to be continued..

Yesterday afternoon my son called his little sister with the same resolve and determination he'd been expressing for the last few days. We have all been feeling so hopeful. He sounded really sick she said..this is a good thing as heroin withdrawal is horrible and being sick is the first miserable step to getting healthy.

Our family spent the afternoon gathering his personal mementos from our previous residence - something I had previously firmly decided I would not do, that it was his stuff and he needed to handle it. In light of the recent developments we all felt compelled to handle this for him.

We got home from another day of moving things (mostly his things), ate dinner and I decided I would call him at the detox and see how he is feeling, full of this renewed hope.

The call went like this - Me:  "Hi, may I speak to J please?" Voice on phone: "He left."

Shock, (why?) silence (speechless) Me: "huh?" Voice on phone: "He left"

Stunned I hung up. I called back again to find out what happened, my denial voice telling me it must be a mistake, he must be talking about the wrong person or something. No details - just "Yeah he left an hour ago. His time was up tomorrow anyway." My mind was reeling - his time was up tomorrow? what about that extension? The streets are no place for a 4 day clean heroin addict.

I called his phone - no answer. I text - you left? He called me back to explain in that familiar addict kind of way - there was someone saying her things were stolen so our whole block got kicked out. Huh? They told me you just left? blah blah blah addict speak blah blah..at a shelter, still going to intake for long term program tomorrow  blah blah, detox gave him certificate of completion so he's good to go for the other program, addict ramble, addict ramble.

He did not sound sick, he sounded...happy.

I hung up and pondered the day - how we all jumped into to help again with something we had decided we weren't going to do - moving his stuff that had been at my house for 2 years while he had little concern for any of it. At times I feel like I am like a little puppet on a string - how quickly I relapse into my codependent behaviour without even recognizing it for what it is.

I am disappointed in myself for allowing myself to go to such high levels of hope again. That I got back on that roller coaster of emotion of hope and disappointment. That I spent my afternoon doing for him what he should have been doing for himself when what I had wanted to do yesterday was drop a fishing pole off the dock in my backyard and relax after two straight weekends of moving.

I'm moving on and letting go again. Still harboring hope (denial?) that somehow this may all still work out. That they will miraculously take him in the program (if he used last night I doubt it), that maybe he was telling the truth (unlikely), that maybe he just wanted one last time before that long term commitment and today he will be ready.