* I struggled with the idea of posting this. As usual I second guess myself wondering if I am sharing too much and leaving myself naked. Thanks Ezzy for saying the following... You have your followers because of your authenticity and talent. Don't compromise.
I drive weekly to this small and hidden waterhole near my house. All summer Baby M has reluctantly gone to the beach not taken any steps into the water she sits by the shore and plays in the sand. She has been cautious even by the pool area. She is cautious in just about everything. I have settled and grown comfortable to watch her play in the sand for hours. Something about a kid being safe gives you such peace like when they are newborns and you know they are not going to go anywhere and peacefully they just sleep like angels. All that changes when a child gathers independence, a will and strength. All that changes when a child begins the process of decision making.
I am sure she has an internal clock that is marking the summer's end. I am sure she can tell the sun is beginning to set a bit earlier and that the sun rays are leaning in a different direction. Punxsutawney Phil did not have any lessons but yet we have paid attention to the predictions since 1887. I am certain at the age of three she knew. Summer is almost over...
I did not bring her bathing suit it was not the plan to swim but she is the perfect country girl and she adapted and did not resist the powers of a salt water marsh lined with sea grass. Her older sister took cue and follow suit. Because that is what older sisters do...
My Graduation...
Truth is I have had 3 emotional breakdowns since Monday including one late Sunday night as I was watching The Life of Pi.
Like Richard Parker my son has left the house. Not that I am not thrilled with his departure at the age of 21. What broke me in half was the way he so unceremoniously left me. Not even a head turn to wish me farewell...
He was the only child I planned. He was planned since I had been married for two years and my then husband a military man, a young military man, was embarking on a tour to Desert Storm going off to war and I could not bear that I, his wife, had not given him a child regardless if I was only 18. Like the most enthusiastic martyr I forsake any plans for a career or financial stability in the future. I forsaken my independence and the possibility of a nest egg in the name of love.
It was tough for my Richard Parker and I. I was so young and completely stupid and when he was three years of age I became a single mother. I can do this. I am strong enough. I have survived before.
Bounce or Fly? Crawl.
My marriage was not a walk in the park and neither was the second husband I also left behind in that god forsaken town. A church every ten steps from your front door. An incomplete college education, a middle school level in the English language and a knack for photography was not going to cut it in the tiny southern town of Hinesville, GA. Back then there were three stop lights, one titty bar and one Wal-Mart that was all that brought life to the town. My kid and I were living in our private version of southern town hell. One tiny brown kid. One angry brown girl. One Southern town. Two husbands later I crawled and made my way to Savannah, GA.
With my knees skinned and bloody I had already caused enough damage. I had bounced from one end of the world to another. By the time I found an anchor and by the time my roots grew... His trunk was leaning the other way. Looking for a different source of sunlight. It breaks my heart to even think that I might be the reason why the kid is so quick to leave me without a proper goodbye. It breaks my heart to know he is not attached to me and that was a lesson I wrote for him early on. I also have the feeling that his inability to be attached to me might be a part of his DNA... Inheritance from his Father. Otherwise I would have never had a need of crawling and no trunks would have been bend looking for sunlight. For whatever reason... He is now gone without a proper goodbye.
So I manically dance between being the parent of a toddler, a teen and a adult and graduate once again to another level into a more difficult road in motherhood. One I am trying to understand. To follow the words I am trying absorb...
On Children
by Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
