March 10, 2009

Thus begins the journalling process with one of the most difficult days in recent history. Where do I begin? Travelling back from the cottage, having our breakfast sandwich = lovely. But the apprehension begins to build in me before I'm even in the city. What! How? Okay, get a new cell phone that I can't seem to figure out how to work. Put it aside, need to do some work, bills to be paid, renovations to be done.

Periodically, an outburst from G about M's dishes in the sink, jerry-rigging a light over his pot-growing operation. Shocking, horrifying stuff. Have run out of conciliatory things to say. With both of them lately I feel like, "Just do whatever you want and leave me out of it", but that's not fair, not fair to them, not fair to me, not even fair to the universe at large. This angry boy with this strange sense of entitlement, I put him on this earth and it is my responsibility to somehow attempt to straighten him out. It may be out of my reach, not within the scope of my powers … oh yeah, I have powers … but I have to try.

G takes the jerry-rigged 400-watt lamp off the strange garbage-bag-and-metal-rod-pot-growing-operation that is in my son's room. Note to self: How did that happen???? Who am I? He calls me upstairs to show me the monstrosity of it, to ask me out of love for him to express my shock and dismay and support, which I attempt to do in a rather feeble way, because I am just too exhausted, my body hurts.

The best is yet to come, though. Quite clearly, I mean the worst is yet to come. Just my sarcasm breaking the surface trying to shield myself from reliving this even in the writing of it.

M returns home, finds his pride-and-joy to have been somewhat damaged and freaks out, "Fucking G, fuck you mom, I hate you, what the fuck are you doing, fuck, fuck, fuck". I feel like all of my organs are fighting each other just to try to get away from this, to try to get away from me, my life, out of my body. No such luck, however. I try to settle him down because I fear, I feel, this is all going to be too much at some point for this man who seems to love me more than anyone has ever loved me, this man who looks at me the way I have wanted somebody to look at me for as long as I can remember, and I must try in some way to shield him from the horror that my son seems to have become.

I go upstairs, M is still screaming, he's got his phone in his hand … right, it's my phone that I can't seem to get back … and he's calling HIS FATHER. "Can I come and live with you? Mom and G are fucked, I fucking hate it here." "Sure" says this man who has never been there for his children, was never there for me, who is a splotch on the face of humanity. Is my hatred showing?

I take the phone from M and say, "You need to know what's going on here first, F". Oh, guess who's figured out I sold the house and he's not getting anything!! He responds, "I have nothing to fucking say to you" and hangs up the phone. I know that what he meant to say was, "Thank you for bearing two beautiful children inside your body, devoting over 20 years of your life to raising them without any help from anybody. Thank you for all that you've done for them, and thank you for everything you ever did for me that I spat on you for?" That must be what he meant to say. Let's leave that aside for now because, sure enough, the nightmare continues.

M is now throwing stuff around the house for real, with the force of a sinewy 6-foot, 175-pound 19-year-year old body. Crash, kaboom, glass breaking! The force of his anger has caused the light fixture on the floor beneath to break from the ceiling and smash to the floor in a million pieces. The look on G's face!!! Please somebody save me from this. The pain I am feeling, I can barely breathe, my heart is beating out of my chest. Is this abusive young man really that beautiful boy I look at in the pictures all over my house? How long can I cling to that before all of this wipes my memory clean. Please, if there is a God, if there ever was a God, don't let that happen.

He screams at me, "When was the last time you made me a hot meal?" My own anger rises to the surface. I point out that I make dinner most every night (or buy it), in fact I often feed his friends. I yell back, "When was the last time you made me a hot meal? My birthday? Mother's Day? When I've been sick? Never." He moves on to a new tactic, "What did you think would happen when you left everybody?" Now I'm not just angry, I'm genuinely confused, stymied really. What is this monster talking about? Then I see, he's hurting, something hasn't straightened itself out in his head. Every now and then he believes that I'm the one who left, not his father. I have to say the words, harsh as they may be, because he's a young man now:

"It wasn't me who left, my boy. Your father left nine years ago. You didn't seem to care when he was sleeping with every skank in the region. But I find somebody to love, somebody who loves me, and you're angry? What did you expect? I would be your nursemaid until you didn't need me anymore and then go die under a rock? And, when I left, I brought you with me. Who exactly did I leave?"

He has no answer, he feels the weight of the abuse he hurls at me and continues to pack his things. I can take no more, I wander through the apartment. G tries to hug me, but I can't be comforted, I won't be comforted. It feels like the world beneath my feet is crumbling. Too much, too much, too much. I need peace, I NEED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF!

It continues. He goes out the iron gate, slamming it with inhuman force, breaking it. Our tenant comes to inform us that M is now attempting to scale the gate and has injured himself on the spikes on the top. G, wonderful unfathomable G, grabs his tool box and goes to fix the gate.

Okay, I'm ready to let him take his things to his father's now. I go to my bedroom, our bedroom, because I can no longer stop the water that is streaming from my eyes, the gasps that are escaping my lips, the pain that has now become physical. I wait it out. But, no, knock on the bedroom door, M all humble now, "Bye mom, I'm going now". I say, "Good luck, M, you're going to need it". "I don't want to go but you told me that I had to." He's breaking my heart. I reach out to him, I hug him, I tell him how much I love him, that he doesn't have to go, but he will have to make peace with G, he will have to apologize to him.

Off he goes downstairs to be – at least one more time – the boy in the pictures scattered all around the house. Will this ever end?