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mallorys_cameraSo, after thinking about it all night (night before last), I decided Responsible Parenting called for me to contact the ESF School to apprise them of the RTT situation. Maybe he would be fine about meeting his academic obligations; maybe he wouldn't.
I called them at 9 yesterday morning.
As it turns out, he skipped out on his first final because he was too distraught so it’s a good thing I had called.
They were sympathetic but said there was nothing they could do until he contacted them himself.
So then I had to camp out on the phone for four hours, calling and texting every five minutes till I finally roused RTT.
"What do you want?" he snarled when he finally deigned to pick up the phone.
"Robin, if you had a friend who was going through what you're going through, what would you advise them to do?"
"I don't know. What would I advise them to do?"
I took a deep breath. "Talk to someone, Robin. This is a big thing, a tragic thing. But you can't sabotage yourself because of it."
"Will you stop harassing me? I'm going to talk to someone."
"When, Robin? You need to do it right now."
"I'm on my fucking way. Will you just fucking leave me alone?"
Some people might take their best friend's suicide – which we have assume was brought on, at least in part, by the perception that the world is a cold and heartless place where ignorant armies clash by night – as a kind of reminder that we should all be sweeter, gentler, nicer to one another.
Not Robin.
I got off the phone and I was literally shaking.
I got home and my legs are now so broken out from the Autoimmune Disease that I look like an illustration in a medical textbook, one of those unfortunates with a big black rectangle across my eyes.
Robin literally makes me sick.
Anyway, I am tired of tragedy. I think it's too bad that Justin had such poor judgment that he chose a permanent solution to what, in fact, given his age had to be a temporary anguish, but I'm done feeling sorry for him.
###
In Monterey, Robin's best friend was a kid named Wells whom I wrote about extensively in these very pages. I'm too lazy to hunt those entries down and link to them, though.
Wells and Justin always reminded me of one another. During one particularly bad interval in Wells' life, I invited him to come live with us. He did – sort of. He began coming by the house at 3 A.M. and either sleeping in Robin's room if the front door was unlocked or crashing in the RV in the driveway. Consequently, the RV developed a permanent stink of sour beer, stale weed and old vomit.
One day after some particularly egregious episode in the ongoing drama of Wells' life – which also included a custodial grandmother and a crack 'ho mother, now that I think about it – I decided to take Wells out to breakfast and lecture him.
I bought him blueberry waffles at the Old Monterey Café, a really great breakfast place, by the way, for any of you planning a trip to Steinbeck-ville.
"Wells, you're too smart to be doing this kind of stuff. You know that, right? I mean, you're a very intelligent kid. The wrong decisions you're making now are going to impact you for the rest of your life. When you're 40" – I figured "40" was the oldest possible age a 14 year old could relate to. Say "50" and you might as well be talking about a corpse, right?
Wells smiled at me. "Respectfully, I have to disagree. I mean, I'm doing what I'm doing now because I have to do it. I have no other options. What you don't know is that I was a perfectly normal kid until my father died. I played baseball." He smiled ruefully. "I was good at it. I lived in a suburban house, I was good at school. And then my father died and my mother grabbed me because she thought she could get cash out of it. And here I am."
He wolfed another mouthful of blueberry waffle. "These are delicious, by the way. Thanks! Sure you don't want a bite? Anyway. When I'm 18, I inherit my money and I'll be fine. I'll be fine. This is a waiting game. You don't have to save me. If you don't mind my saying so –I mean this with all respect, but I'm not blind – you've got to focus on saving yourself."
I was really blown away by this conversation. I mean, the fact that a 14 year old kid was mature enough to see a timeline. That a 14 year old kid whose life was as hard as Wells' life could see a timeline.
RTT is still in occasional touch with Wells, and Wells' prediction more or less came true – he is fine today, though his heavy dope and cigarette smoking brought on premature COPD so he's got medical issues.
Justin couldn't see the timeline, and that's what killed him.
###
RTT went and talked to the Wellness and Support administrator. The Wellness and Support administrator called me back. Emails will be sent to RTT's professors and advisors updating them about the situation. It will be up to RTT to meet with them individually, reschedule his finals. Some professors may elect to forgo the finals altogether, just give him the grade he's earned up till now. He has done very, very well academically this semester so the school is pulling for him.
He really should see a psychological counselor too, of course. But that's his decision. I won't weigh in there. My parental responsibility merely extended to making sure his future didn't crash and burn. What goes on inside his head is his business.
What's going on in my head is that I'm tired of all this shit.
Obviously, it's not about me – but it is about me inside my own head, and if it literally makes me ill to have anything to do with Robin, then I shouldn't have anything to do with Robin. I mean, of course I'll send Christmas presents. The occasional Kitten or Puppy Postcard – this being a convention I made up to deal with my own difficult mother.
But I only really have about 20 good years left. And I'll be goddamned if I'm going to spend them being as miserable as I was this past decade. Fuck that shit.
