Thursday, November 18, 2010

Every 20 Years or So - Part 3

The incident about the teacher finally made it to a local newspaper.  Probably only because someone had recorded it and posted it to You Tube. Still just unreal to me.

There have been times in my life that I was pretty much satisfied with myself and times when I was pretty much disgusted.  Been thinking lately about where I am right now, where I've been and where I'm headed.  Most of this type of thinking brings me back to my first son, Ben.

I was twenty when he was born and it was kinda like we grew up together.  I was married to his father at the time, but we divoriced two or three years later.  Because of our closeness, I always trusted him completely.  Looking back, that was my greatest mistake.

Only fair to say he doesn't see things as I do.  Our relationship now is strained to nonexistent.  Sometimes it feels like we never knew each other at all.  Or like it was another life.

When I'm in this mind set, I look back and try to figure out where it went wrong.  Like I have to pinpoint a certain location in our history and label it, but life isn't like that.  Instead it's little bunches of this and that until they just pile up and spill over.

One flashback I had this morning happened when he was about seventeen.  I had bought him a car that was nothing but trouble from day one.  It was a classic Camero; too much work, too powerful.

This particular a.m. I woke from a dead sleep knowing Ben was in trouble.  Checked to see if he was home, but already knew he wasn't, got up and dressed and started cruising town to find him.  It didn't take long.  He was on the road talking to a policeman, his car was down a six plus foot imbankment and a wrecker was on the scence trying to pull the car up.  He looked up and saw me and the first thing out of his mouth was, "momma, how did you know?"

That was probably gonna be one of those secrets he kept from me.  Yet even then I trusted him; I wanted to trust him.  Is it wrong to want to trust your child?  No, but it's wrong to believe you can.  Sure there's a time when you as a parent have no more say or influence; when children are almost grown and they are sure they know everything.  Believe it or not, even I was once a teenager.

But still I pick at all this stuff and try to figure out what happened.  I hope it ends up being a good thing, but my son now, Caleb, hears way too many horror stories about those days with Ben.  It's like this, I'm not going through that crap again and now I know what to watch out for, so Caleb doesn't have a chance.        

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