![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Four star meltdown last night brought on by a telephone conversation with Max.
Or rather successive telephone conversations with Max from various airports: Travelocity had booked what should have been a fairly straightforward flight from Tustin to San Francisco with multiple layovers.
Ring, ring! It’s Max calling from John Wayne airport. He’s back with Molly. He let her break up with him because he’s depressed –
“Depressed?” I said. “What does that mean?”
No motivation, he tells me. He doesn’t care about anything.
“Are you exercising?” I cluck. “You know honey, the one thing I have is the benefit of having observed you longitudinally over a very long time. You’re like your father in that respect. If you don’t do strenuous physical exercise for at least an hour a day, you get deeply melancholy.
“Also,” I say, “you know Stanford is very competitive. And so are you. But I mean, if you’re not putting in forty hours a week studying, you can’t compete academically there because you are up against folk with their eyes upon the prize –“
No, no, no – weary edge to his voice. I just don’t get it at all.
“Gotta go, Mom. They’re calling my flight –“
“Call me back!” I demand. “This conversation doesn’t feel finished to me –“
He calls me back from Las Vegas.
“The other thing I’ve been thinking,” I prattle madly, “is that of course you’re anxious about graduating in June. I mean you’ve been going to school for the past sixteen years! It’s an enormous change –“
“There’s nothing I want to do,” he says in a flat voice. “I’m afraid I’m going to end up like you –“
And this just hit me over the head like a sack of bricks. I mean, I gave this kid everything. It sucks to be me right now, I will admit. But, you know, one of the things that sustained me was the thought that Max believed in me. I remember his telling Robin, “Mom’s smart. She’ll turn this thing around –“
Plus there is a thing I want to do...
Should I cancel my subscription to Darkest Before Dawn magazine?
I was up most of the night crying.
This morning I decided it benefits me naught to give into that kind of negative emotion. You have to soldier on. But it breaks my heart to think that henceforth there will be this great unnavigatable distance between us. He’ll go to law school, he’ll marry Molly, he’ll always view me as an embarrassment...
Narrative traction, I tell myself over and over. Narrative traction. Narrative traction.
Or rather successive telephone conversations with Max from various airports: Travelocity had booked what should have been a fairly straightforward flight from Tustin to San Francisco with multiple layovers.
Ring, ring! It’s Max calling from John Wayne airport. He’s back with Molly. He let her break up with him because he’s depressed –
“Depressed?” I said. “What does that mean?”
No motivation, he tells me. He doesn’t care about anything.
“Are you exercising?” I cluck. “You know honey, the one thing I have is the benefit of having observed you longitudinally over a very long time. You’re like your father in that respect. If you don’t do strenuous physical exercise for at least an hour a day, you get deeply melancholy.
“Also,” I say, “you know Stanford is very competitive. And so are you. But I mean, if you’re not putting in forty hours a week studying, you can’t compete academically there because you are up against folk with their eyes upon the prize –“
No, no, no – weary edge to his voice. I just don’t get it at all.
“Gotta go, Mom. They’re calling my flight –“
“Call me back!” I demand. “This conversation doesn’t feel finished to me –“
He calls me back from Las Vegas.
“The other thing I’ve been thinking,” I prattle madly, “is that of course you’re anxious about graduating in June. I mean you’ve been going to school for the past sixteen years! It’s an enormous change –“
“There’s nothing I want to do,” he says in a flat voice. “I’m afraid I’m going to end up like you –“
And this just hit me over the head like a sack of bricks. I mean, I gave this kid everything. It sucks to be me right now, I will admit. But, you know, one of the things that sustained me was the thought that Max believed in me. I remember his telling Robin, “Mom’s smart. She’ll turn this thing around –“
Plus there is a thing I want to do...
Should I cancel my subscription to Darkest Before Dawn magazine?
I was up most of the night crying.
This morning I decided it benefits me naught to give into that kind of negative emotion. You have to soldier on. But it breaks my heart to think that henceforth there will be this great unnavigatable distance between us. He’ll go to law school, he’ll marry Molly, he’ll always view me as an embarrassment...
Narrative traction, I tell myself over and over. Narrative traction. Narrative traction.