It's quite clear Robin hates me. And Robin' hatred has the power to physically poison me. Ergo, I need to avoid contact with Robin.
I get along very well with Max, so I'm not an utter failure as a parent.
And I'm thrilled that I managed to stop myself from quoting Dover Beach in its entirety recently in what was intended to be a lighthearted email to Max's girlfriend, the mother of my unborn grandchildren. That's progress, right?
I called them at 9 yesterday morning.
As it turns out, he skipped out on his first final because he was too distraught so it’s a good thing I had called.
They were sympathetic but said there was nothing they could do until he contacted them himself.
So then I had to camp out on the phone for four hours, calling and texting every five minutes till I finally roused RTT.
"What do you want?" he snarled when he finally deigned to pick up the phone.
"Robin, if you had a friend who was going through what you're going through, what would you advise them to do?"
"I don't know. What would I advise them to do?"
I took a deep breath. "Talk to someone, Robin. This is a big thing, a tragic thing. But you can't sabotage yourself because of it."
"Will you stop harassing me? I'm going to talk to someone."
"When, Robin? You need to do it right now."
"I'm on my fucking way. Will you just fucking leave me alone?"
Some people might take their best friend's suicide – which we have assume was brought on, at least in part, by the perception that the world is a cold and heartless place where ignorant armies clash by night – as a kind of reminder that we should all be sweeter, gentler, nicer to one another.
Not Robin.
I got off the phone and I was literally shaking.
I got home and my legs are now so broken out from the Autoimmune Disease that I look like an illustration in a medical textbook, one of those unfortunates with a big black rectangle across my eyes.
Robin literally makes me sick.
Anyway, I am tired of tragedy. I think it's too bad that Justin had such poor judgment that he chose a permanent solution to what, in fact, given his age had to be a temporary anguish, but I'm done feeling sorry for him.
In Monterey, Robin's best friend was a kid named Wells whom I wrote about extensively in these very pages. I'm too lazy to hunt those entries down and link to them, though.
Wells and Justin always reminded me of one another. During one particularly bad interval in Wells' life, I invited him to come live with us. He did – sort of. He began coming by the house at 3 A.M. and either sleeping in Robin's room if the front door was unlocked or crashing in the RV in the driveway. Consequently, the RV developed a permanent stink of sour beer, stale weed and old vomit.
One day after some particularly egregious episode in the ongoing drama of Wells' life – which also included a custodial grandmother and a crack 'ho mother, now that I think about it – I decided to take Wells out to breakfast and lecture him.
I bought him blueberry waffles at the Old Monterey Café, a really great breakfast place, by the way, for any of you planning a trip to Steinbeck-ville.
"Wells, you're too smart to be doing this kind of stuff. You know that, right? I mean, you're a very intelligent kid. The wrong decisions you're making now are going to impact you for the rest of your life. When you're 40" – I figured "40" was the oldest possible age a 14 year old could relate to. Say "50" and you might as well be talking about a corpse, right?
Wells smiled at me. "Respectfully, I have to disagree. I mean, I'm doing what I'm doing now because I have to do it. I have no other options. What you don't know is that I was a perfectly normal kid until my father died. I played baseball." He smiled ruefully. "I was good at it. I lived in a suburban house, I was good at school. And then my father died and my mother grabbed me because she thought she could get cash out of it. And here I am."
He wolfed another mouthful of blueberry waffle. "These are delicious, by the way. Thanks! Sure you don't want a bite? Anyway. When I'm 18, I inherit my money and I'll be fine. I'll be fine. This is a waiting game. You don't have to save me. If you don't mind my saying so –I mean this with all respect, but I'm not blind – you've got to focus on saving yourself."
I was really blown away by this conversation. I mean, the fact that a 14 year old kid was mature enough to see a timeline. That a 14 year old kid whose life was as hard as Wells' life could see a timeline.
RTT is still in occasional touch with Wells, and Wells' prediction more or less came true – he is fine today, though his heavy dope and cigarette smoking brought on premature COPD so he's got medical issues.
Justin couldn't see the timeline, and that's what killed him.
RTT went and talked to the Wellness and Support administrator. The Wellness and Support administrator called me back. Emails will be sent to RTT's professors and advisors updating them about the situation. It will be up to RTT to meet with them individually, reschedule his finals. Some professors may elect to forgo the finals altogether, just give him the grade he's earned up till now. He has done very, very well academically this semester so the school is pulling for him.
He really should see a psychological counselor too, of course. But that's his decision. I won't weigh in there. My parental responsibility merely extended to making sure his future didn't crash and burn. What goes on inside his head is his business.
What's going on in my head is that I'm tired of all this shit.
Obviously, it's not about me – but it is about me inside my own head, and if it literally makes me ill to have anything to do with Robin, then I shouldn't have anything to do with Robin. I mean, of course I'll send Christmas presents. The occasional Kitten or Puppy Postcard – this being a convention I made up to deal with my own difficult mother.
