It's all in the 'tude

I wonder if others notice that messages start streaming in from different sources in the universe when you are vulnerable. I do. Maybe they are always there but when your defenses are down, you are more vulnerable and more open to the cosmos. Before I left the house this morning to walk my dog, there was a recuperating Iraqi Vet on television. He lost two friends on the battlefield as well as his legs. His recovery was challenging if not grueling. He spoke about his attitude as being the one variable that only he could control. I left the house this morning thinking that along with visualizing a calm a.m. rising, I could also fine tune my attitude. After all, my attitude is just how I see things. It's the frame that I put around the events in my life. I look back at my own family and the dysfunction that resulted in a rag tag bunch of people devoid of bonds and with blood ties only. That resonates with me. I grew up feeling disenfranchised from a family who screamed, mocked, assigned blame to a family target, never expressed and/or resolved feelings and who demonstrated no compassion whatsoever nor did they encourage other family members in such attempts. I recall sitting at my desk as a teenager writing pages on lined school paper to a facsimile of a picture of God by Michelangelo. I wrote page after page trying to elicit compassion, understanding and guidance from a picture of a picture! Today I write this blog and my picture is a more peaceful me.

So now back to the 'tude thing. When my kids tell me about their difficulties, I feel a visceral heart stopping. I am caught in the moment. I have to adjust my attitude to this is what is happening now but there will be a solution and a resolution later. I do not have to provide the Rx. Sometimes their drama feels overwhelming to me. They both have been in and out of trauma dramas. They rely on me for feedback. They've both told me that I provide wisdom and perspective. I am happy to provide the common sense. I'm glad to own some. The irony for me is that I receive so little compassion from them. But I am astutely aware that I can only change me so I will continue to provide "motherly" advice and expect none back in return.

Tonight before I go to sleep, I will visualize a quiet and calm a.m. awakening. I will envision remaining calm when my daughter calls to chronicle a nasty custody case for my Grandson. I will continue to try and be her rock. And I will tell myself that issues come and go. They do not remain static and I will punctuate on the resolution rather than the details of the crisis dujour. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring peace, a lightened load on my heart and an optimistic attitude. I've never worked so hard on feeling good. Perhaps I took it for granted. It's not a given, I am appreciating.

I'm a Programmer.....of sorts

Before I went to sleep last night, I had a little chat with me. I told me that I could wake up in the morning and look out the window and see a new, calm/soothing terrain. I told me that morning would bring a peaceful awakening. I woke up this morning and lo and behold, there was a new vista. Not quite the bucolic, rolling hills just yet. It was more like calm white "noise". All I know is that the millstone leaning on my heart was lighter. The pressure from the lean was hardly noticeable. I made my coffee without wishing that it was a cup of euthanasia. My gallows humor is coming back. It has saved me so many times in my life. I find it funny that I see the irony in my lowest lows. That's me getting out the safety net for me.

I think a lot about all the parents who are going through something just like this and worse. How do they get through this? I think about what methods they employ for a remedy. My m.o. is fraught with a lot of reflection and examination. Everyone has their own process. Mine is unpleasant and unrelenting. One of my goals is to soften this. Writing helps me to think about what I do productively and unproductively. It helps me to organize my goals and the route that I need to take to achieve them. If I were a good friend talking to me, I'd comment on the harsh self recriminations and the purpose to which they serve. Seeing this in writing tells me in no uncertain terms that I need to do something different. More user friendly to ME.

I waited to post this writing because I wanted to see if programming works. It does. But it can't be a one shot deal, I realize. I will set a time before sleep that I make quiet. I will close my eyes and envision getting up in the morning feeling happy and content. I will see myself going to make my coffee and look forward to the coming day with lightness in and around my heart. I am heartened by the seemingly small things that I can do to help me regain the quality in my life.

STUCK!

I am fully aware that progress does not travel upward in a vertical line. However, when my progress seems stuck in "park", the heavy millstone leaning on my heart hurts.........a lot. I thought quite a bit about where I wanted to end up with my blog. It, however, is only a cerebral construct right now. I feel stuck between thinking about what I want to achieve, how I want to feel, and the visceral distress that thumps in my chest. My heart beats unevenly and at times my breathing is disturbingly uneven. Stress is part of everyday life. I have to be patient. I have to let the process work. I have to have faith that letting my son go with love will help me. And perhaps, it can even help him. Walking on eggshells to avoid his unflattering image of me are not the answer. Even though I can reason it out in my head and give it clear and impressive oratory, it is not in my everyday functioning..........yet.

I will abbreviate this post as writing about being stuck is as difficult as incarceration. I know, however, that I am also my jailer. I have to keys. I just don't know when I will free me........

