There is such wisdom here, like MWM knowing he would react to your FB message. I hadn't gotten that far. I was still dealing with the letter, my emotions, your emotions, our sons, etc. It is such a gift to have friends who look up and out to the horizon and alert us to what is coming toward us.
Bless you Echo. Unprepared, you stood your ground. What strength, courage, love that took yesterday in the park. Of course he reacted to your reinforcing what you wrote, as this is a new boundary you have set. We know from Cloud and Townsend in Boundaries and from our own experience that people will not like it when we do something new. When we say, hey, you know that thing we have been doing? Well, that's not working for me anymore.
They aren't going to like it. AND, that may be a small step toward them taking responsibility for themselves in a whole new way, because we have created a vaccuum and nature abhors a vaccuum. Something will come to fill it, Echo, and it might be something good.
Bless you again. Of course you had to look at his FB page last night. I can't imagine any mother alive who would have been able to resist that action. And then, of course, having looked, you took on his reaction. Who knows what he meant? Often, I wish the hell I have been living with difficult child over the past XX years (seems like forever sometimes) was a dream, and I would wake up and he is a college graduate with an apartment and a job and a nice little girlfriend, and they are coming to the lake with us to ride our new Seadoos. What I would give for that type of normalcy with him.
We wish to wake up from the nightmare too. But we don't and we can't and that is why you wrote that letter to him.
This says it. Sitting and acting normal---making small talk---hey how are you? Hope all is well. Great weather we're having...while we are crying out inside ourselves every question that we can't and won't allow ourselves to ask anymore, it's just too much. Watching and listening to the absolute insanity makes us crazy. It makes us sick at heart and sad and depressed and hopeless and so many negative emotions. Why do we put ourselves through this? Because of love, I know, but as we have established here, love is not enough. Love will not save us or them. And we can only stand so much pain.
It has been two years, as you said, and the slide continues. How can we really, truly accept that which we know is destructive and toxic and ultimately fatal? I think it would take a superhuman superhero to do this. It is ultimately impossible to sit ringside and watch someone we love self-destruct, doing nothing. I know I do not have the strength to do this, and I don't believe I ever will have it. I can only keep on working on me in hopes that somehow, someday, there is a break in this situation that comes from somewhere.
You are so wise, here, Echo. Even in your pain, you know there is light ahead. You know because you have already visited this place, and you have gone on to a better place from here, and you will again. You will be changed even more, and you will have learned even more, and not without so many tears and the basest grief there is, but you will go on. And I am so glad you see that even now.
Yes, I love this! Didn't we so wish and hope that our boyfriend would call and say, no, never mind, I just realized I really do like you and let's get back together? That was a child's wish, a young girl's hope, and not realistic. If difficult child is to change, the path from here will be crooked and unexpected and surprising and not predictable. Like SO continually reminds me, it took a long time to walk into the forest. It will take a long time to walk out of the forest. There will be no instant change, it is very unlikely.
But Echo, I am still going to pray for that miraculous change in your precious son. I know it is possible and I am going to pray for it hard. I am going to pray that he makes a different choice in the days and weeks ahead. He chooses that different path.
I am holding you close in my heart and mind and spirit today. Blessings and prayers showered on you. And lots of warm hugs. We are here for you. We care so much. Keep sharing with us.
