No more hope

Today it felt like all my hope and joy were gone. Getting out of bed and going to work took a great deal of force. Then once at work I just could not stop crying. I have felt the depression trying to pull me down since late last week. Having read that this was likely to happen after the death of a child I have been trying to fight it.

Saturday after work I wanted to crawl in bed and stay there all evening. Making myself shower and dress Saturday to go the movies with Diva seemed like a step in the right direction. Putting on make up and brushing my hair felt good; that has not been happening as much as it should.

Sunday I did not feel sad. It just felt like an Elton John kind of day. Lane and I spent the morning and early afternoon alone at the house. We had on the pregame crap while I cooked. We talked and laughed; it was a good morning. He left to go watch the game with his cousins. Diva was having a party. My sisters, mom and I were going. I turned on Elton John while I finished up in the kitchen. I did not want to go be with other people. Had it only been the Superbowl I might have stayed home. It was also a birthday party for Diva. My mom does not get out much either, and I knew my family would not go without me. So I went.

I drank too much. Not that it was a big problem that night. We ate, drank, talked, laughed, had fun. I just could not get to a light, fun place. I am truly a social drinker. When I drink I am cheerful, and almost impossible to anger. Since Jason's death the times I have drank with my friends have been a release. I usually feel better the next day.  Of course, these have always been times when I have been ready to come out of my shell and socialize.  Today, I just felt worse than I have in weeks.

The movie August: Osage County kept running through my mind. Something had changed inside of me. There has always been a hope and optimism inside of me. Thinking about the family in the movie just made me see that there is no escape. These things go through families and I cannot stop it. My optimism and hope were silly.

 I do not know what triggered this vein of conversation, but our being homeless several times during our childhood has been a topic of discussion lately. Until somebody said homeless the other day I had never thought of it like that. We were just between houses. People sleep in their car when they are between houses.

Sure we were between houses several times. More than once we lived in little travel trailers or campers. All seven of us kids, at the most, and our parents crammed into tiny spaces at night. In the day though we were free. We ran in parks and explored the country side. There were times when we parked be ponds or streams. We would swim all day. My mom would wash our clothes in the water. I remember carrying water for what seemed like miles to drink. These are not bad memories for me. I thought it was a glorious freedom that we had.

Today it felt like that sense of hope and optimism had left. It was not just Jason being dead. It was him dying because he could not get help. It was Philip Seymour Hoffman dying of a drug overdose. There is a major drought in California. Suddenly it is too much.

The realness of the movie made it obvious to me that whoever had written the play it was based on had lived on the plains. Had experienced the devastation that is caused by addiction and mental illness. Had watched it eat it's way through generations. Generations. All the generations. It will not stop because I hope it will. Up until this last year, until I was forty, I have held on to a naivety that let me believe that this next generation would be better. They will not be.

I have spent my adult life believing that if I tried hard enough if I did everything right. If I loved my kids enough that they would all be better. My siblings and I have all tried to be better parents. We have tried to give our kids a better start than we had. It does not seem to matter anymore. They will still struggle with our demons, suffer, and die.   

I know my father, although a horrible person and parent, was better than his father. We have in turn all tried to be the best we can, but it did not help. I have always believed that families, like society, can improve with each generation. Suddenly my hope is gone for my family, for the world. I still believe there is more good in the world than evil, more goodness than hatefulness, but I do not believe we can over come it all anymore. Every thing is just going to end badly. I feel like I am going to spend the rest of my life watching our kids struggle. Without the optimism of a better future for them. There is no more joy. Still I will get up everyday, go to work, wash dishes, love my kids, but there will be no hope in it.

Beautiful Boy

It has been almost a year since I have wrote a new post. Part of the problem has been Facebook. It is easier to share a quick meme, or write a funny quip than to search my soul for something to say here. The interaction, although more immediate, is superficial. It is the McBlog of the Internet. The other part of the problem is that my life doesn't change much. I looked at the date on my last post and wondered what is different today. I am only a few months away from forty now, but those numbers never have meant much to me. The only time I cringe is when a I meet interesting twenty something men and know I am going to have to say the number eventually. The actual saying of it never means much to either of us in the end.

Waking up this morning my thoughts went immediately to the vegetable bars on my table. I had eaten two of them before going to bed at 3:30 this morning and I wanted another one. I have become addicted to them. After eating a couple I started to search out my copy of Jane Eyre. While searching shelves and piles of books I kept coming across other books I wanted to read. I found a book I picked up cheap at at used book store called "Beautiful Boy a father's journey through his son's addiction" I don't remember my motivation for buying it, but now it seems relevant to my life. I carry it over to the table beside my bed which serves as a holding space for books I'm going to read. With my original goal ending in despair I lay down to start this book. It is a bad idea because I am nowhere near finished with my book club book and our meeting is next week. Right away my tears start rolling down the sides of my face while I read. The father describes his son and the physical changes he notices. That is the hardest part, looking at your son so full of potential, seeing his thin face while your mind automatically overlays it with the full, youthful face of a year ago. I put the book down soon after I start. The similarities in our stories end quickly. I am jealous of the active role these parents play in their adult son's addiction. They have curfews and drug tests, confrontations about whether he has started using again. Our story is a rural Midwestern story. My son dropped out of school, lives with roommates living the same lifestyle as he is. There is no denial, no missed AA meetings, and my role is to pray every night that my son will not end up in prison or dead. These are not the sort of thoughts I can post on Facebook.