Hey…
I supposed I started posting here because I was stressed, kids-wise. However, when I'm
really stressed about something, I tend to withdraw inward. So, I haven't posted in a while and that tells you...?
You got it.
(You might wanna go get some cookies and a glass of milk. This could take a while.)
So, Oldest has suddenly re-entered the stress picture and it's related to Youngest, he with the electronic thinggie on his ankle under house arrest with Oldest & Oldest's ladyfriend.
A little background about Oldest. In my first post here I said:
200Meters said:
Oldest received a barebones high school diploma and did two years compulsory service in the army. The two years were not easy for him but he did it. He is now living with his girlfriend and working (in a restaurant & a bakery). Both my wife & I and his girlfriend's family are helping them. They live about 1.5 hours' drive away. That he does not live in the metropolitan area where he grew up is a good thing and has helped him to make a fresh start. Oldest had / has his issues but he seems to be on the right track.
Oldest is 22. He is emotionally volatile and has ADD written all over him. His ladyfriend is…wait for it…36. She is also emotionally volatile. They have had their ups & downs. Mutual volatility notwithstanding, she has been good for Oldest on the whole. (Ferinstance, she agrees that his coming back to the Jerusalem metropolitan area would not be good for Oldest.) On the not-so-positive side, she is hyperjealous of Oldest & this has caused friction. We (Mrs. 200Meters & I) think that she sees Oldest as her last chance at getting married & having children, though they don't discuss that (at least not with us) in any substantial way. We do not think that either one has anywhere near the emotional maturity necessary for marriage & the depth of the commitment that it entails. (They are using birth control though I don't know what kind.)
When we are around Oldest, my wife & I keep our credit cards very close (ferinstance, we sleep with them under our pillows or in the pockets of whatever garments we're sleeping in). More than once he has stolen (that's the word I'll use) our credit card numbers and used them to buy things for himself. I go online & check our records at least once a week to make sure he hasn't done it again. Money tends to burn a hole in his pocket (ADD impulsivity?); i.e. he gets it, he spends it. Saving for the future is kind of a foreign concept to him (and Youngest).
By the way, as Mrs. 200Meters & I plan for our retirement (I'm 56; she is 55), we are resolved to be financially self-sufficient. As of now, I do not think we will be able to rely on the boys for any kind of financial assistance. Right now I am very underwhelmed by their prospects vis-a-vis earning potential.
(Aside #1: While we love our sons very much, what I resent most about them is because they both have a history of lying, I have been forced to be something I hate – a suspicious hardass. I
hate, hate, hate having to be like that. I am trusting by nature but seeing that they have used that to manipulate and deceive me, I have to be suspicious and hardassed. I don't like it. It's foreign to me. But they leave me no choice.)
Oldest and his ladyfriend are renting a very nice apartment. The landlord lives an hour away and hardly ever comes around. While we are from the Jerusalem area, Oldest's ladyfriend is from a town very close (a 20 minute drive) to where they are living. She wants to go back there & live near her family (mother & two adult brothers), who blow hot and cold with Oldest. Oldest really does not want to live there; he likes the town & flat where they are now. As 2018 drew to a close & their lease was about to expire, she wanted to go back to her home town but agreed to renew the lease for the first half of 2019 with an option on the second half. They were to have informed the landlord by April 30 whether or not they wanted to stay there past the end of June.
It is now May 16 and they still haven't informed the landlord (a nice enough guy but whose patience, while considerable, is not unlimited). Enter Youngest and his electronic thinggie. By court order, he is confined to Oldest & Ladyfriend's apartment, with Oldest and Ladyfriend as his minders. One of them has to be with Youngest at all times. We are back in Jerusalem Magistrate Court on June 13. Hopefully by then there will be a place for Youngest in the hostel they are talking about sending him to. If there isn't, and Oldest & Ladyfriend do not remain in the flat, Youngest's options are to either go with Oldest and Ladyfriend to this town and continue his house arrest there (assuming the court agrees) or go back to the clink. He cannot come back to our Jerusalem suburb as the police do not want him here, we do not want to have him under house arrest at home again, and we will not be approved as his minders in any case. Ladyfriend has threatened to break up with Oldest. That, of course, is their business, but we reminded her that she has undertaken a commitment (and pledged the equivalent of around $2,800; money she does not have) and it will be much better for her later if she does not violate that commitment now. She mumbled something last night about staying with Oldest & Youngest until the latter goes to the hostel or wherever else the court decides to send him.
Youngest has a court date in Jerusalem Magistrate Court (Juvenile Division) this coming Tuesday morning for what he did to get himself placed under house arrest with us back around New Year's.
Two days before his 18th birthday last November, the day after Mrs. 200Meters & I left on a visit to the US, he is accused of breaking into a kindergarten / nursery school in our neighborhood & stealing some sound equipment. (He did it.) The same pd is defending him in this case. So we will have the chance to ask him about how things are progressing vis-à-vis the hostel in Youngest's main case. We will also ask him about the stuff in the previous paragraph.
I think that's it.
For now.
Oh, do I feel like I'm treading water at that 200 meter boundary. The abyss gapes below me. I see the light above me, teasing me, taunting me.
…treadtreadtread…