A River Runs Through It

The Boy has become a Montanan.

He has lived here for eleven months and is now a resident. 

"I don't plan on living in Seattle ever again permanently," he said. I think the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (aka CHAZ) might have been hard for him to explain to his non-Seattle friends at school. To the rest of the world, they saw CHAZ and thought "WTF?" To Seattlites, we knew this was the uber-left co-opting the Black Live Matter movement to justify taxing Amazon, not to change policing practices towards people of color.

The Boy is becoming an outdoorsman. He imagines his first car will be a pickup truck. He likes Dodge Chargers. He thinks there is nothing inherently wrong with Republicans and one day he might own a gun to hunt.

The Boy has become a Montanan.

Since the Boy can't mountain bike or hike or ski with his newly repaired knee, he has found a new sport. The Boy collects sports the way I collect books: just because I found a new book doesn't mean I don't love the ones I've already read. This sport is one that will likely never leave him: fly fishing. 

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," opens Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, a book read and re-read by the Boy. We watched the movie tonight at the Boy's request. The story takes place in Missoula, about 150 miles from the Boy's school. In Montana terms, 150 miles is considered the next town over. The scenery is breathtaking.

Norman's brother, Paul, is played by a young Brad Pitt. Paul is charming and smart and handsome and an artist when it comes to fly fishing. He also has a gambling problem and some other addictions that in the end ruin his life and break the hearts of his parents and sibling.

"Why do the people who need help the most refuse it?" Norman's girlfriend, J.C., asks. Her own brother is a very hot mess, but lacks the kindness and grace of Paul.

I was talking to a fellow boarding school mom the other day and she was moaning about the cost. Another parent a few months ago also kvetched about the cost. While I have no solid proof, my guess is that these families have some means. If they can afford this, why are they complaining? Don't they know they are lucky to be able to save their sons, cost be damned?

Why do I think this? I am the queen of investing and saving money. Shouldn't I be evaluating the cost-benefit analysis of this spending? Why am I so okay with shelling out an obscene amount of cash when people who I am guessing have way more money than me are complaining?

My brother was Paul Maclean, minus the fly fishing.

I couldn't save my brother, but perhaps I can save my son. If I lose him to Montana, I am okay with that, as long as he finds himself.

The Lead Story

Normally, I keep the anonymity of my family pretty tight. It is not their choosing to be main characters in my blog. Today is an exception as my family put themselves in the spotlight.

This week, Jack wrote a story about the Boy's mental health challenges on his workplace's website. Mental health problems are now the leading cause of admission at Seattle Children's. The leading cause of admission used to be asthma, but suicide ideation, self-harm, and generalized anxiety and depression are now taking the lead. Take that, respiratory issues! And this change isn't because there is a new miracle cure for asthma. Are kids more depressed than they were a few years ago, or are we breaking down stigma so parents feel comfortable seeking help? Is the world with people connecting on a screen and not in person taking kids down? Has FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) caused depression? I have no idea, but clearly something is afoot.

When Seattle Children's saw their main cause of admissions changing, they made mental health treatment a priority. When one of the division chief's kids was a PBMU patient, the kid becomes the lead story for the newsletter, beating out Seattle Children's CEO's COVID-19 story.

Here is the full story, for those who are curious. 

Jack and the Boy were both very brave to be in this article which is fine and awesome. 

I have one problem with it, though.

The unwritten story: inequity. 

My family is fortunate enough to afford the treatment for the problem. After having a front row seat with my brother's mental health crisis for decades, I had the will to get it done. 

