Dearest Child,
For you...I am grateful; I am proud; I am in awe.
But I am also grief stricken. It breaks my heart to fight with you. It baffles me to think of where it all could have possibly gone wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong. Where I stopped putting my foot down and being your parent. And what makes you think that if I don't speak or make a plan that lives up to your pie-in-the-sky standards, that I am not the adult in the house? My precious child, this is not the truth. All it means is that you don't like how I parent. It means you are not getting what you want, the way that you want it. Refusing to engage in drama is not me being dramatic as you have suggested. It is me declining your invitation to the chaos. It is me, trying really hard to not parent like I have and let you get away with anything and everything, and trying not to go back to some deeply ingrained violent tendencies. So I am lost. What I've been doing isn't working, what I haven't been doing is not working and what I was so good at for so long certainly isn't a valid option. So I am at a profound loss. Which is not weakness. So please stop pouncing on me as if it is. I am not displaying weakness. I am pausing because I don't know what to do, and praying for a solution to present itself. What you consider to be an eternity is merely a minute dear child. In the grand scheme of life, it is a flicker, a moment. Perhaps you cannot simply "be patient." But you also do not have the power to speed up time or get results in making demands of the gods. So we are stuck here. I do not know what the next chapter will look like, but it will hopefully not be the same chapter we have read so many times already.
But the expectation is that we will discuss and negotiate (?) when I set the time. Not in your time. Not during your meal time, or mine. I deserve to eat my meal when it is hot and fresh, the same as you do.
While you are free to judge me, my decisions, what you perceive my feelings to be, what you feel my shortcomings are. You are not free to bestow those judgments upon me. You do not have the right to share these and to stand in judgment, and attempt to take over the position of leader. You are not the leader here, whether or not you think my leadership is shit or shinola. Either one. I am still the captain, the queen, the PARENT. And my parenting decisions are subject to the state of Kansas and the laws and statutes therein, and also subject to the laws of God. I am still responsible to God for how I raise you and teach you and love you. And the truth is, it is heavy responsibility. It shouldn't be taken lightly. Not now. Not ever.
Child of mine, I love you. So much more than you can possibly perceive. But we are at a dangerous crossroads. A place where we have to decide our future. And for me, that is daunting. Frightening even. Because every time I cave to your demands, your wishes, I am taking so many steps back in this dance and encouraging the current conditions of entanglement and chaos. So the pause is a decision. A decision to value myself. To wait. To listen to the powers that are greater than me to find a new way of acting and responding. To stop reacting in my vulnerability.
So make no mistake. Do not take my silence for weakness. The pause for insecurity. I am sure that I want change. I am sure it is worth pausing for. I am sure I am competent.
love,
your MOTHER
No comments:
Post a Comment