.

He was still there at the door and his wife was still at the check-out when I left. Oy. I had to made small talk for .025 seconds and got out of there as fast as I could.

After that, I was walking Fox in the same outfit and some tourists stopped me.

"You look like you work out. Can I use the bathroom at the gym across the street?"

Then I run into neightbors in my building walking down Alaskan Way. So much for the anonymity of city life. This tank top must be some kind of magnet or neon sign that makes people stop and say hi to me. But is that such a bad thing? Maybe not.

Hard/Easy v Easy/Hard

Yesterday, Jack and I dropped the Boy off at boarding school. When we got to the school, we entered one of the buildings where the Boy was swarmed by the eight young men in his group. They were all eager and excited to see the new guy. The staff seems really nice and supportive, and I am grateful for that.

Before we left Durango for Montana, we checked in with the Boy. How was he feeling about going to boarding school?

"This is hard/easy versus easy/hard. Going to boarding school now will be hard, but it will make life easier in the long run. Or, I could do what is easy now, but then later my life will be hard. It is better to do the hard part first, and then I can look forward to the easy part."

While that isn't always true, I had to agree in this case. Yes, it will be easier to graduate from high school sooner than later.

Why else was he content to go to boarding school instead of coming home?

"If I were to go home, I'd have a contract that would limit my phone time and all of that," he said. One of his friends from Wilderness was going home and the Boy got to read the contract between the parents and the Boy's friend. There are lots and lots of rules the kids need to abide by if they are to return to civilization, rules like very limited access to a cell phone (if at all), frequent drug tests, and constant monitoring of where the kids are. I have friends who are bringing their kids home right after Wilderness, and they are worried about being able to keep their kids stable and safe. The parents sometimes have to act like parole officers or policemen instead of parents. While I will miss the Boy, I will not miss having to be a guard.

The Boy continued. "If I had a contract and I went home, I'd be the only kid I knew with a contract like that. No one else would have one and I'd feel isolated and alone. No one else would have gone to Wilderness. I'd be the only one. At boarding school, everyone will be just like me. I won't feel odd or out of place."

I was awestruck by his personal insight. Most adults don't have that level of self-awareness. Not that the Boy is fully grown, but he is well on his way.

Campus

The Boys Dorm

Apology v Repair, and Durango Part IV

Jack and I are back in Durango for the fourth time. Last night, we went to the parents meeting to learn about post-Wilderness life: what to expect when you are bringing your kid home or sending them off to boarding school. The Family Services teacher/expert/Jedi Knight reviewed how to communicate with our kids using "I feel" statements. These are more advanced than the ones I learned in middle school and high school.

"I feel [emotion] when [insert specific event or situation]."

"I imagine I feel this way because [____________]."

"My intention for myself is [____________]."

"My request of you is [____________]."

The person listening repeats back verbatim what the person speaking said. When a kid says "I feel lonely" the parent should reply "I hear you are feeling lonely," not "I hear you are upset."

I wish that growing up I learned a more expansive lexicography of emotions besides happy, sad and mad. I wish I had taught my kids more than happy, mad and sad, but here we are. It is never to late to learn.

I was talking to my friend Ellen. She and I are both going through a rough time in our marriages, in part for similar reasons. It is interesting to see what she is going through as it gives me an outsider's view of the same stuff I am going through.

When people feel unheard, they escalate. They might raise their voice, get tense, yell scream, etc. I am not talking about people from expressive or expansive cultures (thinking here of my Italian side of the family) who become animated during emotional conversations, but they are speaking from a place in the heart. Other cultures (thinking here of my northern European and Anglo side of my family) are much more reserved, quiet and precise. Instead, I am talking about "I have told you that pisses me off five hundred times and you are still doing it!"

My friend got in a big fight with her husband this weekend. I won't get into the content, but she was very upset. What struck me when I talked to her was how bad she felt about her own behavior in the argument. "I was such a bitch," she said. "I can't believe the things I said."

I pondered on this, as this week I had similar experiences with Jack. I was flying off the handle for things that on the surface should not have been a big deal. Why?