The poorest of the poor can get the best care at the world class Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Want to send your kid to Wilderness Therapy for twelve weeks or a therapeutic boarding school (TBS) so they don't kill themselves and then hopefully rejoin to the world as a functioning human? Here is how you pay for it:

• Do you have a good job with great health insurance? Doesn't matter. Insurance won't pay for it.
• Are you rich? If yes, write a check and fly your kid to Utah, Colorado or Montana on a private jet. Maybe take it out of Billy's trust fund. If your kid has a trust fund big enough to cover the cost of all of this, it is likely mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, step-dad, etc. have enough funds to cover this without poaching the child's savings.
• Are you upper middle class? Dig into that money you were saving to send your kid to college. At the rate your kid is going now, they aren't going to college. "Retrench" and adjust how you spend your monthly income. Take that bonus and instead of getting a new Audi or Tesla, you have now paid for six months of boarding school. Italy or Thailand for vacation? Nope. Hello, Durgango, Colorado! (Which is actually lovely.) In the long run, this is going to be cheaper than the cost of having your grown-ass adult child live on your couch for thirty years.
• Even for families with means, sending kids back to the motherland is an option. Maybe you have a kind and gentle grandparent or aunt who lives out of state or out of the country who would be willing to love your kid back into recovery. I have friends whose cousins and siblings were shipped back to rural Michigan, Taiwan and India when their mental illness flared. 
• If you are not in the previous groups, feel free to mortgage your house or empty your retirement account.
• Don't own a house that can be remortgaged or have a retirement account? No extended family that is willing to help? Good luck.
• Are you a person of color? Pray to god your kid doesn't flip out when the cops are around. At best, your kid will be locked up in juvie. At worst...I think we all know what the worst is.

Add on top of the tuition extensive travel costs. I spent twenty-five days out of town between June 1 and December 31, 2019 for the Boy's treatment. Think: airfare, hotels, rental cars and restaurants.

If your kid in inpatient treatment, you had better get your own butt to therapy, so add that to your monthly expenses. Kids don't get to the "sleeping-on-the-couch-all-day" stage of life all by themselves. While I didn't necessarily cause the Boy's problems, our family contributed to them. 

Then there is the spiritual cost. I am in the process of rebuilding my psyche and soul as a result of this emotional trauma, and there isn't a price tag for that. 

Sent Away and Country Roads

I dropped the Boy off at his boarding school tonight after spending two weeks with him in Kalispell after his surgery. Overall, it was good but I am exhausted. So exhausted.

A new phrase entered the Boy's vocabulary: Sent away.

Time for him is marked as before he was sent away and after he was sent away. This strikes a little pain in my heart, as if I chose to ship him off because he was a pain or an inconvenience. Not true.

"The phrase isn't good or bad," he told. "It isn't judgmental. It is what it is. I was sent away, even if it was for my own good."

The Boy's school is about thirty miles outside of Kalispell in the middle of nowhere. We were listening to Spotify when the song Country Roads by John Denver came on about ten miles from the school. Jack said the song reminded him of the movie Logan Lucky.

I said the song reminded me of the Boy. He knew why.

Last year on the Boy's sixteenth birthday, I drove him and two friends skiing. When this song came on, the three kids sang along. It was one of those rare moments when I saw the Boy happy, carefree, having fun.

"After you were 'sent away'," I told the Boy, "I was driving to work and this song came on. I started to sob. When the song was over, I played it again, and continued to cry."

He looked at me and smiled.

"You are weird."

I am not weird. I am a mom.

"Bitch, Please!"

I was talking to the Boy about COVID. He told me he had seen something on the internet about people bemoaning that they hadn't seen their friends for two and a half months.

"Bitch, please!" he said. "I haven't seen my friends for eleven and a half months and I can't contact them by text or phone or anything."

Yeah.

Pre-Crying

The Boy is going in for an MRI today to see if he tore his ACL. As you may know from my many blog posts, I tore my ACL in 2015 while I was skiing. I wouldn't wish a torn ACL on my worst enemy let alone on the Boy.

A torn ACL means he can't ski for a year. Last year, skiing was what kept him alive. It was the only thing that got him out of bed. It will take months to relearn to walk and run. He can't play soccer, either.

Last night I cried. I think it was pre-crying, crying before the bad news so when the bad news comes we've already processed it. I remember when the Boy was in 8th grade, he applied to Aviation High School. Admissions were by lottery, and there was a low acceptance rate. The night before the lottery, he cried for forty-five minutes. Jack and I couldn't figure out why he was crying at the time, and then when I saw he didn't get in, I understood.

