calvin

have i ever told you about my kid? i have this guy i live with - i know every mother says stuff like this, but honestly, he's amazing. he's so smart, and so caring, and so good at everything he tries. when earlier on i said that reading his poetry makes me feel ashamed i wasn't kidding. this is a kid who, at 14, was asked to be in the grade 12 creative writing class, cause that's how good he is. he has the fastest time ever in bc for the 14 year old boys 300m hurdles. the very first time he ever tried that race, he broke the meet record. when he was 13, he went to the provincial track and field championships and won 5 gold medals. this is a kid who hates to ask for stuff, cause for so long we were dead broke and i just couldn't afford to buy anything. you can see the look of dread on his face when he has to ask for money or anything.

the only thing is that my kid also has the same problems i do. no matter how good he does, he can't see it in himself. he sees himself as this loser who can't do anything right - he just wants to fit in and be liked cause he has such a big heart and has so much to give people. he's too caring and too sensitive. he's so much like me that it scares the hell out of me cause i know how it feels.

he's been having more and more trouble coping at school. the other day, a computer lab superviser noticed him doing an online suicide assessment, and paid attention long enought to notice that he scored high. he's been cutting his arms and experimenting with drugs. i don't know what it is that he needs that i can't give him.

maybe this is just a phase. maybe it's just something that lots of kids go through and he'll snap out of it and then we'll all look back on this year as his funny 'goth' phase and make fun of him for it.

but today one of the kids in his grade 12 class found him passed out in a pathway by the school. he'd drank a bottle of vodka because he was upset with himself for something or another. this kid picked him up and carried him home, then went and got his mother who's a nurse and came back and sat with him while he puked.

i'm so afraid that he's looking all over the world for something that he'll never find cause it actually lives within himself, but he's too hard on himself to actually see it. i'm so afraid that he'll have to go through the same stuff that i've gone through, but he won't be able to get pregnant and have that save him.

i go in and look at him sleeping and think of him as my little kid. but he's not anymore. he's 14 and he thinks at a level that's already way beyond me. all i can do is try and show him that i know what he's going through and that i love him and try to be here when he needs me. but is that going to be enough?