keep your hands inside until the ride comes to a complete stop

Yesterday, around 3pm, I got a call from the treatment center. 

Apparently, "the button" and some patients at the treatment center decided to have a party in the "button's room".  No, they didn't eat pop tarts and play charades.

The was beer and alcohol.

The "button" was discharged from the treatment facility and I was asked to come and get him.

After the ups and the downs and the scary moments and those moments when you lose your stomach, I knew the ride had come to a complete stop. 

I said, "please tell the button that we love him.  We love him very much but we will no longer be the enablers of a  negative life.  We will only participate when the "button" participates in a positive manner.  We love him very much."

The ride was over for me.  And then my son was discharged into a city 90 minutes from here.  No ride, no phone, nothing.

Was it the hardest thing I have ever done?  No.  I was calm and peaceful.

Never again am I going to sit up all night waiting for him and wondering.

I took Addie to her hip hop class and found myself in the car talking about the "button" while she was inside dancing.  I hung up the phone and said "screw this, here is the next J.Lo in there dancing her heart out and you are missing this over a boy who doesn't care what you think."  I went inside and watched the Hip Hop Harmony.

I told my kids that the "button" was kicked out because he didn't follow the rules, I didn't know where he was and if he was ever coming home again.  The response from one was "he needs to follow the rules" and the other was, "he will never be home again."

The ride for me is over.  I am not on it anymore.  I am on a different ride.  On this ride there  are two little kids who have had stress, drugs, police, rehab, summer camp and running away shoved down their little throats.  No more.  The "button" never had it and he is not robbing them of anymore innocence. 

What is so ironic is that we adopted him so he wouldn't have it in his life.  Ugh.

The ride for the "button" is just starting.  He is on the roller coaster alone.  I cannot, Franklin cannot and the kids cannot help him any more. It is his ride.

May I mention that several of you commented privately about the lady saying that "I was the mom of the kid who got in all the trouble".  I am not upset by this comment.  I am.  I am also the mother who decorated that courtyard at the festival, the mother of a champion wrestler, the mother of two great kids, with a happy marriage.  I have much to celebrate. It didn't bother me.  I am the mother of a child who is in a lot of trouble.  This is a sad fact.

Am I devastated?  No.  Numb.  I am numb.  I feel like I fell into the dentist's Novocain cabinet.  I am also pissed that all the stress is just making me look old and  notknocking 25 pounds off me like it did when I went through my divorce.  Damn, you would think I could lose my appetite.

Today is a new day.  A new beginning.  His ride is not over.  He just got on.  I just need to stand back behind the yellow line and pray until it comes to a complete stop.