Good Things, Part 2

My daughter Claire-Adele used to be an avid reader of my blog (mainly to see if I was writing about her) but she stopped reading it because she said it was too "angsty." This is coming from a teenager. My dictionary's definition of angst has adolescent angst as an example. If teenager thinks my blog is angsty, it must be off the charts. But then, Claire-Adele isn't on the Facebook group of parents whose kids are in treatment for anxiety and depression where every single person's kid is either currently in crisis or has just gotten out of the woods of a crisis. You know how social media gets a bad rap for people showing all of the superficial, happy crap in their lives? This group is the opposite as it is full of raw, honest emotions, from the agonizing pain of child who is lost to the joyous relief of seeing that lost kid find their way back to civilization.

So my blog has been a little angsty, I agree, but the angsty-ness reflects the state of my life in general.

In the middle of all of this chaos mess, there are a few good things.

• I am reading a really good book: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen. It is about a young girl who is abandoned first by her mother then my her alcoholic father and is left to fend for herself in the marsh is North Carolina. I read this article about it in the New York Times and decided to read it. 

• In addition to reading popular literature, I also found a high brow show* (not) on Netflix from reading the New York Times. Schitt's Creek stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara (who I swear I saw walking in my neighborhood a few weeks ago.) I've seen the name of the show on airplanes, but I never watched an episode until last night. It was so good to laugh so hard. This is The Beverly Hillbillies in reverse where a vacuous, wealthy family loses its fortune and moves to the middle of nowhere. All they left from their former lives are their clothes. Eugene Levy's character has the best dress shirts. I wish the Boy were here to watch it with me.

• Ferries at night are good things. I love watching them crawl along the Sound like a glowing snail. My friend Laura had suggested we take a ride on the ferry in the evening in the winter where we can see the city lights. It is so hard to get a good picture of the ferry with my phone at night. It doesn't do justice to how wonderful I think they are.

* My friend Laura recommended Chernobyl. I think I'll take a pass. I couldn't get through the trailer.

Regrets

I got a text from a friend today whose son was in Wilderness as the same time as the Boy.

Still thinking about what your question of what happened to the sunny optimistic middle schooler?  And why can we just decide to be happy today? (Paraphrasing). 

I ask myself that same question and I want to answer that question so badly, and more so, do something about it. Struggling to get there. Struggling to reading all of those great books that we’re recommend and instead watching mindless Netflix. 

I don’t want to get to the end of life’s journey and have regrets. 

I know the choices I want to make. That’s a start. 

Before I got her text, I was struggling with a bunch of regrets I was having during the several month period before I got the Boy into Wilderness and the months after wards while I was swamped with logistics, travel and other odd tasks for the Boy.

Do I have regrets about what I did and what I failed to do, to paraphrase a line from the Catholic mass?

Yes. I have a ton of regrets, and now I am looking at the wreckage of my personal life and wondering how on earth I am going to clean up that mess. Or, can I magically start over with a new life, a fresh clean slate? But like bring all of my friends with me because I don't want the slate THAT clean. Maybe just take the nicest parts of my old life with me.

When I think back on my regrets of what I did and failed to do, I think of the fifteen things I wanted to do or wish I had done, and I only got two or three of those things done. 

The number one thing I did was get the Boy into treatment. The other fourteen would have been irrelevant if the Boy would have killed himself. Would I care if I got a promotion at work if my son killed himself? No.

Some of the regrets I have are because I only had room in my life to get three out of fifteen things I wanted to get done but couldn't. Is it fair to regret not doing the other twelve things when it was of the utmost importance that I got the first three done? Should I be happy with the how I prioritized my list? For example, there were lots of issues in our marriage that Jack and I did not discuss while the Boy was settling into treatment. Do I regret not attending to them sooner? Yes and no. I wish I had addressed them sooner instead of letting them fester, but I didn't have the bandwidth. I feared that any adjustments to our marriage would have been a disaster that I didn't need while coping with the Boy. I was afraid that attending to those issues would have been pulling a pin out of a grenade and the explosion would have impaired getting the Boy to Wilderness and boarding school. There were other relationships I neglected, too. Do I regret not being as attentive and open as I could have been? Yes. Did I have the bandwidth while I was seeking treatment for the Boy? No.

