You may be asking yourself, “What in the world is going on with the teenager?” or you may be saying, “Thank goodness, she shut up about that!” Well, for the latter group of folks, too bad, here it comes….

The caseworker called me last Monday. Wanted to confirm our meeting on Tuesday. Problem is that she hadn’t scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, or any other day. She said the purpose was to “see where we are and where we’re going” and to find out if I “needed” anything from her.

Hmmm. Well, we’re still in the same spot; we aren’t “going” anywhere. And I sure as heck don’t “need” anything from her! Haven’t they “given” me enough? So I said, nope, no meeting, totally not necessary.

Next, she wanted to confirm the rescheduled family team meeting. That’s the one where we all (the usual gang) sit around and discuss the above: where we are, where we’re going, blah, blah, blah. Lovely. Can’t wait.

But, hold on! You can’t confirm, again, something that one wasn’t informed about in the first place, right? So how is this a confirmation, if the original meeting had been scheduled after court on Friday, and she’s just calling me on Monday? Interesting.

The upshot is, oh joy, that we get to go to this on the coming Friday. Yippee.

Oh, and we’ve had no visits since May 29. The caseworker said it’s on me to let her know when I want a visit, and on my son, if he wants to come. I want him to want to come, but he doesn’t. In fact, when I asked, he said he’d see us, but not at home. He wanted me to drag his dad out and about when he’s recovering from a cancer diagnosis and surgery, rather than sit in our living room for an hour. How’s that for compassion?

Court last week, by the way, was continued. Finally, and at the last minute. ‘Cause the court needed to be convinced that my husband, who’d had a kidney removed on June 1st, was still in too much pain and taking medication a mere twelve days later.

So we move on to “family” therapy, which so far has included just me and my son. Half the family, really. And this was our last session. Thank goodness.

That means we’re all healed, right? Ready for that elusive, undefined “family reunification”, right? Wrong.

Therapy is over for several reasons. First and foremost, probably, is that I’m tired of it. I’m tired of jumping through the state’s hoops, and dancing to my son’s tune – not to put too many metaphors on this. I’m tired of him lying, and being so unconcerned with his family, and being such a snot. I wouldn’t take this from anyone else, so why should I put myself out there and try to fix something that is only broken when he is involved?

HE is the one who needs to be “fixed”. Apparently, the state is not even going to try, however, because they claim they cannot find a therapist or counselor who accepts Medicaid. Even though my son is carried on our Blue Cross insurance. And even though, in about a two-minute Google, I found FOUR therapists, either near us or near where my son is living, who do indeed accept Medicaid. Now, if the state licenses these folks, why can’t they find them?

And, of course, therapy has ended because my son has stated that he’d rather be in foster care than at home. He told me, too, that his foster parents are “better parents” than we’ve ever been.

So the choice to end this farce was mine. I take full responsibility for that, although my son agreed that therapy was not working. He doesn’t want to come home. Bottom line is that there are, yes, conditions for that to happen: he needs to recant his lies, he needs to apologize to everyone involved, and he needs to follow the rules. It seems that wasn’t going to work for him, so he elected to remain where he is, with his fake parents instead of those who love him and miss him and want to help him.

Court is coming soon, July 7. The outcome will seem almost anti-climactic.

I was so tired today, I conked out on the couch for a couple hours while reading and almost decided just to stay there til morning….

That happens, though, especially when you can’t sleep at night for whatever reason, or because you’re lying awake thinking, or have horrible nightmares that make you wish you still slept with a nightlight.

It’s not so much that I’m doing more, although I guess that’s true. I’m certainly worrying more, and sometimes that is as strenuous as physical labor. Not discounting the fallen trees I had to saw apart, and mosquito banquet that I became in the midst of that adventure…. Or the lawn-mowing and shrub-trimming. Not to mention spending the first week or so taking care of my husband’s daily needs, and making sure he took his meds and ate healthy stuff – no small feat, this last!

But he’s on the mend now, using handweights, started to walk farther than chair to bed to couch to table, helping out a bit here and there; yesterday we did a little grocery shopping, today we walked around the mall for an hour or so. Every day gets better, and his body is healing very well.

He has, however, “forgotten” to talk make the appointment for his first scans. And he’s fallen off the healthy eating wagon, just a bit. But I still have another week to get him in shape for his return to work. Unfortunately, I think he believes he’ll be able to start off with a bang, go in at 6:00 a.m., unload a truck, and work 10-hour days. Right.

I feel more like I’m carrying the whole load – and I try to avoid making him worry, like I did before too, a little. Sometimes, before, I felt like this as well, but I could always talk to him about it and ask for help. Now, not so much. I’m thinking there could be a lot of this “before” and “now” stuff too.

This, like everything else we’ve dealt with over the years, will some day go away; in the meantime, we just keep muddling along. Things seem to improve daily, and that’s a blessing in itself.