I asked Ellen what happened. She set a boundary with her husband, and he didn't like it. Instead of respecting the boundary, he fought to get it moved. Because the boundary was pushed by her husband, Ellen didn't feel listened to or heard. She wanted to keep her boundary. She fought back to keep it, and then things got out of control. Mean and horrible things were said by both parties.

When I saw Ellen, she was crying. She felt miserable for two things: one, her boundaries were not respected and two, she was mortified by her own behavior. "Why do I act like this? Why was I so horrible?"

There is another layer of this: these arguments were the same arguments Ellen and I have been having with our husbands for years, and they don't seem to stop. When a situation is unresolved, it doesn't go away. It comes back to roost.

Ellen was talking to her neighbor who told her "Love waits." If there is really love in a situation, it will be there later. I also thought of the expression that I am more familiar with "Grief waits." If something tragic happens, unprocessed emotions will come back until they are processed. I became acutely aware of this after Ada died. Losing a child is possibily one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Having kids won't make people happy, but they can make people feel more fully human. I remember when Claire-Adele was born how I was both having a new baby and at the same time processing the grief I had for Ada. Claire-Adele's milestones were the ones I missed with Ada. I remember taking Claire-Adele to a restaurant for the first time when she was a few days old. People came over and told us that we had a beautiful baby. What should have been simply a proud parent moment had a veneer of grief: this is what we missed after Ada died.

I would add to the "love waits" and "grief waits" and third category "emotional wounds wait." Esther Perel had a YouTube video on why couples fight. She gave a few reasons, but the idea that stuck with me was that relationships are a cycle of peace, conflict and repair.

But sometimes conflicts aren't repaired, and repairing a conflict is different than apologizing. I think about all of the times when Jack has said "I already apologized for that" when I tell him I am still upset about something. He is right--he did apologize, but now I realize it wasn't just an apology I needed. I needed repair. Apologies are the first steps to repair. Sometimes an apology is sufficient, depending on the level of insult or injury. Sometimes an apology is sufficient if it comes unprompted. Other times, more work needs to be done or changes need to be made to repair the situation.

Hello & Good-bye

This upcoming week will be a week of hello and then good-bye. Jack and I will see the Boy Tuesday at Wilderness and then drop him off at boarding school on Friday. Just as I am saying hello, it will be time to turn around and say good-bye. I am happy to see him, but I am also preparing for heartbreak. My friend Eleanor said, "And you will cry on the whole flight all the way home." This is seriously messing me up.

Plus, Claire-Adele is in town and life has been busy. It has been wonderful to see her and spend time with her. Yesterday, Jack and I took her and her new boyfriend to Mount Rainier National Park where we climbed Mt. Skyscraper. (Whoever named it was not that creative. I digress.) I think we did a nine mile hike. Or maybe it was eleven? Anyway, it was a long, arduous hike with spectacular views.

Somewhere along the way in the past two days, I have become slightly manic, perhaps. Not full blown crazy manic, but kind of close. I am tightly wound and tense and things that I usually let slide are pissing me off. And when that happens, I have to wonder why I am getting pissed off: is the problem something that typically should piss me off and the real problem is that I am too mellow in my day-to-day, or, is my fuse to short and I am being unreasonable?

One of my friends at work says I always have nice things to say about people and places, and that I never say bad things. He, for example, will walk down Pike Street Market and bitch about the line of tourists at the first Starbucks.

"Why are all of these people here waiting in line? That is so stupid. Don't they know there is another Starbucks down the street that is way better?"

Everyone who works or lives downtown thinks the exact same thing, but rarely do we say it aloud. One day the Boy was downtown looking for coffee and he accidentally stumbled on the first Starbucks, unaware it was the first Starbucks. He thought it was a normal Starbucks and he could walk in and get coffee. He was mightily pissed when he had to wait in a long line for his latte. Even Claire-Adele, the biggest Starbucks fan on the planet, will go to a local coffee shop before hitting the first Starbucks.

