Three out of my four children- the three that when I started this blog were all still children- are so much older now that they no longer want me to say much about them. Lola is the most open, she doesn't care too much what I write, although like with the boys, I still ask her if I write much about her at all: Is this OK? She almost always says yes, because I almost always know what would get turned down. She's lying on the couch, coughing now, my sick girl. She turned the corner, is getting better, after endless hours of Mr. Curry and I thumping her back to break up mucus, making her tea, fixing essential oils for the diffuser, adjusting the heating pad, stuffing her with vitamins.
I miss the days when I could write about the burdens of my mother's heart. There are some so great that often I have trouble sleeping, and lay awake. I vaccinate between trying to distract myself (there's no point in obsessing, I chide myself, focus on something else) with a book, a harmless tv show, and accepting that the most important things in my entire life, those things that could uproot my soul from my body in one gasp, one hard tug, are out of my control. Sometimes the yearning for the days when I could put them all in our bed and hold them is so intense it makes my stomach hurt. Keep them safe, keep them safe. Keep them safe.
Tonight is one of those nights. I just couldn't sleep, so here I am. Mr. Curry sleeps upstairs, soon to be awake at an ungodly hour for work, Lola on the couch, Ever in bed asleep, her five year old self still completely allows me to fix every ailment and soothe every sadness.
The absolute hardest part of parenting for me has been the letting go.
Recently a mother was half-heartedly bemoaning that she still let her anxious 8 year old son sleep with her. She didn't really think she shouldn't, you could tell, but she was kind of asking for reassurance. I replied that she would never, ever, ever regret one single moment of love and comfort she provided her child, and that in fact in the years to come when there were many moments she could not protect nor help her child from pain, from suffering even, that those years of loving acts in his childhood might be the only thing that kept her sane.
Recently a young man in Canada went missing for five days. I kept seeing his handsome, 17 year old face in Facebook posts. He played hockey, so they kept showing images of him holding a hockey stick, bright eyed. Today he was found dead, in a trash can. I allowed myself to go through the internet rabbit hole- something I usually resist, for obvious reasons- and read about it, and. And. I bring this up because his parents mentioned that he was on medication for anxiety and depression, ADHD. Because looking through his Twitter feed, there are constant references to drug use. And one completely unbearable tweet, posted recently, said that he found death unbearable, the 'nothingness forever and ever after you die, and that's it.' Oh my God. Cooper. His name. Cooper was 17, and sad, and anxious, and his parents were trying like hell to help him, his parents who could barely stand for trembling at a recent press conference begging for help to find him, and Cooper used drugs and went to a party, and there was some kind of alteration over drug use, and he was murdered in a brutal and horrifying way. FUCK DRUGS FUCK DRUGS FUCK DRUGS FUCK DRUGS
I FUCKING HATE DRUGS
I bring this up because I recently interviewed a man whose beautiful boy overdosed at 20 years old. I bring this up because every day I keep seeing obituaries of young people who have overdosed. I bring this up because an acquaintance just left her husband after another failed attempt at sobriety. I bring this up because my friend's son died of a drug overdose. I bring this up because drug addiction has ruined many lives of people I love. I bring this up because I FUCKING HATE DRUGS.
Drug addiction is one of the most powerful and insidious ills in our modern lives. It's a disease that changes the entire way your brain functions, so that normal things your brain would care about, like say, LIVING, stops mattering as much as taking drugs. When you are addicted, nothing matters as much as drugs, because your brain is ill, and that's what it is commanding you. Not sleeping, not love, not sex, not even the all powerful money. A drug addict, similar to someone mentally ill, is trapped inside their brain. Until they get help, and even then, that help has to be comprehensive. We've got to change our insurance policies. We have to. People are dying. 30 damn days in rehab and then dropped on your ass doesn't work. Something like 80% doesn't work. We have to do better.
I FUCKING HATE DRUGS
