What a Good Girl am I

So Evan called. He is cheerful. He enjoys the city he is in, but it is just a great place to visit -- you should not try to live there unless you have lots of money. He did, by the way, get around to coming out. He had not realized that coming out was something that he would have to do over and over all his life. And one more thing. He knows the people there want him to stay for 60 days, but he signed up for a 30 day stay and that is all he plans on doing.

He had to hang up quickly because they were all about to go somewhere. That was good because it gave me some time for forumlate a response.

I called the social worker and we started going to town on options. He might leave in about 10 days! What can he do for high school completion? He cannot enroll in the local high school, but maybe he could enroll in the alternative high. The social worker though says she has heard that they have a waiting list. But maybe he could take on-line courses. He could probably even go to the regular high school to work on the on-line courses. They have a classroom in which students who are studying for the GED, but are not enrolled in classes, may work. The teacher for that room knows and likes him. She would let him stay there. Yes, but would he go to the high school?

Suddenly the light in my brain went on. I told her, "This is his job. He is 18. It is perfectly fair for us to say that we are happy to help and support him as soon as he makes a plan. If he needs information that he can't get he can ask us for it and we can mail it to him."

The more I thought about it the more I like it. I only want to help him if I am helping him towards independence. I don't want to enable. HE needs to make a plan for what he will do after rehab. HE has to figure out how he will go from being a dependent child to being an independent adult. If that plan includes me, then I want to hear more.

He can of course walk out of rehab and into the world. That is one of his choices.

He can stay there angry that we won't let him come home until he makes a plan, or not angry and working on a plan. Either way he his life is in his lap.

He can even make a plan and come home and not follow it -- and here is the really, really cool part -- I don't feel like I have to come up with a contingency plan for that! I can let that go and worry about it if it happens.

Wow.

This Al-Anon stuff is not half bad.