I had the longest hour of my life tonight.

I learned from my ex that my son has a very serious issue involving his relationship with his current girlfriend. I knew something was up because every time the ex would mention this girlfriend her voice would get as deep as mine.She and I discussed the whole thing and knew we were on the same page as far as the messages we wanted to get to him.

So, I picked him up for his stay here as we chatted for a while on basic, every day BS. Then, I let the bomb drop that I knew what had happened.

You could almost hear the oxygen get sucked out of the car.

He gave me monosyllabic answers at a volume only Superman could hear. He shut down completely. I tried drawing him out over and over again even turing the discussion away from the real topic and towards me.

"Are you annoyed I brought this up? Are you pissed off at me? Say SOMETHING!"

nothing

For 78 miles we just drove. No talking. No radio. Nada. He turned away from me and looked out the window. He didn't even use his MP3 player as a wall between us; he simply sat there and didn't utter a sound.

I did all I could not to cry.

When we finally got here I stopped him before he retreated to his room and told him that all I wanted to do was make sure he was OK and that maybe, through examples in my own life, I could help him avoid some of these problems in life and that I wanted us to always be able to talk.

I don't know if it was my own desire to want to get through to him or not but I thought I could see his eyes welling up a little with tears. Maybe I was finally connecting with him.

We'll see as the week progresses. One thing is apparent, though.....

I am the parent of a TEENAGER!!!