Rock and a Hard Place

It is on this day. Today is the tenth day of July, in the year 2020. Today I am profoundly and acutely aware, and my eyes are assuredly wide open. My heart, nonetheless, is wrenched in pain.

My mind rushes, hunting for answers to questions I don't begin perceive, for reasonings, for any one thing that makes sense. I am in misery. The pain runs deep, almost deadly.

Today I am hurting for the life that I delivered into this world almost 21 years ago. I was today years old when I conceded to myself that my child, my one and only son, is a drug addict. I have functioned, as many parents who love their children, do, even when the decisions they make and the actions they take destroy everyone around them; beseeched, pleaded, coerced, enabled, argued, and wept for him, as well as with him.

Today.

Today is startling and movingly different, for me. Today is the day. It is on this day I renounce the repeated self-criticizing for choices I take no part in, as well as the unending, crippling guilt I carry on my shoulders and deep in my mind for various things that could have, should have been different for my children as they grew up amidst fear and hatred and selfishness. Would it have made a difference, for him in particular?

Today is the day I stop the repeated denial and realize the choices my child is making and continues to make, are no one's fault or responsibility but his own. I can no longer make false claims of "but he didn't know, it was the drugs" and "He didn't mean to! It was the drugs!" or "He's not responsible for the way he behaves because he's on drugs" when the simplest facts are that no one forces those drugs into his hands, into his body, into his mind, except him.

Say no!

Please.

Today is the day I come to terms with these stark bites of evidence and these excruciatingly painful realities;

1. No one can force him to quit doing drugs. He has to want to get stronger. He has to desire to cease getting high. He has to crave to quit destroying his beautiful self. He has to want more of his life on his terms.

2. He is no longer a juvenile, therefore I have no control over the consequences he faces due to his actions. I can't speak on his behalf and plead for rather undeserved mercy for behaviors that require the strictest punishments, accordingly. I can be his mental health advocate, but I cannot continue to attempt to defend the contemptuous actions he repeats without fear of repercussions.

3. He will live or die according to his decisions and there is nothing I can convey or do to modify that, because he is his person, even though he does not know himself as well as he could if only he would stop hiding and running as fast and far as he possibly can from whatever demons are trying to overtake his mind every day of his not yet lived life. I can no longer support the treacherous and terrifyingly self-deprecating choices he makes multiple moments of every day because he allows the demons in his mind to control every move he makes, every breath he takes.

Today is the day I hope a little harder, pray a little longer, and love as vigorously as I am able because that is what I can gratifyingly accomplish while hoping beyond hope that today isn't the day we say goodbye.