I digress. Here are things that are unreasonably or unreasonably pissing me off, thereby proving that I am capable of being not a nice person, which really shouldn't be anyone's goal, but whatever:

• Self-checkouts at grocery stores. I was at QFC yesterday at 6:45 a.m. getting food for the Mt. Rainier hike and ZERO regular cash registers were open so I had to scan and bag my own groceries. Why? I suck at scanning and bagging my own groceries. I bought bananas and pluots and I had to look up the prices for fruit. The cashiers and baggers are ten times faster than me when it comes to checking out. 
• People who do not leave the porch light on when we are going out and then coming home in the dark. I hate having to find my keys and open the door in the dark. How hard it is to leave the porch light on? And it is only going to cost like two cents of electricity.
• People (namely, my family) who do not appreciate or understand that I woke up at the crack of dawn to gas the car, buy groceries, make sandwiches, and then drive them for a day of amazing hiking on Mt. Rainier. One person--who shall remain nameless--asked on the top of the mountain "Why isn't there lettuce on this sandwich?" Are you kidding me? Argh.

Mt. Skyscraper. This was way harder to climb than it looks from this picture. The trail is a "social trail" which means it is not maintained by the National Park, but the Park knows it is there and let's people climb it. The trail is super rocky, steep and slippery. A few days ago, someone saw a bear on the trail.

Where is my Heart?

It is
In the middle of Colorado
I don’t know where
Sleeping
On the ground
Under a tarp

The Boy & The Grove of the Patriarchs

Jack and I talked to the Boy this afternoon. He will be graduating from Wilderness next week and then move on to boarding school. He was in such a good mood -- I haven't heard him that happy in months. And it wasn't just because he was getting to leave Wildie (pronounced Will-dee).

"I'm going to miss it, but I am looking forward to moving on," he said. "I know I can catch up on my missed academics at boarding school, but can I get ahead?"

Wow. That is a 180 from where we were in June.

His voice, so strong and confident. His laugh, joking with his therapist. I am still going to miss him terribly, but I know he will be fine. And isn't that my job? To let him go. Of course, it is hard that I won't get a front row seat at the next stage of his growth, but at least he is out of bed.

I talked to my friend who has anxiety and depression. "You know, there are setbacks and dips," he said when I told him about my wonderful conversation with the Boy today.

I know, and I am expecting that. I am hoping this burst of his energy and confidence will make future bumps easier to take. I've learned from my parent training at Wildie is the best we can do is to live in the present. I'll absorb the joy that I am feeling now, and let it ride.

________

Last weekend, I visited the Grove of the Patriarchs in Mount Rainier. Jack and I had brought the kids there years ago. My campaign manager from when I ran for School Board would often call me a Proud Momma. Yep.

The Boy getting his Jr. Ranger badge. I love this picture. He is so serious.

My future skiers playing on summer snow.

My tree huggers.

Faith & Patience v Speed

Note: Yesterday in my blog post, I called out all of my wonderful and supportive friends. I wanted to mention that you--my five blog readers--are also considered in that group. Writing is a necessary outlet for me, and it is comforting to know that someone out there is reading this, even if I don't talk to you every day. Many thanks!

______________________________________________________

At work yesterday at lunch, I was playing cards with a group of guys who I've been playing with for two years when one of them asked me how I was "doing." Not the chit-chat "How's it going?" and the expected response is "Fine." This was a "So what the heck is going on because we know something is up?" So I told him Jack and I were separated, and the rest of the group was surprisingly attentive and supportive.

The guy who asked has been divorced for two years now. This guy is religious and I wondered how much faith played into his staying in a very difficult marriage for years. He believed for seven years that things would get better, and then they didn't. Did his religious faith play into his faith in his personal life?

So what is faith? I was reading in the Lori Gottlieb book about uncertainty in life, and I suppose faith is a way of dealing with that uncertainty. Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty in my life, but where does faith come in, and what kind of faith? When I was looking at the waterfall Sunday, I thought things are going to be okay, which was both very comforting and at the same time incredibly vague. What things, and what is okay? Does it mean that my current state will get better, but what does better mean? Does it mean I hope the Boy will grow up to have a wonderfully connected and accomplished life, or does it mean he won't lay in bed for six months ever again?

