Structure Free Mind Boggle

Over the course of the past few weeks, a series of posts has been lurking in my head - usually considered and sketched out in the wee hours of the morning when I'm usually awake for some amount of time.  They are all ordered and structured and 'will be brilliant' in my thoughts...full of humor and perspective and wisdom.

How it ends up all coming out in the end is usually what this post will be - a hodge podge of various stuff that I need to put out into the universe for memory sake as well as sanity.

Here we go....

Somewhere around Thanksgiving, H. received a(nother) DMV notice about needing to schedule a 're-examination'.  Like the one he had a few months ago.  At the time, the person opening the mail (me) thought 'hmmm....must be from the time before? Crossed in the mail between when it was completed and now'?  I mentioned it to J. - and then likely put the letter in the shred bin not thinking too much else about it.  So hold onto that piece of information for a bit.

Things have been very tense in the Majah household the past few weeks.  H. has been creating some issues and Majah has (once again) reached her limit on some things.  He was 'caught' mis-representing (lying.  He was caught lying.) about the use of our credit card which he uses to gas up his car.  He was also caught smoking again - which he's an adult and can do if he must; however, not when he trashes our front porch and uses $ (sometimes our money, I think) to purchase those vile things.  He's a cancer SURVIVOR for God's sake - yet he seems to not think of any of that.  He also basically ditched us on Christmas Eve - spent time with friends and misrepresented the length of his absence.  Hard on me as a mom to feel slighted like that.

All those things have been building over the past few weeks and earlier this week, I told him 'you need to leave.  I don't live with people I don't trust and you?  I don't trust you'.

The sound of his voice breaking a bit as (picture me seeing him as a 4 year old) his voice haltingly said 'I have nowhere to go' pretty much did me in.  He was ready to storm out of the house, pissed off and hurt (while I resisted saying 'how does THAT feel to YOU, mister?').  He ended up going to a friends house for a night - just a cooling off period.

He doesn't disagree that we've been as patient as any parents could be.  He doesn't deny (upon having being caught - and that's the key delineation to make 'cuz he wasn't up front and forthright about any of this - until there was no way he could keep pretending the things I was alleging he had done weren't true).  He just doesn't seem to have down the concept that 'you can't keep lying as a fall back position, H. It never works'.

So.  He left the house for a night.  He was in touch and we knew he was OK.

The next morning, I was at work and feeling pretty much a wreck about it all.  I had a meeting at the school site in our neighborhood and when I left that site to return to my office, I decided 'I'm going to turn right to cruise by home instead of left to go to my office - if I see his car's back, I'll feel better about it knowing he's home'.

He was not only home but he had just pulled up and was in his car.  Smoking.  But oh well.  Trashing another car that will never be 'smoke-free' upon resale - but whatever.

He and I had a good conversation outside - me sitting in my car in the street parked next to his car parked on the curb with my flashers going - and him standing there chatting.  We cleared the air on things and decided we would chunk up the 'Hunter's Path to Independence' plan with the first task for him being 'find a job'.  (Well, actually the FIRST path was to solidify finding a psychiatrist so he can get his medications worked out and start the path to feeling better and get his anxiety and depression under control).  But after that?  A job.  Any job.  Minimum wage is now $10 and I urged him to not limit what he's willing to do - 'cuz having some additional income would be a great help.  And he'd get out and about, meet some new people, have less free time on his hands.  Be better disciplined about wedging in work with school - get on a meaningful schedule that is more normal - where one sleeps during the night vs. sleeping most of the day.

I went back to work feeling pretty good and certainly much better about things.  Was I still frustrated with how he had been treating us lately?  Yes.  Still disappointed about his misrepresentation of things?  Yes.  But at least we felt we had a plan.  Some plan.  (Any plan).

I'm good as long as there's a plan.

Later that evening, J. brought me the mail and said 'take a look at those'.  Two notices from Stockton Superior Court with two different case #'s showing.  We expected the one - for the speeding ticket he got in November.  (Another not so great day around here).  But two?

