I have a Theory

I think Halloween is a transformative holiday. I don't know if its the arrival of the colder months or the blustery wind, or the process of transforming yourself into something else for a few hours, but it seems to me that Halloween has always been a place where things stopped or started.

Its like a mini-new years, and so more likely to result in change and less likely to see empty promises.

What ever it is, I feel like its a marking off, a starting over, a new phase. Could be nothing more than my own silliness.

Of course, two blogs I read that have been pretty much dead and silent for months have new posts all of a sudden. I also found myself making a budget today, trying to figure out where the hell all my money is going.

On paper I should be fine. In reality . . . . I'm coming up short. What the hell?

I also want to get serious and loosing weight. I know, I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. I was dropping pounds, then I got lazy and starting sneaking a real soda here or there, a candy bar instead of my usual apple or pack of crackers, and before I knew it, back to sugar sugar sugar every day.

It doesn't help that there's a bowel of Halloween loot staring at me as I type. It's also whispering my name. Damn sugary temptation. I think I need an exorsisim.

So, anyway, Isaiah is cooperating with his punishment. He finally told the truth . . . basically that he turned off his phone and palled around with a bunch of kids and in a bunch of places that he didn't think I'd let him. He figured he'd come home late in the evening and claim that his phone had died and that he'd lost track of time.

Don't get me wrong, I worry about the group of kids he's drawn too. But what really, really, bugs me is the lying and the attempt to hide where he'd been. That just isn't acceptable to me for any reason.

The thing is that my brother Mike started out this way. He made friends with a rougher crowd and hid them from our parents. He started sneaking off and being cadgy about where he'd been and who he had been with, what he was doing. Then he started drinking alcohol, using cigaretes, and pot. His troubles balloned from there, and it all started very innocently at 11 or 12.

I will not see my son do the same things.

I have gome without a lot of things i would have wanted to make sure he had a safe, wholesome upbringing. I have lived a lonely life because I knew it was better that he have a stable home life than for me to have a partner.

I have distanced myself from people I grew up with because they used drugs and alcohol and other things that I didn't want them around.

If I have deprived myself of companionship and friends and family to make sure he has a safe, wholesome home, why should I allow him to gravitate towards those elements that I avoided?

Does this make any sense?

Probably not. I seem to be suffering a lack of eloquence here lately.