And then I thought about patience. When I was in the educational advocacy world, we had three tenets when it came to making a giant bureaucracy change: be patient, persistent and polite. Can I apply these same tenets to my personal life right now? Part of me wants everything to be better and fixed and resolved right now. I am tired of waiting. Fuck patience.

I was talking to a friend of mine a week or two ago who was hospitalized a year ago with anxiety and depression.

"Look at how well you are doing compared to a year ago! You should be proud of yourself!" I said.

He harumphed and crossed his arms over his chest, apparently not agreeing with me. I ignored his body language and pressed on.

"You should celebrate," I said to a response of silence. I didn't care that he might not have agreed with me as I saw a considerable difference. A few days later I found out that he spends his weekends laying in bed.

Oh. Hmmm.

And then I thought about the Boy and how Jack and I are moving him to boarding school next week. His likely stay there will be fourteen months, and that is breaking my heart. And then I thought about my friend who a year after his hospitalization has made tremendous progress, but still isn't 100% of where he'd like to be. I thought of my writer friend whose husband and had depression for two years where he did nothing but lay in bed for two years, and then he recovered.

If it is taking my friend a year to get back to base, it is going to take at least a year for the Boy, too. This bizarrely brings me comfort, as now I don't feel so bad sending the Boy off for so long. I wouldn't deny him cancer treatment if he had lymphoma. Why should I deny him this life saving treatment as well?

Will it save his life?

Therein lies faith.

I want speed, but perhaps the only place I'll get that is from my Q5.

Hamster Wheel v Waterfall

I just got back from my solo trip and it was soooo relaxing. So relaxing. I got ten hours of sleep every night. I should have learned from that and go straight to bed now instead of writing my blog, but writers gotta write.

Friday night as I left the office, I was in tears, dreading my weekend alone. It was as if I was going into solitary confinement, which is regarded as cruel and unusal punishment. How on earth could I possibly go 48 hours without talking to anyone? I've been neurotic speed talking lately. It is hard enough to have the Boy gone and deciding on a boarding school, but I am also mourning the state of my marriage and the separation. And it doesn't help that everyone on my team at works work from home on Friday. Everyone. It totally sucks. This should be the least of my problems, but work seems to be one of the things that isn't totally fucked up in my life (in addition to my awesome and supportive friend base.)

"You can work from home, Lauren," says everyone on my team, which is not the point. Everyone I work with lives with their family or a significant other besides me. Since I don't have anyone at home and I have a six minute commute, why should I sully my living space with the work vibe?

I digress. The point was Friday was a meh day. I am getting bummed out thinking how mediocre it was.

I was crying at Frank's produce Friday after work when I was buying supplies for my trip. Chaz, the produce guy, came up and introduced himself to me. Chaz has a reputation among the downtowners as being the best produce guy in town. Seriously. I had heard of the legendary Chaz and I met him Friday. I read somewhere in some blog or maybe the Atlantic about the power of interactions with strangers, that it can boost our mood more than we would expect. I don't know why, but maybe that explains why people like traveling by themselves to other countries for long periods of time without a companion -- maybe the "talking to stranger" effect kicks in.

I digress again. By time I packed and Fox and I were on the road, I was gleeful. Delighted. Giddy. I was driving my trusty steed, the Q5. Fox was in a good mood. Maybe my brief interaction with Chaz gave me the lift I needed to get out of town. Who knows? As my colleague James says when I am in a good mood, "Don't question it."

Maybe the calming thing was I was going to Ellen's cabin, one of my most favorite places on earth. It is rustic and has no internet, no television, no cell phone coverage.

Breakfast

Over the course of the weekend, I did four hikes, three of which I had never done before, which was nice. The weather forecast was for thunderstorms, so the park wasn't that crowded except for out-of-town tourists. Most of the locals stayed home. The places in the park I visited were covered in fog, which is a nice metaphor for where my life is now -- not clear, not bright, but hazy and uncertain.

As I was walking, I enountered lots of people--families, groups of friends, people hiking alone. I realized none of these people knew any of the shit in my life right now, and that was nice. As far as they knew, I was just another hiker, not a woman who was struggline with her crumbing marriage and messed up kid.

