How I love this post of Cedar's.
I wrote a couple of posts yesterday, that I do not love so much, when I felt sad and very sick.
I had spent the night before, all of it, vomiting black blood.
The gist of my offending posts was this: I am a damaged and defective person who never had a chance.
When the opposite is true: I may have been damaged and defective but I took advantage of every opportunity that came to me in my hard life and ran with it.
And my son does not.
And I am willing (in fact), clamoring, to cut off my leg and whatever other body part I can, believing that if I do, somehow I can make sense of my pain about my son. And myself.
Because the horribleness of our situations is that we believe that we have failed. Even if we can cite their rap sheet, their diagnoses...we still would rather cite our own...substitute our own defects with the hope that we can win....It is my fault, It is me. Please spare my child.
This is so true. How did I never think about it.
Had we not always loved our kids and felt we won the lottery, the great pain would never have come that unites us all in this.
Yes.
I am still wanting after reading this passage to say--in my case it is my fault.
My son that I know of has not been arrested. As far as I know he has not used hard drugs. My reactions to him to want him away from me are not valid. I need to feel loving and accepting. What kind of mother feels this kind of antipathy towards her own child? Why can I not be stronger? What is wrong with me?
How did I fail so miserably?
And that is the crux of it, I think. This is what we did and still do. Accuse ourselves. This is what has to stop. The self-accusation. I do not know how to do it. Because in my case my son one week ago showed up at my door. And I do not want him in my town. To feel this way is not normal. And so it goes.
COPA
