How My Life Changed in 66 Days

My friends say it only takes 66 days to change your life. That’s just a little more than two months, as long as you’re counting real months and not February. Andrew quit smoking in that time while Josh became a fitness freak and now runs half-marathons in places like Utica and Charlestown. 66 days and you’ve created a habit and once something is a habit, it’s all easy from there. This is how my life changed in 66 days.

I decided to foster a child.

I wish I could say the decision was met with universal praise from my family and loved ones but that would be a lie and it’s best we’re honest with one another.

My parents, well meaning if not slightly disapproving dentists, were worried their 32-year-old single son couldn’t handle a child. When I told them I was looking to foster a teen because they are much harder to place and therefore needed more help, they told me that could be dangerous and I could get hurt.

They were right about that, but not in the way they were thinking.

My friends were supportive in that distant “what-a-nice-idea” way that meant they were glad they could say they have a friend who fosters teens while trying to impress someone at a bar or social event. More likely the former than the latter.

I won’t bore you with the details of the process of becoming a “licensed resource parent” other than saying it is a process. It takes time, there are lots of questions and house visits and it’s neither easy nor enjoyable. But they’re determining whether you are capable of caring for a living, breathing human so I was patient.

When it was over, the licensing process and the training, things got quiet. You put yourself through this procedural wringer and then you just wait.

And wait.

And wait…is that the phone?

The phone call to ask if you can take a child — or in my case, a teen — is brief and you’re not given a lot of time to think it over. It makes sense when you consider this kid has been taken away from his home for his safety and he needs somewhere to go immediately.

That’s how Jake ended up at my door.

He was a scrawny 15-year-old from one of New Jersey’s struggling cities. He had a sullen “don’t-talk” to me look that is common for teenagers and he wore a Paul Pierce Brooklyn Nets jersey. I remember thinking that he didn’t look nervous which made me self-conscious. Did I look nervous? Because I was.

His caseworker, a tall man with a very quiet voice, told me in a very matter-of-fact way that Jake’s mom was dealing with drug addiction and that his father had run away. The caseworker — Darius– said that Jake’s mom was currently undergoing treatment but for now he had no family and here we were.

He said all of this in front of Jake, who, to his credit, didn’t flinch. If hearing his family’s dirty laundry aired to a complete stranger bothered Jake, you would never know it by looking at him.

Then Darius was gone and it was Jake and I standing in the hallway of my three-bedroom house. I asked his if he wanted to watch the game — Brooklyn was playing Boston that night — but he stared and shrugged.

Instead, I showed him his room (complete with an iMac, comic book collection and a wide selection of music) and detailed what I considered house rules (such as bed time, dinner schedule and chores). He placed his bag on the bed and listened, nodding appropriately but silently. Finally, when I exhausted every topic that came to my frantic mind, I said, “You don’t talk much.”

“Nah,” he said.

That was the first and last thing he said to me that night.

I wish I could tell you a different story of my first night as a foster parent. Maybe you have a better beginning, one where child and parent instantly connected and all the pain and anxiety was washed away, replaced with acceptance and understanding.

Good for you.

That’s not how it worked for us.

It was slow going. I’d ask a question and he’d answer either with a nod or a syllable. He offered nothing of himself, of his interests, of his desires or his fears. Heck, I couldn’t even get him to tell me what he liked to eat.

Part of that was my own fault.

I was eager to be the cool thirty-something that could relate to a teenager. I talked about how Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly” was clearly the AOTY (Album of the Year for those uninitiated in record speak) and how this was going to be a breakout season for Brooks Lopez and the Nets.

Nothing.

For the first two weeks, we went around and around. I’d say something and he’d stare. If something really got to him, he’d respond with a “yes” or “no,” depending on his state of mind at that particular moment.

I’d offer to help him with his schoolwork but he’d shrug and say he was “okay.” That ended up being true, at least as school was concerned. I caught a glimpse of an algebra test once with a big A scrawled across the top. I brought it up to him at dinner one night and he nodded and said, “It was easy.”

I told him that it wasn’t for everyone and by that I meant me. I told him how I still had “the math nightmares” which were a series of dreams where I was in high school and had to take the final for a math class except I wasn’t prepared and how I still woke up in a cold sweat from it.

He shook his head and smiled. It was the first time he’d done it in front of me and he seemed to realize it. He wiped the look off his face nearly as quickly as it appeared and told me, “You’re crazy.”

That moment didn’t change everything for us like it would have if we were some movie on the Hallmark channel that my mom seems to constantly be playing.

But it was a good moment.

We mostly continued on the next two months as we did before but with a few noticeable changes. Instead of me listing options for dinner each day, Jake would tell me what he wanted, unprompted and often during breakfast. His favorite was my world famous call to the Chinese place around the corner. I wasn’t much of a cook.

