If I Could Re-live a Year...

This week, I was talking to a prospective mom for my son's former therapeutic boarding school. It is not uncommon to get phone calls from these parents, especially during the pandemic when it was impossible to visit programs in person. 

Like many of the moms who call, this one was a train wreck, bless her heart. Looking back, I am sure I was worse when the Boy was at the same stage. 

Instead of talking about the school, I told her more specifically about my own experience:

"I wish someone had told me cold when I was starting this that the best thing any parent can do is take care of their own problems. Address that drinking issue. Get help for the workaholism. Figure out how to get rid of your co-dependency. Dig behind your ego and emotions and find your soul. If nothing else, take care of the basics: meditate, drink enough water, get enough sleep, find community and exercise."

When I was done talking to her, I thought about what I was like back then, before the Boy was sent away. I wish I had known then what I know now. "Experience is the comb nature gives you after you lose your hair," said my 9th grade English teacher. 

I know I am supposed to live in the present, blah, blah, blah, but as a thought experiment I wondered if I could relive a year of my life, which year would it be? A year that was fun and nearly perfect, or a year where I struggled and stumbled?

I came down to two: my freshman year of college and the year the Boy fell apart.

My freshman year of college was good. It was fun, I learned a lot about myself living on my own for the first time, minus the need to pay my own way. It was filled with collective effervescence. 

As far as bad years go, I would definitely skip the year Ada died, the year my brother's mental health imploded, and the pandemic, but maybe I would relive the year the Boy went away. It was so hard and heart breaking, but if I could go back and do it again with what I know now, I would have been so much more peaceful, calm and serene. Maybe some of it would have rubbed off on the Boy, helping him heal faster. I think about how much I obsessed that year, about everything and everyone instead of focusing on myself. I think of all of the bad habits I've since broken. Would I want to relive this year as a test, to see if really could do better? Maybe I just imagine that I could have handled it all, but maybe it really wouldn't be that different?

Maybe I wish I had learned what I needed to learn faster, but that is the challenge of learning as an adult--I don't often learn things until I am forced, until the status quo is too painful that I am forced to grow.