Thanks MWM.
She states the obvious when she says that we don't "own" our children, that we don't have a right to have expectations of anyone but ourselves, and that we need to put the emphasis on our own life and stop ruminating about theirs.
I believe all of that to be true and I think when our kids do go off the rails, it's easy to forget all 3 of those things. When I look back over the last few years I can see that I was not adhering to any of that but I had to learn how to do it........I think it's pretty hard to do.......and yet, if we're going to have any kind of a life, it becomes absolutely necessary. We parents really struggle with all of it when we have difficult child's, which is why detaching is so difficult.
Lately for me, it's as if I picked up my own life after a really long vacation from it. Parenting in general takes up portions of our lives, but parenting a difficult child, takes up every bit of energy and space and vitality and can extract our very life force. All of that is now mine, like a big empty space I get to fill up with what I want. I couldn't be more grateful and happy about it.