Possession

I waited up last night for Teen1 to come home.  I didn’t do so in the frame of mind I may have a year ago, like a woman slightly possessed with a darkening fear, a sickening sense of worry, a latent anger at the transgression of family boundaries, a tearing of the spiritual umbilical cord, a cold sense of dread in my heart. 

In fact, most of those debilitating states I have shed, consciously choosing not to allow them to rule my head, heart and spirit, and I have practised replacing them instead with a curious mind, an open heart, a sleep-energised and replenished body, and a refocus on broader aspects of my life.  (I say ‘practised’ as my blog is testament to me banging on for months about such healthier states, but only being able to do so myself in tiny incremental steps.  I’m a slow adaptor, even to my own advice).  To help achieve detachment, I have opted to stay clear of T1, skirting around the fringes of his life, engaging as little as possible, avoiding conversations longer than a few sentences, asking questions only to demonstrate subliminally that I love him and I care (and truth be told, to remind myself that I do love and care).  Was this avoidance?  Yes - but I knew I had to change the paradigms through which I had been unsuccessfully responding, and consciously contrive different perspectives in order to preserve self-care and be a more effective parent.

Last night, something was different.  I was awake until late watching on-line election results tumble in (ah democracy: a bunch of largely un-informed people making decisions to elect the largely ill-informed, as I had once heard someone describe elections).  Intuition was tapping at my consciousness all the while.  I opened T1’s bedroom door, and willed him to be safe, wherever he was.  I had a moment when a dash of hope washed through me: after-all, I had just commented to friends visiting me yesterday, that T1 was the best I’d seen him in a while.  A little less fraught/ combative/ shut off/ abusive.  I had felt a flicker of hope yesterday as I responded positively to their concerns about him.  Being kicked out of school, having to work in a job that does not light his fire, knowing that this newfound ‘freedom’ comes with responsibilities and harder challenges than merely doing homework: perhaps these were all adding up to a boy ready to make some changes.

Sadly, not yet.

As I was reflecting on the above, and on the make-up of our new Parliament, I received a late night email from a reader of this blog.  I responded to her in more depth than I might usually, as I recognised in her lines a tremor of the anguish I have experienced. I then fell asleep around the bewitching hour of 2am, my last thoughts being that I hoped my reader’s daughter would get home safely last night, as would my son…

Sadly, I know that for one child that did not happen.

My son is currently in the cells of the Central Police Station.  He was arrested in the early hours of this morning, and is being held on three charges ranging from the stupid, to the Serious, to the Really Serious. 

Gasp, horror, why am I writing this and not driving down to the Police Station?  For one, I am sleep deprived which is my excuse for not thinking straight. Secondly, he’s not being cooperative with the Police so there’s a little bit of cooling off required before he goes through the formal charging and release processes.  Thirdly, I’m a mean mother and I don’t yet have the energy to deal with him (here’s an absolute ‘Claire’ piece of advice: Get Your Sleep.  If nothing goes awry and your child comes home of their own volition, you wake feeling mad but reenergised.  If it all turns to hell, you cope better the next day with a situation that you had no control over anyway).  Finally, I have two other boys asleep here and I’m not leaving them.

Not yet.  I just need to hear the birds chirp first.