"Dear Mom"

Okay....so apparently the boy isn't where I last knew him to be. According to him, rehab asked for a UA and he 'wasn't able to produce'...hence they concluded he wasn't following the rules and was assumed 'dirty'------- and BACK to jail we go--again. *sigh* So says the letter.......

He goes on to tell me the 'good news' is he has 90 days to serve in the county jail, after which time he'll be a 'free man'. His plans? Well, he wrote that the felony charges will be expunged from his record and his intent, first day out of the gate is to enlist in the Air Force or the Marines.

Oh, don't get me wrong--I don't think the military would be a bad place for the kiddo--'cept for one small factor.....who wants their child walking smack dab into the middle of a war? *sigh* Discipline is something he could learn, given the right circumstances. Only, I'm a bit fearful of the lies he'd be willing to tell to enlist, let alone the circumstances he'd be walking into.

He's 'open to suggestions', though. Obviously, there's that 'wait' between enlisting and actually getting sent to boot camp. (He's pretty certain of this enlistment being an option for him, I am not.) And he's plumb outta ideas on what to do in the interem. He's 'open to suggestions' though. Translate that as "I'll be free with no place to go, no job and no means with which to take care of myself---AND I've run outta people who're willing to have me cuz I've ripped off and hurt every single one of them." (had that been penned by the kiddos hand, I'da had a bit more hope...)

I love the child--truly I do. I don't know how loving it is to stand on the lines I drew in the sand with the kiddo. I know what I said to the Brit with relative confidence. "Staying here isn't an option--I couldn't take enough time off to babysit him until he was shipped off to boot camp. Being unsupervised and alone in this house isn't an option." Well, now, didn't that sound horrid in some aspects and centered in others?

What to do? Well, what IS there to do? He's a 20 year old man who's been hellbent on making his own destructive decisions for a long time. I don't get to decide for him. I can only decide for me. Only, as sure as I was when I looked the Brit in the eye and announced my certainty, so am I uncertain today.

I know that any day could be my last day with the child. Truth be told, I accepted my last day with him as being more than a year ago. I was pretty convinced he'd be dead doing what he was doing. I wouldn't be a part of watching him do it to himself--too much of my sanity was up for grabs--I was becoming an endangered species. I made the conscious choice to detach and get out of the kiddos way.

Do I believe him to have given me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the letter?
Not one bit.
I know there's more than one side to this one.
I also know he's an adult and I'm not privileged to have that information from the folks who were working with him. But I do know what I'm not willing to do today.
I don't like that I'm not willing.
Makes it feel like I'm saying NO FREAKING WAY would I like to do that. PASS!!
There are so few things that I get to say NO FREAKING WAY to, today.
Saying it to your own child---feels somehow unloving and wrong.

It's where I was when I read the letter.
*sigh*

"Yes, thank you, I think I'd like to do that" is just too darn risky today.
And this isn't just about little ol' ME anymore.

*sigh*