The second day, I went to Ohanapecosh in the southeast corner of the park. I had been there before, but never did the Silver Falls hike. I was walking along and came to a bridge with a beautiful waterfall. It is really hard to get a good picture of a waterfall. The movement and the noise are the best parts. I figured I hiked a mile to see this waterfall, I wasn't going to rush past it like everyone else was.

Over the trip, I was reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb. She writes about James Prochaska's transtheoretical model of behavior change, which was also taught at Wilderness Parents Weekend.

Stage 1: Pre-contemplation
Stage 2: Contemplation
Stage 3: Preparation
Stage 4: Action
Stage 5: Maintenance

Gottlieb talks about how people do the same thing over and over until they are ready to change: "Although often maddening for friends and partners to witness, this hamster wheel is part of the process" (page 283).

I've been on the hamster wheel, and the walk through Mount Rainier helped to step off it for a bit.

Back to the Silver Falls trail. The river sounds really loud, like an airplane kind of loud which I thought was strange. As I turned the corner, I saw the massive and powerful waterfall.

What if my life isn't really a hamster wheel, but a waterfall and I am the water, crashing and falling and beating into the rocks? The hamster wheel that I was on felt like I was literally spinning in circles, going over the same stuff again and again with no resolution. The waterfall at least has forward momentum. People hike for miles to see the majesty waterfalls, but it really must be painful for the water, if water could feel.

More important than the waterfall, is what the water looks like on the other side...

There are quiet, calm spots that aren't in turmoil. Maybe the water is still churning, but it isn't in a crazy phase. So this is where I am right now--I am a drop in the middle of a waterfall, making lots of noise, uncertain where I am going to land.

After my two days in the woods crossing paths with strangers and then going home to Fox, I realized that I felt much less emotionally labile than I did, say, Friday afternoon when I was crying to poor Chaz. Instead of solitary confinement, I found Walden. Looking at the waterfall and then at the calm below, I felt some peace. Whatever happens, I am going to be okay. Probably there are few more rocks to hit, but hopefully eventually I'll make it someplace relatively still.

Solo

A few weeks back in Wilderness, the Boy had to go on a solo quest where he spent three days in the woods by himself. There were guides nearby, but he had to make his own fire and cook his own food.

My new manager had suggested I take a trip out of town over the Fourth of July. At first I was reluctant, and then got my act together, booked a ticket and then had a wonderful time visiting Claire-Adele and my friend Michelle in Maryland.

I've decided to take my manager's advice again--this time before he gave it to me--to get out of town again. When I visited Michelle in Maryland, she suggested I plan one out-of-town fun trip a month. This time, I will be going to my friend Ellen's cabin on Mt. Rainier for the weekend. I love her cabin and I love Mt. Rainier, but I hardly ever get the chance to visit it. Or I never make the time. Whatever. Now I am going and I am going alone.

For the past few weekends, I've been a neurotic mess, almost terrified to be alone, calling one friend after another to help me get my head on straight while Jack and I figure out plans for the Boy. The first few weeks he was in Wilderness, I was relieved and was overall in a good mood because I knew the Boy was safe and getting help. Then the protective layers of my psyche and soul began to unravel and despair began to show. This past weekend (hopefully) was the nadir, but I know grief comes in waves. After being smacked to the ground earlier this week, I am starting to feel better. In fact, I feel a lot better just because I don't feel nearly as miserable as I did on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Today was downright rosy compared to Monday.

When I booked Ellen's cabin, I had zero intention of going alone. I figured I'd find a friend to join me. I've been really busy with logistics for the Boy, and our family travel schedule has been unpredictable. I haven't invited anyone to join me (yet) mainly because I didn't want to invite some one and then need to bail. Our travel schedule to and from Colorado and Montana have been planned on very short notice and the odds of me needing to bail on the trip to Rainier were high.

So unless one of my five blog readers is open this weekend and wants to join me, I am going to go to Mt. Rainier on my own. Solo. If the Boy can spend three days in the woods alone, so can I.

