It has been an interesting week. Scratch that, interesting is not the word I should be choosing. I’ve had the fortune to chat with my son briefly online almost every day. The more I know about him, the more I am astounded at the similarities. Although he’s 22 he seems to be going through the normal teenager identity crisis – he’s just not sure what to do. The eternal savior that I am I had to give him advice; “don’t put so much pressure on yourself”, “take care of yourself first” and so on and so forth. All the while I’m thinking that I’m not really the best person to give him such advice since I hardly followed my own counsel at that age. I’m hoping that maybe it does help him a little, even though he really doesn’t know me. He’s been jumping through my dreams every single night. I haven’t had that much activity and restless nights since I first left England so many years ago. All of the suppressed garbage came right back up and I am struggling to squeeze it back into the safety box that kept me sane all that time.

To make matters worse, word from my ex-husband in Washington is that my middle son, now 20, has gotten himself into another pickle. I realize that the history of that relationship is not evident by that brief reference. For brevity’s sake, I’ll just say that he was released from jail in May of this year after serving six months for breaking and entering. Breaking and entering into MY home – twice successfully and the third time not. It appears that he was video taped in some store, a gun seems to have been involved and the FBI has something to do in this whole story. I am really not so sure what on earth transpired – maybe I don’t really want to know. He vehemently denies any wrong doing but then again, that is his modus operandi and I know him well enough to see right through the lies.

So while on one hand I am elated to be in touch with my oldest, one the other I am distraught that the middle son seems to be lost in the world of crime and drugs. How can children be so dramatically different? My youngest isn’t the poster child of awesomeness, but I’d like to think that the closeness of our relationship has made him more prone to make better choices. So far his occasional bouts with crazy choices have been disciplined and never repeated. I am aghast at the life that my second son has chosen for himself. Carelessly stomping over people, their property, their thoughts and feelings as though he is a mammoth about to be flash frozen and couldn’t give a rats you-know-what about anything but living every second.

I’m doing my best to maintain some resemblance of normalcy for the sake of my youngest; but he’s picking up on the worry-vibes. I need to watch that.