Tight Rope Walker

Tight Rope Walker

Monday, June 11, 2012

No Longer an Empty Nester

Well this past school year has flown by!  My son is home from college.  He has been home a total of 4 days and spend probably less than 24 hours here at home.  I hear this is typical.  All I know is, my nice quiet empty nester life is over.  It's back to, the upstairs smelling like Tag and Axe, back to the big shoes littering the front door entrance, finding cups and drink cans/bottles laying around and an endless supply of laundry to be done.

Good news is, he does have a full time job and is off today and we have a "date" to spend time together.

Bad news is, he is still in his rut about his sister.  This weekend is a summer "family" weekend at Emily's place.  And it's Father's Day.  We rented a little condo and asked Andy to go with us and spend Father's Day showing him around the area.. he has never been in that part of the country.  Well , it also happens to be his girl friends graduation party.  So when she was over, in front of everyone, I asked her if she knew about the conflict.  She said yes and she told him to go see his sister.  He, of course got mad at me.  I just said, hey look, I need to know, because I have to get the dog a kennel reservation and let Grandma know if she can go, etc.  And, it's best to be honest and have an adult conversation about it with all of us present.  He just said, look, I am closer to my girlfriend than Emily and that's who I am supporting and I will talk to you later about it.  Well later turned into, " I am not going".  I didn't say anything, I just said, thank you for letting me know and walked away.  What is there left to say?  I am not gonna beg, I am not gonna try and reason with him, I am not going to "force" him to come and make our time with him and Emily miserable because he doesn't really want to be there.

It's just another reminder, this addiction crap runs deep and it might take a long time or a life time to get over for some of us.  Makes me sad.  I would love for the four of us to be together, even if it's for 1 day or a few hours.

Meanwhile, my best friends father has been in ICU since we got back from the Dominican, about 3 weeks now.  My sister in law is not doing well at all, they are keeping her on chemo til the end, so I am going to see her in FL when I get back from seeing Emily.  So I am trying to be present for all of this and not worry about the rest.