Adapting – Erased mom – the muddy water is yours
I managed to kill the monkey in my mind a little over a year ago. I used to over analyze everything. And, I mean everything… Even, my grocery list. I’ll do a separate post about how I did that – it took years. Not the grocery list, the monkey killing (no monkeys were harmed in the making of this clear head).
Questions can getcha. Why did he/she say that? Do that? What did they mean? Why won’t they… Am I wrong? What did I do? How can anything like what we had be completely irreparable? How could I just get discarded like that?
The questions will eat you alive from the inside out. Like pineapple on your lips, those special over-thinking enzymes can ruin a moment, a long time, a life time.
You don’t exactly get a manual on how to deal with the fact that your child abandoned you, add in the fact that you had been wracked by lifelong abandonment issues that you were never able to understand. How could someone do that to anyone? Much less a mom.
More questions. Stop. Seriously. Just stop and have a nice, big, steamy mug of STFU.
There are no answers. None that you’ll get any time soon, if ever. Don’t beat a dead horse.
Scrolling through my newsfeed I see a blog post about how your kids grow up like a switch flipping. It’s an article about a teen boy and immediately I tear, thinking of my size 13 shoe son with the huge bear on his bed and the physics work on his desk and he’s got one foot in the cradle and one foot out the door and I can’t let questions steal the seeing of that for me. The breathing in of that for me. It’s a special moment, to fill yourself with pride and awe from a being you brought into the world and love with all your heart.
Why do we create life? For me, I wanted to give what I didn’t have as a child. Not the trappings, I’m ok with simple things but, the moments. The cuddles, the life lessons. Eventually, the former get fewer as the latter abound. Do they listen? We want to believe they do.
And then the cloud of the sister passes over the brother in my mind and I think… does he really love me? Or, is it just an act like it was with her? The rain starts to fall in my head and I wonder what it’s like when they’re together…away from me. And I remember the three of us. God, six years of memories before the youngest came. The years. The laughter. So.much.laughter. And now it’s muddy in my mind and I feel as I would standing in muddy rain. I can literally feel the weight on my already aching shoulders and cataplexy is not off the table.
More questions… How dare she steal my ‘what I thought was always true,’ how cruel. And the mud thickens as I realize it’s happened again. I started out thinking about my son and the joy I have for and because of him and I let the question train take off with my moments.
In some cases it feels like a betrayal, to push the thoughts of her aside to focus on what is now, what is.
You can only think about one thing at a time, granted sometimes the “at a time” is micro-seconds so it seems like you can think of more than one thing at a time but you can’t. Two thoughts can’t occupy the exact same moment.
Choose the one that serves you well. It’s your real estate between those ears.
Happy matters. I used to wonder “why.” Now I just understand that people are all different. A thousand different things can go into a simple decision but what it all comes down to is, it’s a decision they made. Let it go and focus on what, and who, is in front of you.
I think about her everyday, feel that tiny gnaw in my heart. Sink into it for a brief moment as that’s all I’m afforded before the questions start. I give the intention for her peace and happiness and then I blow it away to her on a kiss. And then I carry on dealing with now.
Think good thoughts, don’t walk around in muddy waters.
