17

He skulks into the kitchen on this, his second morning of midterms.

At newly turned 17, he has an XXX Tentacion black hoodie on, hood up. This, apparently, is a rapper who was shot dead in a car a while ago. He felt the loss acutely and this was one of his most wanted Christmas present. I bought it for him, even though from what I had read about this young man, he wasn't the greatest human being on the planet by a long shot, but it mattered to my son. 

I've made sausages for his breakfast and ask him if he'd also like a waffle. I have to be looking at him when I ask him this, as the chances of getting a verbal response are slim. He nods slightly and I put one in the oven to warm.

His hoodie is not uniform appropriate. His shoes are on the kitchen island, although he has been told time and time again to only put his shoes on the floor. I choose to ignore these things today. He has two midterms this morning and it is more important to me to get him off to school in a reasonably good state of mind. The conflict is not worth it.

I sat through a Parent Meeting at his school this week. There was much talk about students not being in uniform, technology overuse and misuse, and so forth. Over and over again, the blame came back to the parents. They shouldn't be letting them leave the house in leggings/ jeggings etc. They should care more. Do more. Say more. 

I sat quietly.

Here's what I didn't say: 

There are so many battles to fight. With an easier kid, you fight the small battles. In fact, it is often not a battle at all. You say no, the kid doesn't do it, end of story.

One of us could be fighting endless battles, all day long.

One of us is trying to get her kid to get through high school in one piece, when he doesn't like it and doesn't see the point. 

One of us is choosing to put her energy into trying to keep his GPA up to a reasonable level, so that he has options available to him, even if he chooses not to use them, because then she at least fulfilled her role of doing the best she could to provide them.

One of us is trying to keep what little communication she has with her kid to be as positive as possible, because if he shuts down completely, what is she to do then?

My frustration is acute, my anger simmers. 

I used to flow with milk, enough to feed a small village of children it seemed. 
Now I try hard to flow with grace, to bite my tongue, to realize that this is a stage, a long stage, that will eventually pass.

I am grateful for my husband and my other two children, who acknowledge in a variety of ways that I am a good parent, a good mother, that I am not failing.

I try to realize how it feels to be him: 

He wants to be creating music, he wants to leave this life of academics he doesn't care about, of tests he doesn't want to take, of having to be somewhere and pretend to be someone he is not. 

He just wants to be left alone to do what he wants to do, and the pressures he feels are tremendous.

This child may not go to college. I am realizing that slowly, and his Dad is not realizing it yet. He may need a gap year, he may not go at all, he may need time to try to make it on his own and then decide to go later.

Maybe he will go. But I am letting go of the expectation that OF COURSE HE WILL and opening my mind to what will possibly make him happy, even if that wasn't what I thought it would be.

We pull up to the school after a silent ride, in which I listened to the radio. 

He goes to open the door, and I say "Good luck on your midterms."
"Thanks" he responds.
Pushing my luck, I say "I love you" as he grabs his bag.
"Love you too" he mutters as the door closes.

I drive home, sustained by those words for another day.