Hindsight

Re reading my post of  13 October 2011  I am amazed at how fast time moves, no surprises really there eh? And it occurs to me that time does heal, again we know this to be true, but at any given time, the pain and stress and perhaps frustration at it all overwhelms and we cannot see it...

My daughter, now 20, is I am guessing submerged in uni-itus. She does not text not email nor phone me. I last saw her twice over the christmas hols, no not over christmas and not on her birthday a few days later. She appeared at the apartment to 'crash' after losing her friend in a club and so l was the port in the storm, at least l had that.

I haven't wept over it, nor let it define any piece of me. I am after all changed; by the emotional chaos of our split and divorce. I now think that she maybe haunted by the break up and her choices she has come off worse than either of us and her brother. Or perhaps she is more of his blood and just separate from me in a way I don't care to admit, or praps I just failed her and I was less than she expected or needed.

I know I did my best for her and by her. I stayed longer in an unsatisfactory marriage than l should, and that may have seeped through and stained her. For that l am sorry.

I didn't bring her up to cause pain by omission. It concerns me I keep it all in a box. Carefully apart from me, so as do less damage to my heart. Under wraps and I always fail to reach outf again, for fear of more rejection. No Mothers Day card nor call.

I did do my best. My best now would be better.

My son hopes for uni in the autumn. I am prepared, I will not be bereft. I will not. I will.

Recently I was told, '... your Mum (Moannie who is very ill) is on her own journey, as is your daughter and soon your son, Saz you should not wait to live and love....live and love now and make for your own journey..'

and I will and I do just that...

My message here is there comes a time, often way overdue...to put yourself above it all and yeah maybe in the line of fire.....but out there...the teenagers become young adults and accountable....and the consequences kick in and they have to wipe up the spilt milk, not you or I...now I hold the cloth in readiness...just let them go, it is very hard, but do-able.

I have plans, I am rebuilding and on my own journey, centre stage..

... and I have the arms of a wonderful man to hold me.

Saz x
                                                                                                   

Teenage Trauma...

Forgive me for the pictures today, which are all over the place - Blogger does not seem to be behaving itself.

Wonder where it gets that from?!

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Some of my favourite lines in poetry come from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

AWAKE ! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo ! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

Those of you who may be wondering where my post went from a couple of days ago - Who saw it, pondered it, commented upon it, only to see it go 'Poof!' in a whisp of smoke like a genie from a lamp, I thank you from the heart for your erudition, education and ease of communication!

I have taken your good comments on board.

You see, I did tremble a bit when I realised what exactly I was putting 'out there', for public consumption as it were and I reflected and understood that I did not have the right to do so.

...I appreciated, finally, that I was trespassing in fact on another's life, albeit my unruly man-child's.

We have these fleeting moments with our children, our tantrum-flinging teenagers. Tantermongers, I call 'em.

Do you wish sometimes, as I do, that you could turn back the moments of time, to when things were simpler; when you were younger, prettier, less lined?

Do you ever wish you could delete some memories of your own of that time?

Did you have moments of reckless abandon, of joy? Did you take calculated risks?

Looking back, I sense I was a bit of a 'Goody Two-Shoes', a bit stuffy, uptight, perhaps not much fun. I don't know where that came from, but it was me. I've never touched a cigarette in my life and have no intention of doing so. I really didn't get the taste for alcohol until my late teens - My twenties, in fact.

...I've never sniffed, snorted, sniped, licked or swallowed any substance other than that legally prescribbled. I've never rebelled.

I've shop-lifted three times. All by accident.

If someone short-changes me, I usually correct them on it. If I haven't, it's because I didn't notice the error!

I don't travel on public transport, (knowingly), without a ticket.

I've never had a tattoo (although I hanker after one in my forties!), or rogue piercing.

I try to 'Do unto others as I would have done unto me', or words to that effect.

I am good, then. I can safely say, 'Je ne regrette rien'.

But I can't help some regrets. And I can't figure out where I might have gone wrong.

So we agree to love our children in good and bad - In sickness and in health, as in the Marriage Vows, n'est-ce pas. Therefore, let us forgive our trespasses. While not precisely forgetting them.

'Will no-one think of the children?'

Revel in them, as you would in a gossamer-thin chemise on a summer's day. The scent of meadow and new spring lambs wafting through an open window. A bee buzzes against the window pane and, thankfully, moves on.

What I mean to say is, enjoy it while it lasts.

Ah, Love! Could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits - and then

Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire !

Console yourselves then that you've been 'good enough' parents to your Teenagers.

(CLICKIE for more information on the concept of 'good enough' parenting)

They might not agree, but you have always been good enough, if not perfect.

Who wants to be perfect?

So what makes us expect it of them?

Oh, and it's Fhina by the way.

Trust me, I'm a therapist!