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.

COVID is my Wilderness

Last summer, the Boy spent three months in the wilderness. He and a group of ten boys had to cook all of their meals over a fire they started. There were no haircuts. No showers except maybe a dip in a pond, stream or river. They lost track of time as they had no clocks and no calendars. No porcelain. A vast majority of them abruptly left home and did not get a chance to say goodbye to their friends.

In the wilderness, the Boy learned to build a fire from sticks. He learned to make a backpack out of a tarp and nylon rope. He learned to cook.

He learned to feel his feelings and speak up and meditate and listen.

COVID is my wilderness.

I haven't seen my friends in months. I have had to cook all of my meals. My hair is long. I've lost track of time.

I have learned to feel my feelings and speak up and meditate and listen.

I have learned to be comfortable with my own thoughts. I have learned to pause, to be a better listener. I've learned to stop spinning and getting worked up. I have learned when I get frustrated to let go instead of squeezing tight. I have learned to let go instead of giving up, instead of staying "Screw it" or "I don't care."

I am feeling a quietness inside that I haven't felt in a very long time, perhaps ever. I asked a friend "What is the difference between peaceful and numb?" I couldn't tell where I was at because I have never felt this way before. Was it peace or was I numb?

"Numb is when you avoid or ignore your feelings. Peace is when you have feelings but they don't control you."

The Boy called me on Mother's Day.

He was calm and quiet. "I really don't have much to say," he said.

For my family, not needing to talk is a miracle. His mind wasn't racing, he wasn't on edge. He just was. He seemed peaceful, not numb.

It was good.

Mamas Don't Sleep While their Babies are Sick

Moms don't sleep while their babies are sick.

They don't shower, they forget to eat, they don't call their moms on her birthday.

Most of all, moms don't sleep. Or if they do sleep, it is a crappy, miserable sleep where they are up every time there is a peep. They can't sleep until their kid comes out on the other side, when it is clear and apparent that their kid will be fine.

I doesn't matter the illness. The first flu or cold, cancer, or mental health crisis. Their primary focus is on the kid getting better. Some moms might continue to work because they need health insurance. (Some moms are horrible and abandon their ailing children at the hospital, but that is not most moms.)

I was in a writing class about feminine archetypes where we studied women represented in mythology. Demeter was Persephone's mother, Diana was the Hunter. "Virgins" like Diana had focused attention and were goal oriented. Mothers--like Demeter--were known for having diffuse attention where they would pay attention to lots of little things at the same time. Think cooking dinner while the laundry is in the washing machine and the kids are playing in the backyard. A guy once compared a woman's mind to a computer with lots of apps open at the same time. The cooking app may be running in the foreground, but the kids outside and the laundry are running in the background.

When mother's child is sick or suffering, that laser like focus of the virgin goddesses comes back into play. That sick child is in the foreground, and everything else is in the back. The sick child is a memory hog, using up a lot of RAM.

The Boy has turned a corner where he is seriously thinking about his future, looking ahead. Last Monday, the Boy was talking about his SAT scores, where he wanted to go to college, and what he wants to study.

"I thinking of math," said the Boy. "Something like Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences." I nearly leapt with joy for so many reasons. First, MMSS was my own major. We have to acknowledge that. Math is an awesome major in college because it is not like you are going to pick it up on the job or learn it on the fly. I suppose people can learn math online through Khan Academy, but that is a tool for people who want to study math more.

It is super cool that he is considering math, but most important is that he is considering anything. Before, he didn't see a future for himself, which made him more depressed. Now, he is looking forward, which is good.

I am happy for him.

And now I can sleep. I can restore. I can find myself and again and get back to everything else I left running in the background, unattended.

Insomnia

I love to sleep. I am not a night owl or an early bird. I am a go-to-bed-early-and-sleep-late kind of gal. A good nights sleep is essential to my functioning. Insomnia is a disaster for me as I am super sensitive to caffeine so I can't really fake a bad night's sleep with a regular mocha. If I can have a non-decaf cup of coffee, I am bouncing off the walls with too much energy, which does not make me the best co-worker in the world.

When the Boy was at Wilderness, Hector/Yoda, the leader of Family Services, explained to us that people have been waking up in the middle of the night for thousands of years. This "sleep through the night" thing is more a result of industrialization because people had to get up in the morning to go to work. In an agricultural society, when you were tired in the middle of the day when the work was done, you'd just take a nap.

Since I am not living in the woods and I have a nine-to-five job, I need my sleep at night. I have been having insomnia on and off for the past several months, which is horrible. Instead, I am learning to embrace it, and by embracing it a bit, I am able to fall back to sleep a little bit faster. When I wake, I might lay in bed and write in my journal or read a book. I might try a few meditative exercises to clear my mind instead of dreading it or worrying about how I am going to feel the next day.

I also ask what is my night mind trying to tell me? What is it that my brain is processing that I can't access during the day? Now I am trying to listen instead of wishing it away.

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

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.

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

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!

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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.