Life Goes On

My husband as urged me to journal my way through my current heartache and I love his wisdom in how truly healing journaling is. I love journaling, even if no one reads it, I love it's magical release it gives me as I pour out my soul onto the paper.

I have been home from Portland 6 days now and has hard as I want time to go back and stop, it won't stop, but keeps on going forward. I can't change that and I find myself stumbling through the days in a fog. My head is cloudy, my body is tired and my back is killing me (I ruptured a disk in my back coming home from Portland at the airport).

My Mother is here from Kentucky to help out and be a support to me during my physical healing process and also my emotional healing that I have to go through. Victor had to go back to Virginia yesterday morning and it was so hard for him to leave me. He begged me to let him stay longer, but his job would be on the line and we couldn't afford for him to lose his job, so I kissed him and sent him back to Virginia.

My Mom and I discussed some of my feelings this morning and I came to the conclusion that I was at fault for a large portion of my pain. Don't get me wrong, the other party did their fair share of hurting back. However, I am only responsible for my actions and my deeds, so I take full responsibility for my errors.

One of the worst and hardest job as a parent is parenting a grown-up. I have lived away from all my kids for 6 years now and when I was given the chance to go home for the birth of Sophie I was elated to go and HELP. I had visions in my head of cooking, cleaning, organizing and generally helping out. I had planned on staying for 6 weeks, with the intention to help before Sophie was born and especially afterwards. However, my expectations were not their expectations nor their desires. In fact, they apparently like living the way they do. For me, it was not livable, but for them it was OK. My mistake was to go in like a bulldog and try to clean the place up. I wasn't mean and truly had good intentions at heart, but it was not wanted and thus caused a huge blowout.

I need to learn to let my children live their life the way they want to live it. It's not my place to go in and take over and take charge. What was I thinking? Again, I wanted to help so badly that I lost sight of their wishes and created hurt feelings, insults and pure hatred. The treatment I received was not warranted or justifiable, it was mean and cold. Opinions were formed that I wasn't trustworthy and I will never understand how a 44 year old Mother can't be trusted in her child's apartment. We had already agreed that they didn't want me to clean, so I wasn't going to do it again. I made that promise, but apparently there was no second chances.

I don't like the way I was treated at all, but I do acknowledge my errors and faults. I don't like the fact that I have to feel reserved around my children and their own environments. Shouldn't a Mother be able to say "this is dirty let's clean it up?" I suppose if someone came into my home and told me they were going to re-organize it I wouldn't like it either, so I made a fatal error. I truly have learned my lesson and although I don't like that I have no say in my children's lives anymore, I have to let them go and let them live their life the way they see fit, even if I think it's harmful or detrimental to their health and happiness.

Life never seems to ease up and there is always a lesson to be learned no matter how old we get. I don't like the lesson I just had to learn, in fact I hate it, but I need to learn to let go. Along with letting them go is also stopping to bail them out every time they whimper. I've been guilty of that as well, and that will not happen every again. I have to let them fall and get hurt and pay the consequences of their actions. This time it will be easy because Victor has put his foot down on this issue and will not allow any help to be distributed to unappreciative, selfish children.

I have mixed emotions about it, but I do believe that I have failed my children in more ways than one and constantly bailing them out of problems only hurts them further. I have to stop doing that and even if my heart breaks apart into tiny pieces when I see them fall, I have to allow that to happen. If that brings hatred from them to me, then I will have to accept that and pray that as maturity takes hold, they will come back to me, MOM.

For me, my days move forward and I am forced to wake up every day and keep putting one step in front of the other. I am thankful for thousands of miles between me and my children, so I won't see the pain that is surely coming soon down the road for them. I am thankful for the sun and it's bright reminder that life is sunny as long as you choose to let it be so. I am thankful for the rain and it's cleansing drizzle that washes away the pain and sorrow. I am thankful for the stars at night that gives us hope even in our darkest hours. I am thankful for ME and the good person I know that I am.

If you have any suggestions on how I can learn to let go, please leave a comment. I need all the help I can get...Thanks.