My oldest son and I have been talking a lot lately about choices and consequences and responsibility. He is angry with me about the divorce. It’s a mix really. He tells me he lost respect for me and his father because of the divorce.
This came up because he lost his phone because of his behavior. Behavior he blames on his loss of respect. You see that twists things up a bit.
Either way, we have a lot of productive talks about it, and he keeps saying he never even had a choice. It has me thinking about my own parents’ divorce and reminded me of a poem I wrote when I was his age.
I am putting it here, but I am half-tempted to have him read it.
Choices
I remember him as he stood wilting in the large brown courtroom, shiny with too much lacquer
The judge’s voice boomed
Through a room filled with the corpses of other dead marriages
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the big man who watched his string of bad choices lurch before him
Unable to look at the fragile woman wearing red and blotting her eyes with incremental pieces of tissue
I sat in my navy blue dress and black patent leather shoes
Small sweaty hands clutching the edges of a chair
A drop of perspiration traveling down one leg
The small bead absorbed by the lacy sock
Judge, he wants to see me
“in my chambers”
click, click, click of my shoes on the hardened floor
hoping no one saw me shaking
hoping no one saw the sweating
hoping to say the right answers to important pending questions
Lots of talking, many more smiles, make her feel comfortable, let her know you care, difficult decision for such a young girl, you know your parents love you, you know it is not your fault, you know you have to…
She Screams
And screaming
She is always screaming
Heart wrenching
Gut-tearing screams that shatter fragile things
You know you have to…
He despise
He said I would be dead to him
Walk out that door it will be the last time
The last time for many things
“Yes, I do”
“You’re sure?” Nod. Nod. Smile. Smile.
It is done
Click, Click, Click
If you’re waiting/If you just want to know the choice I made…
As yourself
Does it really matter?
Love and Light, all.
The Wandering Empath 
There is no good or Bad, only choices and Consequences…
I agree to an extent. There is a gradient we can’t ignore, but we can measure our response based on this idea. Good and bad is a matter or judgment but necessary for now.