I have no regrets about the priority I placed on getting the Boy in treatment, so therefore I need to cut myself some significant slack about not getting the other twelve done. My family was in crisis and I needed to pay attention to that. I can regret not getting those things done, but I shouldn't fret about it, I suppose. 

Is it okay that I have regrets? In these cases, I think yes. I couldn't do everything. I had to make choices. I still might regret the things I didn't get done, but that is okay. It could mean that I had ambition to get more stuff done than I possibly could have.

Regrets drive us to continually evolve and evaluate our options. They help keep us focused on what we want and need to do. They are an engine for growth, if we let them be.

Sixty Percent, Drama Queens, Sister Mamas & Because it is Hard

Last week when I got back from Montana, I went to lunch with my friend who has anxiety and depression. Sometimes he is quiet, sometimes not. Last week, he was talkative.

We went to lunch on Monday, and I was still recovering emotionally from seeing the Boy and physically from the drive and lack of sleep. I still struggle with how to be happy while I am coping with the Boy's depression and anxiety. Watching the Boy struggle with all of his emotional challenges is heartbreaking. He is making progress, but that progress means uncovering a lot of challenging thoughts. I was still pretty raw from the trip when we were at lunch.

My friend's anxiety has had physical ramifications. He used to be very athletic. Now, not so much.

"I am sixty percent of where I used to be," he said. "I could be sad about the forty percent that I lost, or I could be happy where I am at. What would be the point of looking back at where I was?"

It took me several days to absorb these thoughts. Part of that time I was recovering from seeing the Boy. Still, my friend is right. I need to find a way to be happy in spite of these challenges.

Ironically, one thing that has made it possible to even think about being happy is digging into my sorrow. My path to happiness hasn't been to go around the Boy's problems, but to go through. Before I acknowledged how much I was worried about the Boy committing suicide and checking out from life, I was a Drama Queen inside my own head and to my closest friends. I'd spin and spin about tangentially related issues. When I spoke about my fears in the group therapy session, the drama almost came to a complete stop. Without the constant mental distractions, it is much easier to think about being happy.

When my son was at Wilderness therapy, I met other parents in the program at the program's family wellness weekend. There, I met many sane and normal people who had kids with major challenges. Maybe some of these parents were a little on edge or crazy or sad or whatever (myself included) because they had a kid who went off the rails who was then put in the middle of the southwestern United States to sleep on the ground under a tarp for three months.

Since the parents weekend, I've kept in touch with three other moms. One of the moms calls us Sister Mamas. As I wrote before, I bought them each a journal.

Here is the letter I included with the journal.

Dear Sister Mamas,

Last week, I was driving back from Montana after visiting the Boy when I stopped in a gift shop in St. Regis. It was a long and exhausting visit where I got to witness the Boy having a panic attack and then watch him for the first time articulate what he was feeling. He was so open with his emotions which was great but it was difficult to hear all of the fear and shame he was holding. I had no idea what to do. I felt glad he was in boarding school because his sadness was so deep and his anxiety so strong. There was no way I have the skill set to take care of him.

When I walked into the gift shop, I saw this journal that said on the cover “I think I’ll just be happy today.” I thought what a load of crap. There is no way that can ever be me with all that I have gone through, am going through and will go through. The book is full of platitudes that I would have liked in middle school. Ugh.

And then I thought holy cow how did I become so cynical? Maybe I could try to be happy in spite all of this. Maybe the platitudes apply. Maybe I need a flowery journal with a cute little bird on the cover. Maybe I need a dose of that blind and sunny optimism I had in 7^thgrade that I found in a small town in Montana. Maybe I need to find some hope and happiness so my son can find hope and happiness for himself.

Then I was grateful for Montana—the entire state--that the houses residential treatment programs for kids with issues. I was glad for the kind (and super intense) parents at the boarding school. I was grateful for the self-aware kids at the Boy’s school. And of course, I am grateful for all of you and sharing the experience of wilderness.

Instead of one journal, I bought four. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, I am asking you to be happy, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. 

