It has been just over a year since I found my youngest son nearly dead from an overdose - a year later, he lives on his own and has a job.  He still asks for help now and then, but after over a decade of hospitals, therapists, residential treatment, outpatient treatment, he now has the resources to find help if he needs it.  Letting him go - pushing him out to stand on his own two feet was one of the hardest decisions to follow through with.  I had been told to do so many times and it was only at the end of last year that I felt he'd survive - learn to flourish and be in charge of his own destiny.

I am grateful.

I have been too deeply involved in one freakin' crisis after another to even blog about it - how insane is that?  However, it's time to discuss some of this so my head doesn't explode.

First, let me say that I still have most of my sanity left although some days I wonder why I do. I have now been working for 40 years and have nothing material to show for it -- no savings, loads of debt and I haven't taken a vacation in eons.  I am pretty sure driving back and forth across country trying to "save" one of your kids from himself?

So, why am I still sane?  Because I am afflicted with a stubborn streak of optimism that prevents me from giving up and letting the various personal terrorists in my life win -- not going to happen.