But I only really have about 20 good years left. And I'll be goddamned if I'm going to spend them being as miserable as I was this past decade. Fuck that shit.
It's quite clear Robin hates me. And Robin' hatred has the power to physically poison me. Ergo, I need to avoid contact with Robin.
I get along very well with Max, so I'm not an utter failure as a parent.
And I'm thrilled that I managed to stop myself from quoting Dover Beach in its entirety recently in what was intended to be a lighthearted email to Max's girlfriend, the mother of my unborn grandchildren. That's progress, right?
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 03:46 pm (UTC)Are you high? I mean this with love. HE'S A YOUNG MAN FILLED WITH HATE. ANGST RIPPING THROUGH HIS VEINS. HIS BEST FRIEND JUST COMMITTED SUICIDE. CUMBAYA IS THE LAST THING ON HIS MIND.
If he doesn't listen to you when you tell him that going around misappropriating the term "nigger" is probably not the best thing for him, if he goes about saying "fucking this and fucking that" to his mother without reprisal, I can't imagine him ever snapping to.
Btw - if he says "my nigga" ONCE on campus to someone - black or not - who finds it threatening, he's going to get his ass expelled. Possibly after he's done picking his teeth out of it. I cannot believe that kid sometimes.
I will concede, however, that contacting his school re: the suicide and how it might affect his academic standing was definitely the right thing to do. Can't stand helicopter parenting and feel all kids in college ought to fend for themselves, but this is the sort of thing that would fall by the wayside and come back to ruin his GPA later.
And I'm very sorry for your loss. Serious now.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:01 pm (UTC)I don't actually have a whole lot to do with RTT these days other than sending money and the occasional overly cheerful email. I do feel like that's dysfunctional -- parents and children ought to feel a bond. But I don't. And apparently, neither does he. I did feel like someone ought to step in, though, and prevent him from committing academic sati on Justin's corpse.
Incidently -- do you still write? Do you have a writers' group? I'm living in the NYC area now, and I want to find a writers group. Let me know if you know of any good ones, will you?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:19 pm (UTC)Of course I still write. Do you still breathe?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:23 pm (UTC)blue footed boobies as narrated by tilda swinton
Date: 2012-12-08 02:39 pm (UTC)the blue footed booby is definitely one of my dreams. quito/cuenca as well on the mainland.
re: writer's groups - that is your department, not mine. i'm a loner in that regard - usually to my detriment. you tell ME if you find anything.
i'll be stateside early Jan, then off to Vashon Island near the end of the month. so perhaps in the middle. see you then.
don't internalize too much of this re: RTT. the good news is, the kid is wicked smart. the bad news is, it is the kind of smart that causes people to be their own worst enemies - or "hang they ownself", as my bronx-raised secretary likes to call it.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 06:37 pm (UTC)I'm glad you contacted the school, for your sake. I think you need to do the minimal things that parents do, for your own sake, as an antidote to your upbringing. I wish you could dissociate from Robin enough to not take his barbs personally. He's angry and he knows you'll take it from him, which is why he's abusive.
FWIW, the older of my brothers was fairly awful to my mother (and everyone else) when he was Robin's age and has grown up to be a reasonable human being, although he regresses from time to time. Which is pretty funny when he does it in front of his infant daughter and someone points that out.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:07 pm (UTC)RTT is not a real part of my life these days. I try to do what you describe well as the "minimal things that parents do," but I'm much happier with that distance.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 10:15 pm (UTC)That's really awesome of you to offer to take Wells in. I really really wish I had someone like you in my life in Monterey 10, 15 years ago. The world needs more people like that.
I can't remember where Old Monterey Cafe is...on Alvarado? But I do remember First Awakenings at the Tin Cannery. Best goddamned pancakes in the world. God damn. Took one of their menus with me before I left lol.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:17 pm (UTC)It's hurtful thinking that in my mind I sacrified a lot for Robin, and he doesn't appreciate it. He railed at me once how I was always playing the victim, so I suppose he did see what I was doing and just interpreted it in a negative way. That's even more hurtful, of course.
I guess the thing is we just don't like each other very much. You're supposed to like your family, but we don't like each other and that's just the way it is. Maybe that will change in the future. Maybe it won't.
When I ran away from home for the first time, I was 15. The parents of one of my friends took me in. I always swore I would give asylum to anyone who was in a desperate situation if I possibly could, and that's one promise I've kept.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 04:14 am (UTC)Robin makes you ill. Robin is managing fine on his own, is his own man. Give him a wide berth and you'll be happier for it.
Fill your life with those who enrich it and/or give you orgasms.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 02:19 pm (UTC)Come with me to the Andy Warhol Museum in the spring!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 01:13 am (UTC)I will take you.
I will take you all over the freaking place if you'd like. When are you coming? And why? Just a trip?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 06:58 pm (UTC)I'm just now seeing it. I am so sorry.