He also sat with me on the couch during the evenings. I’d ask if he wanted to watch anything and he’d shrug. I’d offer the remote but he’d silently refuse. I’d put on the game but he’d seem disinterested.

Still, he was there.

Darius would check in on us every so often. He updated me on Jake’s mother who seemed to be on the path to reunification. From what I understood, she was doing what it took to gain custody of her son back. It didn’t sound easy but even Darius, who wasn’t prone to shows of emotion, sounded slightly impressed.

Jake and Darius would also meet and talk. I don’t know what they discussed — probably his mom, maybe me and school and if anything was bothering him. I don’t know if Jake answered with more than three words or if that was just our thing.

The truth is, I didn’t know much about what was going on in Jake’s head. I still don’t. He never talked about his mom or his home life. He never told me how he felt about being removed from his house. He didn’t talk about his friends or even if he wanted to go home.

It wasn’t for lack of asking on my part. But eventually I realized that no amount of knocking on the door of his personal life was going to get him to open up. Jake couldn’t control a lot in his life at 15, but he could control that. And it was only fair to respect it.

Even when it became clear that Jake was going to return to his mom, his demeanor remained stoic. At that point, the two of us had a routine going. After school, he’d do his schoolwork at the kitchen table while I played one of my records, usually Charles Mingus’ “Ah Um” or Tom Waits’ “Rain Dogs” (both of which got high praise from Jake as “weird but cool”).

Sometimes he’d share with me something he enjoyed at school, like “Atticus seemed like a good dude” or “Huck would have been right at home on my street.” He was full of surprises. He probably still is.

After he finished, we’d have dinner where I’d ask him questions which he continued to answer monosyllabically. But — and this was a big but– sometimes he’d bring up something he wanted to talk about. It wasn’t some revelatory detail that told all, but it was something that he cared enough to talk about which made it important to me.

Debates over why people like kale– we both remain baffled– to who is hotter, Kim or Kourtney Kardashian –he’s a Kim guy but we all know the answer is Kourtney– raged across the table with semi-full mouths and –yes — even the occasional laugh!

It was fun.

There was also another moment I won’t forget. I was sitting on the couch one night when Jake came out of his room to join me. I instinctively turned on the basketball game only this time, instead of sitting down, Jake remained standing and stared at me.

“Ya know, I don’t like basketball,” he said.

I laughed. It was ridiculous.

“Honestly, neither do I.”

Jake walked over to my embarrassingly extensive movie collection. He sometimes eyed it from across the room, but I always assumed he was just staring off into space. But now, he ran his hand across the Blu-Ray cases slowly, carefully looking for something in particular. When he found what he was looking for, he removed it and turned back to me.

“Can we watch this?”

I don’t know what I was expecting but I knew this wasn’t it. The movie he chose, out of a collection that included violent Tarintino films to raunchy Apatow flicks was by all means, a children’s movie.

It was also a classic and one of my favorites.

That night, Jake and I watched E.T. Well, to be more accurate, I watched Jake watching E.T. while he remained transfixed by the story of an alien left behind on Earth by his family who befriends a young boy name Elliott.

After it was over and E.T. told Elliott that he’d be “right here” while pointing to the boy’s heart, Jake looked at me and said:

“That’s what I want to do. Make movies. Tell stories like that.”

I was taken aback.

“You want to direct movies? You want to be a director?”

“Yeah.”

I told him I went to film school and that you could major in that very field in college if you wanted to. I told him how when I was a kid and my parents fought, I’d go to the movies to get away. Given the way my mom and dad were, I spent a lot of time in the theaters. I still go.

I also listed an overwhelming number of movies that he had to see because, if he liked E.T., he’d love these.

All he said in response was “I will.”

That was the last we talked about it. A few days later, Darius came back and Jake left my house. He gave me a dap of the fist which I awkwardly returned as a thirty-something might and then he said “Thank you.”

That was it. He was there and then he wasn’t. Neither of us cried but I don’t think any of us felt great either.

I know I didn’t.

In truth, I needed a week or so to decompress. The first day coming home and knowing Jake wouldn’t be there was weird. It actually kind of sucked, if we’re being real. But it got better. I fell off the grid for a bit, avoided family and friends and kind of regrouped. When I got a little distance, I was glad.

I was grateful.

Those 66 days changed the way I saw kids, parents and even myself. They helped me appreciate what it means to give yourself to someone and what it takes to let someone into your home. I know I’ll never be able to look at kale, Kourtney or a Spielberg movie without thinking of Jake. I’m glad for that. Things mean more this way.

And, in the end, it did create a habit.

I got a call and in an hour I’ll meet Desmond.

I’m a foster parent.