Jack has started to "sober up" from his workaholism.
I should be thrilled, right?
Nope.
Instead, I am finding myself angry, frustrated and annoyed. Why did it take so long for him to get his head out of his ass? Why didn't he listen to me before? What am I, chopped liver? Why did he sober up after both kids were out of the house and I left? Why did he wait until it was "too late"? The kids will never be kids again. He recently admitted that he "deferred" parenting to me. As a married couple, we divided tasks like managing money (me) and insurance and taking care of the cars (him). Parenting isn't a task to be assigned. Parenting is a purpose, where you hope to raise and nurture a little person into a big person who has their own hopes, dreams, goals, affections, talents and values.
You can't delegate parenting. You either are a parent or you are not. Sure, you can be super-engaged, over engaged, under-engaged, minimally engaged and so on. There is a range, but at some point you have to decide if you are in the game or not.
Of course, there are some exceptions, like military parents described in this beautiful article written by Dana Canedy, a Gold Star spouse. For so long, I thought of Jack's work as being like the military--sacred and worthy of his absence.
But then Jack never really came home, even when he was home. He was always at work, even when he was at dinner at home, sitting with Claire-Adele, the Boy and I.
On another note, the Boy started his senior year of high school this week in Montana. He is going to a large public high school in northwest Montana while he is living in a house with three other guys and two house leaders.
I haven't fully let myself feel those feelings, and those feelings are complicated. I can live in the present, but part of what makes me live in the moment is accepting those other feelings that are hard and not stuffing them aside. In the past few weeks, I've talked to multiple therapeutic boarding school/inpatient treatment parents. One just found out that the wilderness therapy team recommended his son go into longer-term care. I cried when I heard his story, even though I had been there myself. I don't think I cried when the Boy's team told me they recommended sending him away for another year. I think I said, "Uh-huh, sure. Okay." I didn't cry for my kid, but I cried for someone else's.
But this week, I was sad. I got an email from the Boy's kindergarten teacher. Mr. Jones emailed all of his kids a note wishing them well on their last first day of school. It was bittersweet to read, as the boy almost didn't make it to his senior year. My friend Cara summed it up perfectly: I am happy the Boy is doing better, but I am sad for you he isn't here."
I was thinking about this dad whose kid kid is going to be sent away for a year. I wanted to tell him the hard part for me is over. The hard part--the fucking hell--was when the Boy didn't get out of bed for six months, when he stopped going to school, when he stopped joining us for dinner, when skiing was possibly the only thing keeping him alive according to his psychiatrist. Deciding my kid wasn't going to get better without an epic intervention was the hard part.
That was the dark time.
This wasn't my plan. It wasn't my ideal vision for my kid to spend his senior year in Montana, living with other kids. But what is a plan? My friend Melissa has an expression, "Man plans. God laughs." When I heard it years ago, I had thought that was a trite little expression, a cliche. Now I understand. There are trajectories and likelihoods, but life offers no promises for anything.
I guess I do disagree with one part of that expression. I don't think God is laughing right now. I think God is holding the Boy, keeping him safe, giving him a soft landing place in Montana instead of crashing to the ground.
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