Pausing

I have a good friend who suffers from anxiety and depression and he has heard me talk about the Boy extensively. Unlike a teenage boy, this friend of mine is able to sort through and articulate his experiences with anxiety and depression. I have learned so much about the Boy through this friend. This friend really needs a fake name. Let me try Anderson, like Anderson Cooper, except I don't think my friend is gay.

Anderson wanted to get the Boy a gift for Christmas. I emailed the school to see if it was okay. The school only allows family members at first to send kids gifts. Friends can come in the second wave after the kids figure out who are their real friends versus ones they need to reconsider. The school doesn't want to have to sort through the friends--which ones were nice, which ones were bullies, which ones were drug dealers--so they make a "no contact with friends" policy. Anyway, Anderson is my friend more than the Boy's, and Anderson is an adult, not some potentially douchy high schooler. And since my family is really small, I suppose I have to count my friends as family otherwise there are three people outside of my dad.

I digress.

This week, I was on the weekly call with the Boy when he said he got a t-shirt from his friend Andy. The Boy and Andy have been friends since third grade when they both transferred from the neighborhood school to the gifted program across town. In high school, they both played the same instrument in the band.

"I can't believe Andy found out where I was staying," the Boy said. "He must have asked Dan or Connor where I am and then looked up the school address online. That was so amazing."

"What kind of t-shirt?" I asked.

"It says 'I paused my game for this,'" he said. "It was kind of unnerving since that is why I am here."

I started to think. "I think that present was from Anderson," I said. At work, he mostly goes by Anderson. A few people call him Andy, but I am not one of them. 

"Why?" asked the Boy.

"He wanted to get you a gift and he asked for your address," I said. "He must have used his nickname to order it. Plus is makes sense." Occam's razor says the simplest solution is often correct.

Plus, it was right on point that Anderson would send this. I thought more about the t-shirt and its multiple meanings. Before the Boy went to Wilderness, he and I went to lunch with Anderson where the two of them talked about anxiety and depression. Both of them escape into screens to avoid their feelings. Both have watched Breaking Bad several times. Anderson is more into Netflix, whereas the Boy would also play games, look up memes, hangout on SnapChat and watch random YouTube videos.

"I paused my game for this" is something the Boy rarely did. I'd call him for dinner and he could never stop a game because he would then automatically lose to some random person and his point total would go down. Nevermind I'd call him ten minutes before dinner. Nevermind that we eat dinner every night and he should expect that he'd have to turn his game off.

The Boy paused his game to get into treatment, even if it wasn't because of his own volition. But what is "this"? I hope the Boy figures that out. 

• I hope he is pausing his game for hobbies and adventure in real life, or working with his hands not just his thumbs.
• I hope he is pausing his game for fresh air and exercise.
• I hope he is pausing his game for human connection.

Hopefully, he finds a new game, one that doesn't involve escaping from his feelings and life.