At 3:45AM on December 10th, H. got a ticket for failure to stop at a stop sign AND driving without a license.  We called him down from his room and (I promised J. I would do my best to hold my shit together) asked 'is there anything else you need to tell us?'.  Same question I asked multiple times when I spoke to him that morning after our cooling off night.  'No'.  So we showed him the letter and sure enough.  He had been ticketed on the 10th.  Sent him to his car to retrieve any and all paperwork.
The kid is often in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Driving with friends (this was the weekend that his best friend was here from Texas and we knew he'd been out with friends most of that weekend), the friend that was driving started to not feel well.  She pulled over and asked H. if he would drive.  H. was totally sober.  So was she, actually.  Just felt unwell.  So H. drove.  He DID stop a full stop at the intersection but he thinks the police officer didn't see the stop because to the right of H. in the intersection was a big truck.  So after the truck pulled through, H. pulled through - and he got pulled over for not stopping.  And for not having his license.  He didn't think he'd be driving and he often doesn't carry his wallet when not necessary.

That was bad enough.  But turns out there was a second pink paper in his car also 'issued' that night - a DMV form that confirms an officer of the law has provided verbal notice to a driver that his license has been suspended.  H.'s license was suspended on 12/2/16 - likely for failure to complete the re-examination required in the letter we received that we thought was for the old issue.  It wasn't.  It was likely triggered by the fender bender accident H. had in early November wherein he bumped into a car with a trailer hitch - the hitch went through the grill on H.'s car but caused only cosmetic damage and the other drivers car was fine.  But still, H. was at fault (again).  And that accident triggered the re-exam again - which he would have done had his stupid parents not messed up and mis-assumed the letter was an old issue.  The code used for the suspension was 'failure to comply with a re-examination notice'.  Great.  That's pretty much on his stupid parents.  Especially his dingy Mom.  

So - he has no license.  We are working with the DMV to get him reinstated but there's a lot to be said for him not driving at this point.  At least we know where he is most of the time.

We should have received written notice of the suspension from DMV but we never received it - and we are positive we never saw that notice.

Upon asking H. 'did the officer speak to you about driving with a suspended license'?  H. said 'I was so upset - I was sobbing hysterically 'cuz I knew I was going to be in really deep shit with you and Dad - I was really upset - he did say something about 'if you are pulled over again, they will take your physical license (he would have but H. didn't have it with him) and can impound your car or any car you are driving at the time.'  H. said "I really didn't 'get' that my license was suspended.

So yesterday, we went to lunch (me, H. and J.) and I had a nice, calm conversation with H. about how when we were standing at the curb having good conversation and formulating 'the plan', and I asked repeatedly 'what is there that you haven't told us 'cuz clearly there's something' over and over - THAT was his opportunity to tell us.  To tell me.  And he still chose not to.  And I said 'those type of actions - where you are essentially lying by saying 'no, there's nothing' and there is - that type of behavior is what I can't live with.  I understand things happen - and you've sure had more than your fair share lately - and we do need to work on figuring out what in the h-e-double toothpicks is up with you? - but you need to be up front about things.  Just spill it.  You'll feel better - after the initial crap you will endure - but you'll feel better.  Your anxiety levels will drop considerably when you're not constantly hoping we never find something out.

He said that the police officer was concerned about H. being so overwrought with the ticket and at the end was very, very 'nice' and told H. 'you know, you can go to court and fight the stop sign ticket'. And the driving without a license is correctable upon proof he has a license - which they will then (as we understand it) take from him at this point.

In the end as a parent, you end up doing what you need to do for your kid - and what H. needs at the moment is to not be required to go live in his car or make a huge life change - so he is staying put. Now the top priority of 'the plan' is to resolve the issue with his license; get the two tickets resolved; set up the court date for fighting the stop sign infraction (his two friends in the car will testify that he DID stop - the officer just didn't see it because of the truck blocking the view).

More later on the 'other stuff' going on.  Like the ten year storm bearing down on California, etc. -