Reclaiming

I’m sitting on the floor in my living room in this old, silent house. I moved here because I wanted to have more space between my son’s bedroom and mine. I didn’t want to hear him when he talked to himself, or laughed at nothing. I wanted a house where I would have space to be alone and read, write, do art. I wanted to be close to work and downtown. While this house isn’t perfect, I do like it. But this week, I’ve thought a thousand times about selling it and moving.

My son is gone again. This time there will be no search parties. No fliers. No missing persons report. This time he isn’t coming back. And it is his choice. I cannot write or even really talk about what lead to this decision, except that it was so awful, that I can’t even quite wrap my head around it. It wasn’t violent and no one was physically hurt, but the betrayal and depth of the action was so hurtful to me, that I can’t even comprehend that I child that I have raised would do such a thing.

My best friend in the whole world, the woman who has known me my whole life, told me –“this isn’t about you. This is him. He is very sick and has been for a long time.” I know this, but I have to keep remembering those words.

In the last six years, I have experienced more traumatic life events than some people face in a lifetime. At first I thought, well, this is just going to make me stronger. Then I started thinking, what do I have to be strong FOR? And now I’m thinking, I’m as strong as I want to be, so enough with the life challenges.

So today I guess I am packing up all the things my son left behind. I’m repainting the room. A pale peach maybe. Something warm that makes me think of warm spring days with new green grass and blossoms floating through the air. I am moving the rocking chair that I nursed him in, to the back porch or maybe to Goodwill. Because even though it’s a good memory, it also is so very painful that I couldn’t sit in it if I tried. The room has good light. I could read in there, or maybe it will be writing studio and I will write something amazing like a comic book about a cat who wants to be president. Or maybe I will reinvent Captain Letterman? I loved him. He could make a comeback incarnated as a she with sassy red boots to match her cape?

I know that a little paint or new furniture isn’t changing anything. My son is gone. And nothing about this is right. I know I am not going to sleep at night without wondering if he is okay. If he is safe. If he is hungry. If he is dirty. If he is alive. I am never going to wake up again without thinking those same thoughts. I see him in every pair of big blue eyes. Everywhere I look, there he is. I will never stop loving him.

The worst thing about everything is I know that this is just a waiting place. I just don’t know what I’m waiting for. All I can do is try to move forward and use all this strength that has been building to help see me though to whatever the future holds.