IMPENDING CHANGE

I tried not caring. I tried to say nothing. But then the notifications kept showing up.

‘Late to Class but Present’. Here we go again.

‘Why were you late to class? Again?’ I texted, after he texted me to ask if he could hang out with someone after school. I almost said ‘okay’, but decided to check Home Access Center first.

‘I wasn’t’, came the lie.

‘Yes you were’, this was getting exhausting and was starting to piss me off. I did not want him to develop this habit of lying and then making up another lie to cover that one. I mentioned that his sisters left our place at the same time and were not late.

‘So maybe like one minute’, he corrected his story. Then added that he ‘forgot it was b day’. When I emailed the teacher, she let me know it was 4 minutes. I told him to check his calendar to figure out if it was ‘A’ day or ‘B’ day.

Then came the strings of ‘I’m sorry’ and promises I knew would be broken within minutes. Which they were as I noticed the next ‘Late to Class but Present’. With four classes per day, lasting 90 minutes each, he managed to be late to three of them today.

According to him, he had no idea why the teachers were counting him as absent, but said ‘I will talk to them tomorrow’.

‘No worries, I’m contacting the teachers myself’, I replied. This was after he came home late.

The frustrations continued at home. His sisters also could not understand why their brother was constantly late and acting up in classes at times. I get that high school is a new experience, but I don’t get the indifference. The disregard. For anything I or anyone else says. I felt as if I was on the fence. Unsure what to do anymore. Should I stop caring? Should I let him figure it out himself? Nothing else was working.

I told him I would not be his alarm clock anymore. I will eat breakfast as usual every morning and he can join me. But I will not be knocking on his door to get him to school on time. If his sisters can manage, so can he.

As much as I did not feel like going on my walk tonight, I did. I dragged myself outside and walked. Then I ran two laps. Slowly, but I followed through. Just like every day for the past three weeks. Except for that one rainy day.

On my way home, I passed by three crows sitting on the fence. Not caring that I walked past them. They just sat there and stared off into the distance. I was curious and looked up the symbolism of seeing crows and found that crows represent ‘change and transformation’, specifically ‘a spiritual and emotional change’. Further research revealed that ‘Seeing three suggests impending change’.