Monday Morning

I'm still caught in that surreal space where the ordinary meets the impossible. To those who read these words, events like playing a board game with one's grown son and daughter-in-law must sound quite mundane. In my world, it's a miracle. Let alone going to a free movie or going to a pumpkin patch together. It's a world I once dreamed of, but gave up to live out of Arkansas, out of the children's father's home, out of ordinary time. These reflections make make me quite maudlin, but then, I'm entitled to be.

I wish I could really capture the essence of what I'm feeling while I'm here. Cameron and I talked a long time last night, and we agreed that the words just hint at the edges of what I'm trying to convey.

I come from a damaged world. Tomorrow I visit it again. My mother is paranoid schizophrenic. My adopted father is codependent. While I was growing up, he was mostly a beneficent, if absent, presence. Growing up with an undiagnosed mentally ill mother creates a damaged world. I lacked the skills most people took for granted. I was isolated, told to never talk about my family the way families hide substance abuse, was emotionally abused. Before daddy married mother when I was five, I was physically abused, but I have few memories of that time. In later years I was sexually abused. I lacked friends. I lacked ordinary coping skills. I lacked the ability to trust, to love, to be a friend.

I left the boys to live with their father when they were 4 and 1. I saw them every weekend, went to college, remarried, divorced, moved. Repeat. Repeat. These last eight years I have lived in SC are the longest I've ever lived anywhere.This three years I've been on my current job is the longest length of employment anywhere. These eight years I've been with Cameron is my longest lasting commitment. Needless to say, I changed a lot over the years. I fought hard for the skills most people take for granted. It's made me an excellent therapist.

But this week has given added clarity to how right that decision was to leave the children with their father. His stability was the greatest gift he could have given them. I watch my son and think, if I do nothing else right in my life, I've done something remarkable in bringing him into this world. And I've no doubt I've been a tremendous influence in his life. But my leaving those twenty-three years ago terminated the legacy of damage from me and my side of the family. He does not bear the wounds and damage of my past or my mother's.

Rites of Passage

Ever notice that when you haven't seen someone in a long time, that their image remains constant. So when you see them again, you have to readjust your perceptions? Add to that another conundrum. I also have very few people in my life who have remained constant. Divorces, interstate moves, etc cause a lot of changes in friends. I've also been out of state from my family for a number of years. Two years ago I went to my parents for the first time in seven years. In fact, in the last twenty years I've only been home a half dozen times. So every time I've seen my parents, I have struck by how much they have aged. My dad had a mild stroke, which he did not tell me. So when I saw him two years ago, I spent half a day staring at him, trying to reconcile his face, the movement of muscles, age, and the daddy in my head.

Today I've confronted this conundrum from a different direction. My children. Most folks are a part of major rites of passage. Consequently, they have the opportunity to reconcile themselves to change and maturity. I unfortunately wasn't invited to either son's high school graduations (I suspect their father had something to do with it). In fact, after they moved at around 16, respectively, I didn't see either son until they got married. So they remained teenagers in my head until they got married, some five or more years later.

It's been two years since The Enlightened One and his wife the Scientist got married. Part of my focus that day split with the Marine and the grief over grandchildren who didn't know who I was. So I didn't really have time to process the changes, the aging, the difference.

Tonight my son and his wife invited me to attend a movie on campus. So we went over and watched Captain America, which I loved. But it struck me that the attendees were more than half my age, and that I was likely the oldest person in the room. Indeed, my son is turning 25 this year. He introduced me to a college student who had been in his student teaching class.

I've been wrestling lately already with the image in the mirror looking like my mother...so this has been a very strange realization. Age not in the perspective of others aging, but from the perspective of my own aging. Missing so much of the last ten years of my kids lives really has done a number on my perception of age. It's relative. I wasn't really getting close to 50 until I looked around that room tonight.

Mind, I don't mind the aging thing. I mind the parts of lives that I miss around me. Or not around me, but in my absence. I also mind my knees, but that's another topic altogether. So, in a round about way, as I sat in that room tonight, it became a rite of passage. A growing awareness of change. Of acceptance of where I am in life. It's a little bit disconcerting.

Of Children and Grandchildren

I have two sons in their mid twenties. Talking about my sons is such a mixed blessing. Things got really tangled in my younger years, and I made a lot of really bad choices when it came to my sons and partners. I shaped many years and most life decisions around sons I didn't raise more than part-time. Talking of the boys is bittersweet, breaths filled with regret and joy. The pain hasn't eased over the years. And now there's the absence of grandchildren added to the burden.

911 was yesterday. Every year this time I remember the last year I lived with my children. The dot coms had crashed and I was unemployed. That summer my eldest son moved back to Ar with his dad. I thought things were fine when I put him on the plane, but it was three years before he spoke to me again. My son enrolled for his senior year, 911 came, and he enlisted instead of going to college.

