Skip to main content

Blow up

It’s pretty bad when even your apology ends in a fight but that’s what happened tonight. So now I’m sitting here in the dark hoping that you’ll come down stairs and give me a chance to try again to talk to you.

Dad found vape pods in your back pack tonight. A LOT of them. And since we’ve had this talk a million times he overreacted. He blew up. He told you if any of that comes into our home again you are out. Done. No more.

He was not aware that just last week you told me that has been on your mind. And now you feel like we’re holding it over your head. He feels like we are trapped because the rules we set don’t matter if there’s no punishment behind them. I feel like none of it matters because you’re only still living here for the convenience of it. You don’t want to move away from your friends but you’re not ready to move out together yet. It hurts me to feel like we’re just a roof for you.

I don’t know what I expect. It’s just hard. Because when things are good they are great! You check in regularly, you have a meal with us once a week. You play with the girls and they LOVE you. And then for no reason at all we enter seasons like this. When you’re distant. You don’t check in. You sleep through school. You say hi when you come home but only in passing as you run up to your room and lock the door. I think it only hurts because of the drastic difference and the way it makes me feel.

You closed the door in my face tonight when I said I don’t believe you’d be there for me if some emergency happened. I guess that’s not fully true but I do think it depends what kind of week it is for you. Are you in a good mood or not?

Dad says we need to be better about unconditional love. I feel like I have unconditional love for you. I still love you. What I don’t have is thick skin or emotions of steel. I miss you when you push me away. It hurts when you choose your friends over me—especially when I know those friends are helping you make poor decisions. You choose them because they help you escape reality for a little bit. I don’t want you to run from me.

Soon you’ll be moving out. I don’t want that to be the end of our relationship and sometimes I fear that it will be. But I still love you. So tonight I’m sitting in the dark and praying you’ll decide to come talk and trying not to cry when I hear your door lock again.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Grief

 Grief is such a weird thing. Why does a death have to hurt even 16 years after it happened? Why does it hurt at all if it's such a part of life? And when it does hurt it just feels silly. I can't shut my life down every time it hits. Life doesn't work like that. It never has.  Life has continued in the past 16 years. It's completely different now. It's a life she never experienced. It's a life she wasn't a part of (to no fault of her own!) So why does it still hurt? And when it does hurt why does it hit like a ton of bricks? Why can't I stop the tears from coming?  How are you supposed to act when someone is grieving? I don't know, and that's why I hide it from my husband and kids. Because they can't understand. They never knew her. They don't know this grief. I don't want any pity.  So I write because writing works. It helps to vent, even though no one will read it. I did dream of her last night. It was Michelle Day, the annual day ...

What do you want out of this?

I think when we started fostering we were often asked what we wanted. What was our intention? We didn’t want to grow our family. We didn’t have self improvement in mind (although that definitely happened.) For us, we felt like we had a great life and enough of it to share. We just wanted to love someone. I think the only healthy mindset to have while fostering is being prepared to love someone—no matter what. That was our biggest take away. We learned what truly, honestly unconditional love was.  What I’m most proud of is the fact that that love has endured. J has been coming around pretty often lately. The day before his 21st birthday he allowed us to take him out to celebrate. This past weekend he brought his girlfriend over and they stayed and played games after dinner. He’s still not “successful.” He didn’t finish high school. He’s not excelling at work. His current landlord is kicking him out at the end of the month and with his work schedule… his future housing situation does...