·     Life doesn’t need to be perfect to be wonderful.

·     You are amazing. Remember that.

·     Every journey begins with a single step.

·     Some days you have to create your own sunshine.

·     Mistakes are proof that you are trying.

·     Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

All of this is easy to think when life is going well, but harder to believe when life is dark and seems impossible.

Thank you so much for all of your inspiration, vulnerability and honesty.

Lauren

Purple Mountain Majesty & Strike That

Yesterday, I drove home from Montana. The drive from Kalispell to St. Regis is the most beautiful drive I have ever taken in my life, and I have been to New Zealand which is amazing. The scenery was breathtaking. I now know where "purple mountain majesty" comes from. I didn't take any pictures because I was driving, but here is a map of my route, in case you want to know. The drive goes along Flathead Lake, through plains and then along a river in the valley between mountains.

My manager had been teasing me that these trips to see the Boy are vacation.

"No, this was not a vacation," I'd say, thinking of the hours of therapy I'd been through.

"You just said you took the most beautiful ride ever! How is that not vacation?"

He has a point.

How do I reconcile the beauty and the pain of this trip, hold both in my hands and heart at the same time? That the Boy is doing better even though he has a long way to go before he is functional? That I love him even though Saturday he ignored me which pissed me off and made me feel like I was an inadequate parent? Today, I sent a message to my friends I met at the parents weeks for the Boy's Wilderness Camp. One of the women calls us "Sister Mamas" which I love. I wrote a note to them saying "I am glad he is getting help." I was going to add "but I wish he didn't need it." I struck that from the note to these women. I've decided to not add this caveat to every conversation.

I am trying to incorporate the Boy's mental health struggle into my day-to-day and still maintain my sanity. When I was in St. Regis, there is a gift shop. I found a journal that looked like something I would have bought in seventh grade, but it spoke to me. I bought four: one for me and three for the other Sister Mamas.

Three weeks ago, I would have thought this cheerful little bird was full of shit. Now after starting to read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and learning at Wilderness that negative emotions only last thirty seconds to three minutes if you just sit with them, I might learn to find happiness while the Boy is away.

Gratitude helps, too. I am grateful for Jason, one of the Boy's supervisors. I am grateful for the entire state of Montana, for hosting a place like this boarding school, and people who dedicate their lives to helping kids like the Boy find their way.

Glacier

The Boy is kind of an asshole.

He didn't talk to me at all yesterday, the last day of his pass. We talked for a few minutes on the car ride back to school, but it was hard for me to concentrate on a therapeutic conversation while driving 60-70 mph at dusk on a winding, hilly road with deer popping out.

My therapist would be proud of me saying that. Normally, I can twist myself into a pretzel rationalizing anyone's miserable behavior to me. "So-and-so is acting this way because they are insecure..." even when that behavior is hurtful to me. I can also find my own fault in situations: "Well so-and-so is upset with me because I said/did..." I cut some people a lot of slack, perhaps too much. Cutting slack to someone who is kind and respectful 90% of the time is reasonable and should be expected. If we expected everyone to be 100% all of the time, the world wouldn't work. People who are consistently difficult, hurtful or untruthful...that is a different story. Then you have to decide whether to cut slack or cut bait.

Most sixteen year old boys are assholes, especially to their parents. I feel sorry for the Boy (See? I'm doing it--cutting slack) because a usual teen would be expected to lash out at their parents or give them the silent treatment. Now that the Boy is in treatment, he is supposed to talk about his feelings with us, which given the natural order of things, would be the very last thing a teenage boy would want to do.

(I am not really sure if I should call him the Boy anymore, either. He weighs 175 pounds, gaining thirty pounds since he left home in June. Think 145 pounds is the max limit for boys. Anything more is a man.)

The Boy's pass for the past three days was challenging. I had him all to myself and I am not the adrenaline junkie his father is. The Boy was frustrated the Friday when it appeared that I wasn't having fun mountain biking. We talked on the side of the mountain for about a half an hour (he talked, I listened) and then he stormed off on his bike. Fortuitously (hey, I spelled that right without spellcheck!), the Boy on his rant ride crossed paths with Jason, one of the adults who supervises him at boarding school. The Boy and I were separated for a half an hour before we found each other on the path.

