A remembrance
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When Patrick and I separated my daughter did not come with me. She needed time to transition, to feel all of the things. I never worried about it or pushed her. We were all going through enough without making it a big deal. I knew who she was, and she needed lots of time and space and to be in her home. It never even occurred to me that someone else might think it a big deal until a few people questioned how I was OK doing that.
She took her time, she was able to be there with Patrick and the boys and I had a truly special time together. I made a kid dinner every night for them, mac and cheese and roasted broccoli were served on a blue platter with fancy cups and in the morning their favorite sausage or hash browns before school. We would go on little outings to parks, ice cream shops, thrift stores.
The building was a huge old mill with converted business space and live/work lofts. We called it the Loft and it became like a playground for the boys. They could scooter and roller blade and skate board down the long cement halls. It was the building I met Dave in six months after we started living there. He worked in an office steps away from my door. On weekends there was a Farmer's Market filling the halls.
Sometimes I ache for that time, not the heartache of divorce, but the way those boys grew me as I was growing them. If you've been here for a while, you'll remember photos of them, like when they would meditate together taking homework breaks, things kids will do before they become teens. I sometimes ache for that, the time before, as much as I love who we all are now.
Something happening around me has reminded me of that time when Chloe stayed with Patrick, pulled me back into memories of how important it is to let our kids take part in decisions while we focus on caring for ourselves too. I've been reminded that our kids need us differently at different times. Chloe probably needs me more now at 18 then she did at 12 when she relied on her friends, and that is the beautiful ebb and flow of time.
It reminds me that we don't have to be everything for our kids (or our partners/family). We can't. Dave and I are reading a parenting book together and they repeat over and over that you must take care of yourself first. We can get lost in a child in similar ways we get lost in a partner. We can want to control a child so that we feel better. That isn't the child's job for us to feel better. Their job is themselves.
What if we didn't take the things others are choosing so personally? What if the actions or choices of others were just that, their choices? And what if, before we worried about what another is doing, we checked in with what we actually truly really really need and desire, so we can meet it on our own first? (Pressure valve releasing....)
It would give us a lot of space for ourselves, for this sacred work of living and loving. It would give the people we love a whole lot of space to learn to be who they are too.
Control it feels to me, is what happens when we don't allow the time to feel, see the choices, hold a bit of empathy and devote ourselves to seeking kindness and joy. There is no win or loose, we can stop playing a game and learn to live each day as a devotional to ourselves, God/Spirit, earth and those we love.
I honor you. I honor you doing the hard work. I honor that this isn't always easy, but there can be ease. I honor the way you love, the way you grow, the way you live into the questions.
xo
H
PS. In honor of Mother's Day I will be bringing Being Mama back. Information and sign ups will be out early May.
PPS. A neighbor just cut down about twenty trees along their property line and I'm in tears each time I walk by. I'll be planting a tree to help restore the balance and I thought this would be a good reminder that each of us planting one tree would make a forest.
PPPS. I can never tell the boys I used this picture of them but I could stare at it all day!!! I remember we thought it was so cool the ice cream cones said JOY.