Shattered

In a stunning twist of fate, everything I ever thought I knew about my oldest son has just been tossed out the window. The teen years are fraught with danger - everyone tells you that. But until you're actually IN THEM and the shit starts hitting the fan all over the place, you can't imagine that your little boy (or girl, I'm sure) - the one you look at and still think is a dream because you can't believe the person that was the size of a loaf of bread just yesterday is suddenly all grown up and making bad decisions right and left, seemingly overnight - you honestly can't imagine it can turn 'bad' so damn quickly.

I want to lock him in his room until he's 30. I want to restrict him to our home - never let him out of my sight again, EVER, because I now know I can't trust him to make the 'right' choice. I can't trust him to tell his friends 'no' when they want to do something stupid that he knows he shouldn't but he does it anyway because he felt 'pressured' into it. Want him to know that he and his brother are my life - that the thought of him risking his safety and the safety of others for 'fun' is just not OK.

What I am referring to is nothing earth shattering. No harm done. And yet, my entire world has changed in the span of less that 12 hours. The things that have been revealed during this night/morning are still processing in my brain and I am stunned. Just stunned. As J. said when I told him yet ANOTHER thing that was revealed 'I always knew he would break my heart someday'. And that day was yesterday.

And I am thanking God for keeping my sons and all the kids involved safe. They have angels on their shoulders, I'm sure because something really tragic could have happened and it didn't. And now that it's all 'out in the open', we are hoping he has learned his lesson and will think twice before doing something so stupid ever again.

As I write that last sentence, I know he will do other stupid stuff - because he's growing up and kids do stupid things. All the time.

It's hard to be too hard on him about some of what was revealed because he did FINALLY talk to us about it. Weeks/months after the fact but at least now we know - but the revelations make me wonder even more about what he still HASN'T told us. What else is happening in his life that he doesn't share with us? How do we know it's ALL been revealed? Will we ever feel OK about him again? Will we ever be able to believe that what he's telling us is the 'whole truth and nothing but the truth'? Because a lot of what he revealed could have stayed hidden - and we never would have known. But in his remorse about one thing, more things came pouring out...and I did my best to not lash out angrily. I listened, I acknowledged and I asked him to please not do these things anymore. But I'll never trust that he won't. Because I never would have imagined that he would, yet he did.

Kids are hard....all the sweetness and joy they bring to us as babies/toddlers and youngsters is for a reason - 'cuz if they started out as teens, no one would EVER procreate EVER. EVER.