I didn't see my eldest son again after he flew to Ar until he got married. His drill sergeant, his soon-to-be wife, his mother-in-law, hounded him into calling. We had a seven day notice for a 16 hour cross country trip. We made it. We weren't allowed to sit on his side of the church, nor was I acknowledged as his mother. His step mother's name was on school records, military records, etc. She lit the unity candle with the bride's mother while I watched.

I finally held my granddaughter when she was 6 weeks old. The Marine was headed to Iraq and we spent two days in a hotel nearby so we could visit. (Of course, lesbians cannot stay in his home.) As we getting ready to leave, I held Beauty and couldn't stop the tears. I knew I'd never hold her again. I knew it.

The Marine didn't open mail from his wife while he was in Iraq, let alone from me. When he got home, he didn't want to see me. In fact, I didn't see him or the grandchildren again until my youngest son's wedding. I've never held my grandson. My granddaughter didn't know who I was.

I've written this and deleted it several times. The starkness of the story, the omitted details, the care I take when making something so painful so public strikes me as I reread. So many times I've wished I could spend an afternoon talking with my sons about those years, but neither is inclined to do so.

I'm at that stage in my life where I'm surrounded by people my age talking about grandchildren. Such a bittersweet topic. Some days I dodge the conversation. Other days I acknowledge I have grandchildren and then change the topic. I think the hardest part can be the inept way people don't hear the truth of the story. My eldest son doesn't speak to me. I don't see my grandchildren. They don't know who I am.

Instead of "that sucks" I get "blood is thicker than water" and other platitudes. And platitudes aren't true. I was adopted by my step-father and that is my daddy. My sperm doner was given several chances, and demonstrated how toxic he is. I know all about cutoffs, because I've cut him off completely. As my son has cut me off. No, I don't think I'm toxic. But my son does. I don't fit his conservative view of the world. I make things very messy and he doesn't want anything to do with it.

On the upside, not that I'm much in a mood for the upside in the midst of these darker emotions, The Enlightened One, my younger son, did see to it that Cameron and I were included in the wedding, that we had honored spaces in their lives, and we were acknowledged. I have no doubt that when the grandchildren come from him and his wife, they will know who we are.

I haven't spent a holiday or birthday with either of my sons since 2001. Indeed, I've only seen either of them a few times. Their rituals and routines are not with me, which I grieve. Nevertheless, I am headed to Ar to see my parents the first week of October and I will be staying at my youngest's son's home. Cameron is staying home to care for animals and attend class.

Happy Birthday, Enlightened One!

Today is my youngest son's birthday. My relationship with my sons is a troubling thing. I love them both deeply, but I was never the mother I wanted to be for them. Too many marriages, too many divorces, too many layoffs, to much mental illness is the men I choose to share my life with. The damage shows in my relationship with my eldest son, who hasn't spoken to me since his brother got married two years ago. I've never held my grandson and my granddaughter doesn't know who I am. He says it is because I'm gay. But he's known Cameron many, many years and loves her dearly. I know he's internalized those years of damage. So Christmas, birthdays, etc are extremely problematic.

Nevertheless, the youngest son, whom I call The Enlightened One, is joy in my life. He has married  a woman who loves him as he deserves to be loved. Below is the email I sent him this evening:

24 years ago I was eager to have another baby. While my first son was absolutely beautiful, I looked forward to getting pregnant again. They say morning sickness is worst with the first child, so I figured I would be happily married, pregnant and joyful...

Well, I knew within two weeks of conception that I was pregnant. Within a month, I was morning sick. No, I was day and night sick. I averaged being sick 12 times a day...my eldest child, age almost three, learned to empty my bucket...

I'm a type A personality, always going, always doing, worrying, restless. Drives Hannah crazy. But for nine months of my life I learned to lay on a couch and not experience emotion. Any emotion. If I was happy, I threw up, If I was sad, I threw up. If I smiled at Sesame Street, I threw up. The result? Zen A***...

The day of your birth, your dad and I went to see Brenda to get our hair done. Your dad still had enough hair for a curly perm! LOL The chemicals got me. I had actually not thrown up for two weeks. So I spent the afternoon laying on Brenda's bed behind the shop praying to survive the smell.

I called the Dr when we got home. He said I was trying to go into labor and told me to lay down. Kenny Roger's The Gambler was coming on TV that night and i wanted to see it. When the contractions started, I called the Dr. I informed him I would meet him at the emergency room after the movie. I sent your dad to take a shower (he thought I had lost my mind) because he wouldn't have another chance for awhile. He shaved while I got one.

Sure enough, movie ended and we headed to the hospital. I watched a little more TV, things got a little painful, we turned off the TV, I said a few choice comments to your dad, and you were born a few hours later.

You have never stopped being the blessing to my life that you were the moment they laid you on my stomach. Your dad had been waffling on your name (I chose Marcus' so I figured it was his turn), and he said A*** N***.

I love you son.