Tattoo

Don't know if it's the weather, the fact that I have nothing that I HAVE to do today, that A. is stabilized on his meds for the moment or what, but today I have that giddy, carefree, joyous thing going on.

This may sound a little strange, but I think it has something to do, too, with tank top season. When my 'quetza in a conch shell' tattoo shows, I feel empowered. Not sure if it's the significance of my sister's design, or I just have this idea that it makes me look like a rebel bad ass. In any case, it usually adds to the feeling-comfortable-in-my-own-skin package.

After a rough week of recovering from A.'s episode, of too many deadlines at work with too many people out, of trying to figure out if a certain school is the best one for A., and then how to pay for it, today I feel light. Hopeful.

I know better than to think that this will last too long. And that's ok. If I have learned anything in past several years, it's that I have today. Nothing more and nothing less. And I will take short-lived bursts of serenity and joy over none at all.

This week, I have chosen faith over fear as much as I could. It sounds cheesy and naive, but there is no other explanation for the inner peace.

I used to think this was weak. Turning all of this over to some sort of higher power. I have always believed I could manage all my life problems on my own. I've learned that it takes tremendous courage and strength to let go. To keep walking, to take the leap, to admit that I do not know everything.

And, that, I think, is where my tattoo comes in. I am not alone. I am not in charge of the outcome. But I gain strength and tap into a power of sorts when I turn it all over to the Wind. To Quetza. Seeing my tattoo, it being exposed reminds me of that.

Jekyll and Hyde

My chest is constricted, my throat is closed, I am so past crying, it's a little alarming.

A. threw a rake at me today in anger and frustration. It hit me in the back. Left a cut. Blood on my shirt. It has been a while since he has thrown anything. I wish in these moments that I were a big, burly man. That I could grab him by the scruff of the neck and get in his face and scare the shit out of him.

I feel, instead, like a weak-willed woman, too frightened to stand up to her abuser.

But what do you do when this abuser is your child? Bigger than you, and not yet a man? When it is your heart, out of your body, staring at you, fuming? When you know that his bi-polar disorder and lack of treatment for the past 7 years is partly to blame? When the urge to hold him and get him through it is stronger than the urge to fight back, to call the police, to do the things you probably should?

I get stuck in the guilt trap. In the place where I beat myself up with the "shouldas." I should have insisted he stay on medication after the first diagnosis when he was 6. I should have handled these behaviors different from the very beginning. I should have...

But the fact is this: My boy is troubled. Troubling and in trouble. And some days I feel scared and hopeless. On these days, it's hard to remember the brilliant, quirky, eccentric, interesting individual he is. On these days, fear consumes me, and I see him in jail, or alone, or dead, or addicted to drugs and alcohol.

On these days, I feel completely alone. These things are impossible to explain. How does the afternoon start with A. asking to rake leaves for money, to throwing the rake at me, to threatening suicide, to sleep?

He will wake up emotionally hung-over, but pretty much done. And I am left with whiplash and desperate calls to counselors and doctors.

I am grateful that we hit the crisis we did a month ago so that we can finally get some help. But I am angry and frustrated that it took that. What if it's too late?

I guess, though, that it is like anything else. Left foot, right foot, repeat. Left foot, right foot, repeat.

Revisiting writing

I was going to say that I can't believe it's been a year since I've written anything, but that would be an outright lie.

Here's the thing: since I quit drinking a little over 7 years ago (and then smoking three years ago), it's been close to impossible to write. There are a number of things, actually, that I find hard to do without either of those tools, but the absence of writing is one I come back to time and again. It's one of the things that kept me sane.

I considered taking a creative writing class. (I consider doing a lot of things I have neither time nor money to do.) Someone suggested I just start writing. So here I am.

There is not a lack of material, to be sure. Being the single (gay, recovering alcoholic) mother of an almost 15 year old son provides much fodder. I just can't seem to open the well to put it all down.

But I'm going to try.