"I fucked up," he said. "And don't tell me I didn't because I did."

"You fucked up," I said.

Friday night, the Boy talked about this experience with Jason. I didn't know at the time, but the Boy was supposed to spend part of Saturday talking to me about how we both trigger off the other's anxiety. In other words, I get anxious to talk to the Boy, which makes him anxious to talk to me, which makes me anxious. I know that this conversation would have been anxiety producing to start, which then means his best coping strategy is to avoid it.

Saturday, he didn't talk to me. We went to breakfast. We went to Glacier. We drove ~200 miles together in the car. He didn't talk. Giving me the silent treatment for a whole day kind of sucked. It was hurtful.

I did learn one thing--how to be present at while hiking and enjoy the scenery even though I was both sad and pissed.

The next things I am going to learn is to tell him, not that he is an asshole, but that it was hurtful that he didn't talk to me all day Saturday.

Spinning & Rising

When I first thought of the name of this blog post, I thought of the Maya Angelou poem Still I Rise.

I rise.
I rise.
I rise.

Two days ago, I think I hit the bottom and now I am coming back up. How do I know? My mind has stopped spinning. I am tired. I am exhausted. The distractions are gone. Instead of drinking or using drugs, my mind created its own distractions where I'd focus all of my attention and energy on outside drama that I had created for myself. When there was a break that made me lose a distraction, I'd find myself looking straight into the abyss of the Boy and I couldn't go there. I was grieving his loss, but more I think I was imagining he was dead, not safe at boarding school, that there would be a possibility that I would never see him again. Of course, I will miss him, but hopefully not with the same dark, grieving intensity. Here is where my emotional, reptile brain took over. I was living in a primal state where my first and only thought was taking care of my child.

Two days ago, I admitted my deepest, darkest fear to a room full of supportive strangers and my kid's therapist and (more importantly) I have seen the Boy and he seems better. Now when I am sitting by myself alone, I have moments where I have no thoughts--I am just there and present. This is a major change from the past few months where my mind was always whirring in the background, and I would have to make enough noise in the front of my mind that the background wouldn't come to the front. I feel like I've lost fifty IQ points in the past few months. My mind was so pre-occupied that I couldn't truly concentrate. I haven't finished any new books except one collection of personal essays that my friend DJ had a piece in, and those essays either dealt with death or were funny. I haven't read a newspaper meaningfully. I've read parenting books because I've had to.

My brain hurts from all of the stress it had trying to keep my mind away from the most terrifying thing I could imagine: that my son might kill himself.

Wilderness therapy was supposed to be the reset button, which is was. There we learned how dark the Boy's mind really was. We knew he was in a bad space because he physically was not participating in the world. He was lying in bed.

"Aren't you glad he stopped going to school?" my dad once asked me. "If he had kept going to school in spite of all his issues, you might not have been so motivated to get him help."

That was a weird question to ask, but the answer was yes. Of course, I wish the Boy didn't have these horrifically dark thoughts where he didn't think he was worthy of loving and living. Wilderness uncovered the tumor. Boarding school is helping to shrink it.

I didn't realize I was in a bad space until another mom asked me a very simple question: "What are you doing to take care of yourself?" As I wrote yesterday, I lost it and started to cry. The emotional dam broke. This was a safe place to break down because I could look into the abyss after seeing the Boy. I could then meet him for lunch and spend the afternoon taking a walk or playing pool or Foosball. I told him how worried I was that he might kill himself, and he could listen. He could tell me about his fears and why he felt the day he did. I feel like he is on the path to getting better, so when I look down into the abyss, I can see hope.

How do I know I am better? In addition to my much, much quieter mind, for the first time in ages, I thought about my career. Not my job, but what is it that I want to do next, where do I want to go instead of doing what needed to be done because it was in front of me. I think of my friend listening to me for hours prattle on about all of the drama in my life. Not that the drama has gone away, but isn't as pressing or in the forefront of my mind. The noise has abated.

And so I rise.

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