Nicholas has returned. Oh joy, oh rapture. Sort of. He called at 9:30PM, Saturday, April 29, and said "I want to go back." Okaaaayyyy....So he wants to rejoin the human race, as he said. I went to visit him, took him to dinner, invited him to spend the night. The bottom line was that the mother of the boy he was staying with told him that he couldn't stay there anymore and he had to be out on Monday. No one would give him a job because they didn't want a deserter. He didn't want to go back to the Army, per se, but wanted to be discharged out of the Army the right way. We bundled him off to Fort Knox, where they out-process guys like him, and he returned on May 7th. So now he's looking for a job.
I should be joyous and enthusiastic, but what I feel is drained and wary. Wary because we've gone through this finding a job thing before, exactly this time last year in fact. And it hasn't been fruitful. There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency. I want him to be DESPARATE to find a job. I want him to be desparate to get his own place. What I see is sleeping in late, playing computer games, making a few phone calls, and nothing of any consequence happening.
He and his friend Jason have a deal where they'll get a place together at the end of June, when Jason's current lease expires. That's his deadline, but for Jason to accept him as a roommate Nick has to have a job. We're losing sleep over this because it's as if we've turned back the clock and we're pre-Army again. I'm not encouraged. So he's been home for two weeks and no job. He's submitted one application, to Dycarp. Jason works there and there is an open position.
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I feel for your plight! We went through dozens of versions of this with Kevin. I believe he turns forty this year and is still a total stranger to the job/work ethic. We finally had to break all ties to him a couple years back.
ReplyDeleteHow did you do that? Broke ties, I mean? Not that I'm ready to do that yet, but I'm curious.
ReplyDeleteDeja vu! Rats! But I'm glad he went back and got out of the Army the right way. I'm surprised it was that easy. Was it? Does he have bad marks that he has to report or something? M was sure they'd brig him. Maybe you need to read a book about tough love....
ReplyDeleteHow did we break ties to Kevin? Events conspired to push us over the edge: 1) he got heavily back into drugs; 2) couldn't be trusted to care for his son during the days while Angela was working; 3) he got violent with Kay and shoved her into the bookcase and cussed her out; 4) he got into violence with Angela and she threw him out and got a restraining order against him; and 5) he began spending about half his time in various local jails.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we told his Dad, Tom Kiso, (who lives in Gig Harbor) that we had done the first 35 years of trying to help Kevin and we were done. It was up to him to go the rest of the way. He tried. He moved Kevin into his home, but before long had to toss him out because he was stealing Tom blind to buy his drugs.
Let's hope things don't get that dramatic with Nick. But you will probably have to boot him out, because he will stay as long as he can. M says he would take the vid games to work so Nick couldn't play them during the day. He has lots of good, tough ideas.
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