Beautiful Boy

My son is a beautiful boy. I cannot believe how he has filled out, how his body has turned into the body of a man; how his face is chiseled and so good looking.

But also....my son is an addict.

I never thought I would admit that on a public blog but there it is. It's a dark, terrible, lonely, painful secret. It eats away at the insides and I really struggle to get out of my head.

I am 56 years old and I never in a million years would imagine that this is my life: that I would be desperately praying for and rooting for and mourning for and agonizing over my adult son. I always thought everything would be fine. Jace had a good childhood. He was surrounded by love and family and a private school with a small class size. He grew up exploring nature outside and doing fun things with friends who lived up on the hill. It would all be a wash in the end and he would find his way. I figured he would go to college someday, his brain would form wholly and he would figure things out like everyone always does. Jace would be no different.

But, of course, that excludes the painful pieces: the absolute and utter rejection he felt daily at school and from those "friends" on the hill; the utter frustration with school where teachers lacked the skills to deal with a kid who had ADHD and hated sitting still in a desk and counting numbers on a page or reading words that didn't interest him from a book. It discounts that he was a tagalong in our family and forced to blaze his own trail because his sisters were 8 and 10 years older than him and interests never merged. 

It would be very easy to go down a rabbit hold of self blame and "Why didn't I's..." 

But Thank God for therapy. 

I have worked tirelessly for Jace. I have watched videos, read books, watched documentaries, sought counsel, prayed, begged, lectured, loved, begged some more (Jace, God - whomever would listen)... 

It's a long story of how this all began. To be fair, I didn't really see it for what it was when Jace started down this path at the young age of 16. It wasn't until he was 19 years old that I realized we were in trouble: fentanyl. We shipped him off to California to rehab in hopes of a miracle cure.

Jace came home eight months later - December 10, 2022. He seemed so much better but it didn't take long for me to realize that there is no miracle cure for addicts. It's a painful, slow, circular process. And having a front row seat to your child's battle with drugs is a whole lot of hell.

I had so many dreams for this summer: laughter and great conversation with my adult daughters Savana and Darian for a whole two weeks of wonderful; relishing days with my brand new puppy Kash; early mornings on the porch while the sun comes up; games in the evenings with my sisters. But my summer took a turn that I did not see coming. I should have. I've read the books and watched the videos that explain that the average addict experiences nine solid relapses before they finally get their shit together. But I am a mom. I am blinded by hope and idealism and love for my precious, precious son.

This summer has been a train wreck. I will spare the details because they aren't worth recounting here. It's fair to say that my heart has been slayed, wrecked, ravaged. 

My therapist Meredith told me that the problem for me right now is that I'm focused on the current situation with a microscope, honed in on the latest events. Zoom out, she said; zoom out and look to the future. What do you see?

Ten years from now I see a happy man. He will be married, maybe expecting his first child. He will be free from the demons that possess him right now. He will laugh with ease and hug me with warmth and tell me how very very glad he is that I have stuck by his side. Because I have. I will never leave him. I can't. It's not what a mother does.

And that is a beautiful picture. It's a picture I can latch onto that will guide me and give me the hope to keep taking one step at a time. One day at a time. It's all that I can do. It's all I have the strength for. Anymore than that? I just want to crawl into a hole and cover my head with a blanket, shut out the life that is killing me. But this picture? It allows me to breathe again, to open up my arms and welcome in the life flow.

This is Jace's journey; it's really not mine. He will come out on top. I believe it; I have to believe it.

He will always be my beautiful boy.