My Dearest --,
This blog began because of you and I supposed it makes sense that it should circle around back to you. It has been a long, hard struggle. Some days I think the struggle is so long and so hard that I wonder if I do you any good at all.
Today I read an article about a mother who claimed she didn't love her child; in fact, she was repelled by her. The description she gave, of a child who didn't sleep or eat or make eye contact, resonated with me. I could understand that description as well as the feelings that go with them.
Dearest, you are the hardest person to like that I've ever known. You are sarcastic and mean, loud and angry, clumsy and whiny. Adolescence seems to have magnified these behaviors, making them viciously raw and painful for both of us. And yet when your defenses fall away and all that is left is my teenaged son, sobbing from his soul, everything in me melts and all that is left is the mother in me, the one who loves you deeply.
Some days I am furiously angry with you and your sense of entitlement. I am fed up with the obnoxious behavior and I'm certain you and I will end up on a horrific episode of Dr. Phil, with everyone we know sitting around us, sharing their unwelcome opinions of our relationship, baring all the pain that we both try to hide. Never before have you so openly defied me, and on such unimportant, trivial things, as if just to prove that you can. On a regular basis I feel overwhelmed by you, ripped open and raw, just waiting for the next verbal blow to fall. You have the ability to be incredibly mean.
In some moments I see you, the real you, funny and kind and gentle. Those moments are fewer and farther between these days, and I miss them. You and I both struggle, two people in pain, trying to live in the same house.
And so I breathe deep again, trying to share the air, and love you no matter what. Perhaps it's the love that makes it hurt the most.
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You're right. It's the love. I have to believe it is worth it.
ReplyDeleteMe too.
ReplyDeleteI watched him a week ago in therapy, openly smirking and laughing at me as I spoke, and the words coming out of my mouth turned to him. His therapist stopped us and spoke to him about listening and respect, and he burst--almost like a dam that just couldn't hold another bit--into tears over everything that hurt, everything he missed, everything he feared, and how unfair it all was. And I could tell him I was sorry, that I goofed up but with the very best of intent. And the anger dissipated from around us and hasn't come back. For sure it will, but we moved forward, something we so rarely do. And when he left tonight for a few days, he hugged me goodbye. It has to be worth it. If I believe there's a God, then I have to believe that love can heal pain if we work hard enough.