Grief & My Work

I can't keep track of how much I've cried over the past four days, but it has been a lot. I cried for at least an hour last night, including through dinner and after dinner. Before dinner, I was reading the website for one of the schools we were looking at. They asked that all parents be "involved" in the process by writing your kids a letter once a week and participating in a weekly therapy phone call.

Fuck.

If my kid got cancer and got sidelined by two years, I'd get to sit by his side and hold his hand and make sure he had milkshakes or whatever people eat when they are on chemo. Sure I'd be stressed and sad, but at least I'd get to see him every day (not that I wish cancer on the Boy at all ever.)

So now I get to write him letters once a week and get a phone call? Nooooo!!!! I wanted to scream.

• I want to drive him to soccer tournaments.
• I want him to get his drivers license.
• I want to let him drive himself to soccer practice.
• I want to take him skiing.
• I want to eat dinner with him every night.
• I want to help sort through all of the junk mail he is starting to get from colleges because his PSAT scores were high enough to put him on the list.
• I want to sit in orchestra concerts.
• I want to write a check to his bassoon teacher for his lessons.

The idea of leaving the Boy someplace else for the next year or two was killing me. Prior to this weekend, I thought I'd be fine with it, that I could pretend that the Boy was accepted to college early or something. But no. My mind suddenly decided that that mind trick was bullshit.

"Breathe," said Jack. "Take a deep breath."

I took a deep breath and continued to sob. 

"Hector says negative emotions only last thirty seconds to three minutes," said Jack. Hector was Yoda on our Family Quest weekend, in case you forgot.

"Hector is an idiot," I said, even though it is not at true because Hector is awesome. Hector might not have been referring to true grief when he said this. I tried another few deep breaths but continued to cry. It didn't work. I finally settled down enough to go to sleep.

In the Boy's most recent letter to us, he asked us to look for an aftercare program that will suit him well. "Please be thorough but also don't take forever." Yes, the Boy knows us well. Jack will do extensive research on buying a toaster oven. How long might he spend researching some thing as important as a place for the Boy to live for the next year when he spent hours on something as trivial as a toaster?

Today, we visited another school waaay out in the middle nowhere.

The staff was interviewing us as much as we were interviewing them. The first question was what did we do for a living and the second question was where we went to college. Isn't that what LinkedIn is for? At first, I was put off by this is a little bit, but then it started to make sense. Perhaps having well-educated, ambitious, professional parents are part of the problem. These kids all came from a similar type of background which would then give them something in common to work out in group therapy. In addition to having well-educated, professional parents, the kids are intelligent, came out of pressure-cooker high schools, and the kids underperformed. Is there a pattern there? Yes. These kids are capable of more than they were doing in a regular setting, and the goal is to get these kids back on track. I think what they do is appeal to these kids' intelligence to help them tap into their emotions. I don't exactly know for sure, but perhaps that is the plan.

This school also interviews the parents to make sure we are on board with the program. This program--like many other therapeutic boarding schools--has a heavy emphasis on family dynamics and fixing the home so there is a safe place for the kid to come home to. By having a very narrow demographic, it probably makes it easier for them to corral the parents. And if the doctor dad sees the lawyer mom being called out for lack of "recognizing" who their kid is, it might be easier for the doctor dad to see that behavior in himself.

Yeah, this is going to be tough.

So what will be my work, as the diligent, hardworking, stay-at-home mom for a million years? The Director asked what I did to help the Boy cope, and I listed all of the things that I did to support him.

"Did he go on sleepovers as a boy?" the director asked.

"Um," I said. "Not that often."

"Did he not want to go?" the director asked.

"When he would go to a sleepover, he'd be up all night and then he'd be a monster the next day," I said. "It wasn't worth it for me to deal with a super grouchy kid for the next twelve hours."

"So you tried to manage the Boy's depression and emotions from the sidelines?" the director said.

"Yeah," I said, knowing it was the wrong answer. "But he would have a meltdown the next day for two hours and I couldn't take it." Seriously. A two hour meltdown sucked.

"You know that you really couldn't do that, that you couldn't manage his emotions for him," the director said.

"Yes," I said.

