Love and Loss and On and On

It’s funny how you can wake up in the morning and have no idea that this day – this very one – will contain something life changing. You open your eyes, so blissfully unaware, ready to go about your day like any other and then BAM, it happens…and life is different. You are different.

Had you told me that today my front door would get kicked in, that the police would be called to my home, that the teenager would cross that line and become frightening…well, I probably wouldn’t have gone to sleep last night. Or I would’ve hopped a plane to Key West with my boys.

The tension had been simmering just under the surface. I was careful not to set it off, but my husband does not share my need to avoid conflict – which is good, really, because sometimes conflict is necessary. When your teenager is using his newly-acquired car to skip class on a daily basis, it is necessary.

But how that turned into threats of violence, a splintered door frame, police officers standing in my mudroom, and a trip to the psych ward (for him, not me)…there’s just nothing rational about it. It can’t be justified or explained…it’s just the latest evidence of his pain and confusion.

I want to throw my arms around him and tell him it that it’s okay…that I don’t think he was really trying to hurt anybody or that I don’t think he’d do it again. But I don’t believe that anymore.

And so, once again we are apart. And it looks like that’s how it’s going to stay for awhile…and I wish I could make him understand how much we didn’t want it to be this way…how hard we tried…but right now, he just seems unreachable. So we wait…and hope for the day when he reaches back out to us and our lives change again.