NEW DAY......NEW GOAL

O.K. the stark realization for me after reviewing and digesting yesterday's post is this: my son has superimposed a persona on me that is not me. That tactic has ensured my energy was spent on resisting his image of me and using every PC bone in my body to be........not that! Now that there is a break in our connection, I realize and appreciate just how much I was stuck in a parent/child relationship rather than being an autonomous person. I am the only one who can be responsible for my reactions to him. That means that I have to live my life according to my values but the most convincing argument for me is this is who I am. I have to set a goal to be me without blame or regret. All this is what "letting go with love" means. The punctuation now has to be on me. I have no power to change him.......only the leverage to change myself. Either he'll have an epiphany, come around on his own or get more entrenched in his vitriol.

I, on the other hand, also have a task. In the long run my goal is to think of my grown children without distress. That is my destination. Along the way, however, I will make a daily conscious effort to stay calm when my son unloads his personal drama into my lap. I will envision being on the receiving end of his inventory. I will practice remaining peaceful. I will also envision myself leaving the conversation. I have too long listened to his litanies. I have allowed them to make me nervous and worry about him spiraling into a depression and perhaps, worse. He is well aware of my concern. We lived through a suicide and its aftermath has left me with worry that it will occur again. He knows that. I have to remove myself from this hostage situation. I will stay present, calm and make an exit when the drama becomes too intense.

I fully realize that my son may decide to remain MIA. That realization, however, will not stop me from reaching my goal. The final destination is to think of my adult children with love and light and without distress.

"Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit."......Cavafy

EN GARD

YOU DON'T SEE THE ME IN ME

Gaining wisdom means being able to clearly see what is actually happening, not what you think is happening vis-à-vis your feelings. I realize that the tension I feel when I talk to my son has to do with avoiding the perception he has superimposed on me. I am an "ice queen" and it is "always about me" when my feelings come to the fore. I would wonder to myself, who is he talking to? I have other people in my life who reflect back my warmth and my companionship. His name calling and characterization of me had me en gard like a fencer in a match. "En Gard," when he'd respond to my attempt at providing perspective with...."I'm not them. I don't care about them." "En Gard" when it became clear that my relationship with my 3 year old Grandson was contingent on my babysitting duties or being a spectator across a restaurant lunch table. I wanted to be family. "En Gard" when one of my rare invited visits to their home was chronicled by taking offense to my checking email on my Blackberry. " En Gard, En Gard....." I probably did seem somewhat mechanical. I was "fencing" so as not to get "stabbed".

Now that my son has a new daughter and her arrival was duly lauded on Facebook without so much as a phone call to me, I am at the preverbial crossroad. Second child of his and his wife and second time back at the same cross road that I thought we had long distanced in our rear view mirrors. "En Gard"

Angry? Hurt? Discarded? Thrown under the bus? Is there a hole in my heart that hurts in the morning when I wake up and realize that I will not hear his voice and/or see him? Of course there is but there is also a blanket of wisdom that covers me these days. I love him. I am, therefore, letting him go. I forgive his weakness. I forgive his plentiful self importance. I do not forgive his behavior, however.

I am ME and not the Me that you see in ME.

Building a Foundation of Wisdom

"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them".....Oscar Wilde

I think there are complicated layers in this parent/child concoction. There are personalities, dispositions, styles of communication, values and substance. In a perfect combination, these layers merge together effortlessly. One thing though.......there is no perfect storm, so to speak. Just a layers fusing and overlapping creating obstacles along the way. Take, for instance, the layer of disposition. Some people are hard wired to be brittle or mellow. Some of us grow to develop direct styles of communication. Sometimes it's abrupt, hard hitting and/or blunt. Other people have soft, diplomatic, inquisitive styles. A direct communication style delivered to a brittle disposition can result in spontaneous combustion. There's a parental style too. My Achilles heel was always respect. It was pretty obvious. It was my daily mantra. Oddly enough.....it is the respect that I required that is MIA with my adult child. My reflection tells me that my most important line in the sand became the weapon of retaliation. Could I have tempered that position with less rhetoric and less intensity? You betcha. But I cannot go back and change the template. I did a lot of right things too. I loved like a mother bear. I protected, guided, laid down boundaries, rewarded with pride. It hurts a lot to have him overlook my benevolence and cherry pick my faults.

"A vessel is not truly empty until it is broken".........Confucius

When I heard this quotation, I knew it was the first ingredient of wisdom that I needed for my personal redemption. I will not become an empty vessel, broken into shards with my essence evaporated on the floor only to fill another vessel with the characterizations that he assigns to me. I am not the names my adult angry child labels me. To wear his characterizations gives him more power than he has the grace to handle. I have to be the person my values dictate. It is not helpful to buy his version of who I am. It locks him into his prison of persecution. It doesn't offer him the freedom of wisdom and perspective. It simply fuels his anger.