I lost my teenage boy last year, and it seems he has gone again. Which might be described as considerably careless of me. In writing this, I recall Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” in which Lady Bracknell tells Jack Worthing: “To lose one parent Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”.
I know my Teen1 is gone because of the following factors:
1. There’s a pretender teenager staying here who has been going to school every day now for almost FOUR weeks.
2. This rather tall, Teen1 lookalike boy says things like:
a. “Will you wake me up in the morning”
b. “Can you make me some sandwiches for lunch”
c. “Can I get a lift in to school tomorrow with you”
3. This 15 year old boy is here for dinner every evening during the week, and eats the food.
4. The pretender has put out the rubbish. Twice.
5. The pretender’s room is cleaned out every week without being asked to do so.
6. The pretender did the dishes for the first time in months.
7. The pretender SMILED at me.
8. I haven’t had anyone, least of all the Pretender, call me a f***ing b**** for about four weeks now.
9. The pretender asked if he could go to the rugby on a Friday night, suggested himself he’d be back at 10.30pm, and said ‘thanks so much’ when I gave him a few dollars to spend at the game. (The pretender came back home drunk, but it was just before the 10.30pm agreed time, so hey, I wasn’t going to take him on..)
10. I’ve resumed my business practice at my home office because there’s not a feral teenager around between the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm: my home has reverted to being a warm, calm space during the day through which I wander and wonder… ‘how can this be?’
This Pretender looks like and sounds like Teen1. But he doesn’t ACT like Teen1.
What have I done???
PS: yes! This is a happy post!!! At last…. I don’t want to over-analyse too soon, as it is just one day at a time for me at present. Wishing continuing glimmers of happy-teens for all parents reading this today….