"He needs to learn to manage his emotions on his own," he said. "It is impossible for one person to manage another person's emotions. That is why he needs to come here."

I am not sure if this means I failed, or if it means I tried as hard as I could. Or both. I somehow felt that letting go of the Boy would have been catastrophic, and I had evidence to support that. If didn't, he wouldn't be in Wilderness in the first place.

Nevertheless, I have my work cut out for me. And so does the Boy.

Welcome to Montana

We flew into Montana last night to visit boarding schools for Peter and I was crying my eyes out. "I don't want him to live in Montana! I want him home and healthy and not depressed with me!" As I am writing this, I now realize for me I get to pick two of those, and I am choosing healthy and not depressed.

So this morning in the hotel in Montana, I was reading a book (#selfcare) called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb instead of reading the details on the boarding school we are going to visit this morning when I came across this essay called "Welcome to Holland" by Emily Pearl Kinsley. I had seen this years ago at a NAMI meeting.

https://www.ndss.org/resources/a-parents-perspective/

Welcome to Montana.

Better Off?

Tragedy and trauma happen all of the time, and they suck by definition, otherwise it wouldn't qualify as a tragedy or trauma. It can be anything from something as trivial as an unexpected bad grade to something as major as becoming paralyzed in a car accident.

Are we better off after these things happen?

I've been struggling with this question for a while and it has been bugging me. I've been wanting to write about it, but I couldn't think of what to say that I believed was true.

I asked my friend Ellen whose daughter Hannah was on the same track as the Boy, but a few years earlier. I remember sitting with Ellen at Zoka near U Village, sitting across from her at the table while she cried and told me the story of her daughter's substance abuse issues and how she was in wilderness therapy in Utah. Fast forward three years and her beautiful, healthy and sober daughter is heading to college in the fall.

"Are you better off that this happened?" I asked Ellen one day.

"Yes," she said. "I am glad that it happened. I was a white knuckle alcoholic and I had to face my own sobriety when my daughter was facing hers. It was the best thing that could have happened."

Oy. How could Ellen reconcile her daughter going off the rails as the best thing that ever happened, because clearly, going off the rails for drug and alcohol abuse is not a good thing. At all.

"We never would have addressed these issues in our family if it hadn't been for our daughter's issues," said Ellen. She believed it so firmly, that I had to believe it was true. As much as I have a hard time reconciling the notion that bad things cause good outcomes, there is truth in that Ellen and Hannah probably are better off since Hannah's addiction was treated.

And yet...philosophically I had a hard justifying bad things happening for the sake of personal growth. Should I be glad I tore my ACL because it taught me...patience? No. Tearing my ACL and getting surgery sucked and I wish I hadn't torn it. Was it because Ellen's daughter found more growth and meaning in her recovery, whereas my ACL was more of an inconvenience, not a spiritual journey?

Last night at 3:00 when I was awoken to the viaduct being torn down (Seriously. Three a.m. on a Sunday morning), I had a flash

Are we better off after these things happen?

It is the wrong question to ask. Instead, the right question to ask is

How have I grown since this bad thing happened to me?

I got this idea last month when I was reading an article in Harvard Business Review of all places about employees experiencing grief, which is a hot topic on my mind as I am going through some pretty heavy grieving now about the Boy. Near the end of the article, the authors discuss the idea of post-traumatic growth where we can learn from the horrible things that happen to us.

I was born and raised Catholic, and one of the hardest concepts of any religion is to understand suffering. Part of the idea of life in a sense to avoid causing other people to suffer, but also to understand that we can't experience suffering-free existence. Everyone will suffer at some point, but what is the best way to deal with it?

I am not sure I have an answer, so here is a picture of Flathead Lake in Montana.

Maybe that is the best answer I have right now. If I can't get rid of suffering, maybe I can at least be present and enjoy my surroundings.

Boarding School

Tomorrow, Jack and I are going to Montana to visit possible boarding school options for the Boy. This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I don't want to send him to boarding school. I want him to come home.

I wish he didn't need this.

I long for the days when the biggest issue was did he pack his soccer cleats and eat enough before a game, not which therapeutic environment will be the best for him.