For parents, then, it's supposed to end up like the storybook basketball season. Right now the NCAA basketball tournaments are underway, and it's an exciting time of the year. We see the joy and triumph of a last-second game-winning shot and all that goes with it. The fans are screaming and jumping up-and-down; the players are hugging each other and smiling, and they feel all amazingly wonderful and happy. Their work, it seems, has paid off.
But not every game ends like that does it? Sometimes, the shot bounces away. Sometimes, the best player gets injured or ill. Sometimes, the player fouls out. Sometimes, the game just doesn't go very well. And at the end of that? There are hugs and tears and disappointment and the kick in the gut that comes with loss.
Recently, my oldest son has moved away. For several years now, he's struggled with life in general - tough relationships, lack of employment beyond entry-level wages, substance overuse and abuse. The son I know and remember had a wonderful heart, and he was smart and creative. He was handsome and athletic, even though his interest wasn't in athletics. He loved music, and he had a great voice. In junior high, I wasn't quite sure what mark he would make on the world, but he enjoyed reading and earned good grades and teachers had positive comments about him.
High school arrived, and without an interest in what often times are typical positive avenues for kids in our area - things like sports, drama, choir/band, FFA, academics - he started to fade from family and turned to friends and activities that weren't what most parents want for their children. His Dad divorced his mom, and he eventually moved in with Dad to finish his high school education. He did finish, but it was a struggle when it didn't have to be. The work wasn't the problem, the level in interest in other things was more important; plus the group of friends he liked and associated with didn't place academics and their futures as a priority. They weren't awful kids; they weren't evil. Their interest, though, was fun and music and partying and video games.
My son tried to start a band, and he even has played a little here an there over the years. He recorded videos, and he showed he had talented. The life of rock stars with making music and partying all the time appealed to him...it was music; it was partying; and it was fun. It wasn't anything like his Dad - the guy that was a teacher, had two graduate degrees, and had a career. It wasn't anything like his Dad who loved sports, and enjoyed music but wasn't into longboarding with a few beers and some music and maybe some weed and just enjoying the freedom of a blue sky and sunny day.
His Dad always tried very hard to advise him - that partying and music and fun were all well in good, but there was a time and place for those things that also needed to include some type of meaningful training and employment - including a job that had a decent salary, hours, and some insurance and other benefits. My son, though, while good-hearted and talented didn't see a need for a career and house and family. He just needed some simple job to earn a little money to buy enough for a simple place and enough partying supplies to enjoy life.
He's gone now. I understand that here...home...there is nothing for him anymore. His family doesn't trust him. He has no car. He has no money. He has no insurance. He cannot find a job. He was recently evicted from his last residence. And the relationship he's in is wonderful one day and toxic the next - a constant rollercoaster of happiness and violence. In his mind, he thinks he needs to go somewhere new, make something of himself, prove himself, and return someday even if it's just for a visit and show he made it. He thinks he's exhausted all his "bail outs" from his family and friends, and I'm sure a part of him feels guilty because of the relationships and bridges that he's had a hand in wrecking.
The substance use, overuse, and abuse are things he won't be able to move away from. He believes he has mental health issues - problems with bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression. And he's now under some prescribed medications which he believes are now helping him level out his emotions. To my most recent knowledge, though, he still smokes and vapes, and drinks alcohol, and smokes weeds and possibly is still using other drugs. I've tried to tell him that those chemicals can't possibly help any legitimate mental health issues he may genuinely need to battle.
I don't know where he is. I don't know who he's with. Intermittent messenger messages provide bits and pieces of his situation. He tells me he's okay. He tells me not to worry. He tells me he will be back sometime after he's gotten his life together. This isn't the first time that moving away to get a new start was the answer to his struggles, and he discovered that place too had booze, drugs, and chemicals there. He's a few years older from that attempt; he had moved in with a girl. He and the girl fell on hard times, moved back here...started to dig out. The girl he was with tired of the partying and the ups and downs of their lives and ended the relationship.
And now he's with another girl in another relationship somewhere in Colorado. They have nothing - maybe her SUV and some clothes and whatever they could pack. The girl has two daughters, and my last contact indicated they were all heading to Colorado to visit the girl's mom. I hear he's applying for jobs at nearby hotels.
He didn't even say goodbye when he left. He didn't even say he was leaving. I stopped by last Wednesday at where I thought he was staying with a buddy, and was told he wasn't home. The next day my daughter said he had heard from him that he and his girlfriend were heading west to Colorado to visit her mom. I knew when I heard that, he wasn't just visiting. I don't know how it happened. I thought he and the girl had broken up - again for the umpteenth time. And lo and behold now I find out she and he packed up an SUV and left.
I'm hurting. I feel loss - very similar to the death of close family member or friend. My gut aches; my chest hurts; I often wake during the night and can't return to sleep. I'm sure my ex-wife blames me for this. I'm sure it was my fault that while my son was growing up I was too busy teaching, coaching, going to grad school. Maybe she's right or at least partially right. Maybe I should have done something differently; I find myself going over the years in my mind and trying to figure out the moment I should have stopped something or started something or done something differently. You know how sometimes you hear how one event or one conversation or one thing different changed the course of someone's life? I wonder what I missed...what I could have done differently.
I've tried to become more knowledgable about substance use, overuse, and abuse. I know most everything I've heard and read suggests that he's an adult now, and he must decide how or if he wants his life to change. I've heard and read how I'm not supposed to attempt to blame myself for his situation, but that's hard.
I love him. I miss him. I miss the son I once knew; I miss the son I know is inside under all the layers of other stuff. I miss the son I know still exists - talented, good-hearted, musical, smart. I miss having the storybook father-son ending that other dads get to experience. I try to stay strong...to have faith in him...to accept the bits and pieces of information I sometimes receive from him or about him and try to be encouraging. I pray for him. I fear a bad ending while longing for a good ending.
In the end, we parents know there are all kinds of different paths to success. I hope his current path leads to success and happiness and joy and finding the person I know he is.
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