I write when I am sad

Putting this out there because it has been nagging at me all day.

James is moving up from 8th grade. He’s worked hard to do well in school. Makes Honor roll, band, PTA, volunteers, helps,
Other students, etc. Im very Proud of him.
Since we have been out of the classroom he developed mono and had to try even harder to stay awake and keep up during this school at home period.

He does not do well with online classes, never has. It causes him anxiety and he just shuts down. The other day he literally spent 15 hours on math to make sure all of his make up work was done. He watched videos and tutorials read and re read the problems, had a short break down because he just couldn’t get it. When he did finally get it he was so proud of himself for not having to “bug” his teacher who would have happily helped and always offers to do so.

He feels like he’s a burden so he doesn’t like to ask for help. He has confidence issues. I don’t know how many of his other classmates struggled these last many weeks but I feel for them if they’ve had even a little bit of the struggle we’ve had to go through.

James is in an only child situation. He lives with me and Woody only has no close friends and is not close with his cousins. School is his whole interaction with other young people and he has been missing it so much.

Today we went by the school to their pick up / drop off day. We had to go to pay a fine for a book (he returned in September!) and it was not what he was expecting.

We have been seeing all these middle schools around our area doing drive through goodbye ceremonies so I am sure that he was hoping to see his favorite teachers one last time.

Not even close. He saw one teacher who happened to be walking by, who said hi, and walked away. There were 2 helpers and one person who gave us a receipt.

The look on his face was just heartbreaking. I had to bite my lip as we drove away. He said “see mom nobody cares about us, they just want their stuff back.” He said he doesn’t want to watch the pre recorded “moving up ceremony” on Friday. He didn’t get a yearbook because he forgot to order one.

After dinner we were talking about college and as I always do I said I’d be moving to wherever he goes to college. And he comes back with “don’t worry mom, its only 4 maybe 5 more years and you can move wherever you want because you wont have to take care of me anymore” to which I replied that he’s my only baby and the most important person in my life. I could tell he needed to hear that. I can see that he’s been depressed and exhausted.

I can’t take back what happened today. I can’t fix it. I can’t redirect him by putting something else in its place. It’s one of those days that will haunt me because I had to pretend that I wasn’t heartbroken for him.