Sobering Moments

I have been reading the book "Empire Falls"-I had to return it to the library before I was finished, but as soon as i am done here, I am going to reserve it again.

One of the last scenes that I read before returning the book was extremely disturbing.. Especially in light of the incident in Ohio with the poor girl and those very stupid boys.

One of the characters thinks back to the time he showed up at a friends frat party. The door was answered by a guy with a passed out, naked girl slung over one shoulder. He was offering people at the party a chance to smell her you know where. While the character was talking to the man with the drunk girl, another frat boy comes up to take him up on the offer.

It was very graphic and disturbing. I don't say this here to turn you off of the book, because I like it very much. It was just one of those scenes that stays with you. Listening to the news from the kitchen yesterday as they talked about the sentencing for those boys who raped that girl, made me think of that scene. It made me think that how that probably used to happen all the time in the past. Probably still happens.

The understatement of the year of course is shit like that is not Ok. I think of some sort of sexual violence happening to my own children and my mind goes into a red haze of fury.

Lyd goes to a special school for teens with disabilities. She told me at Sunday dinner one of her classmates is pregnant. She is 20, the father's 16. They are both students and so young. And disabled. It blew my mind.

On the back of that, I was at the doctor's office with Lyd today. She is 18, so she needed to update her records on a form, which she did herself. (This made me quite proud)

I noticed a little addendum on the bottom of the paper that stated that by law, the medical center does not have to release the following information to the guardian of a minor without the minor's permission. It included STD and family planning counseling or exams, abortion services or drug/alcohol counseling. I think that was all-it included a section where the minor could write their cellphone # in case the center had to contact the child for permission. The age that the child signed and added their phone # was between 11 and 18.

I visibly deflated. I knew that at some point I have to counsel my children about sex, drugs and disease. I didn't think that it would have to be so soon.

G is going to be signing a paper like that in a year and a half.

I just hope that I can weather the storms of adolescence and keep communicating with them.

God I am scared right now.