ry single thing he loses, he acclimates himself to, and declares it the life he wants. Instead, of the reverse. Striving to replace it and get more, which is what I would do. I would have been desperate to get out of the hole so that I surpassed others.
You know what I think it is Copa? We were raised in cultures of scarcity. Our children were raised so differently than we were that we cannot understand, cannot find common ground from which to teach either them or ourselves how to help them or ourselves, now.
We did not fail, Copa.
We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We loved them so well that they go into the world, still, like innocent children.
We did not know, until we were healing ourselves, how to parent children loved too well. This could be true, Copa. Our children have grown up believing they were wonderfully well-made creatures whose futures would fall glowingly into place.
And this may have happened, but not in the drug culture our kids grew up into. That culture plays its part here, too. Everything about it, and the hatred and devaluing in it.
That my son never lacked for anything. He saw having as his natural right. Not by his own efforts. By mine. To create need, for his, is just a signal for others, not himself, to provide. That is what M thinks.
But our children were not raised as we were, Copa, in a culture of scarcity. They had enough and more, and maybe, because they were so well-mothered in those ways, are generous and loving and kind as their go to positions, today.
They are more important than stuff. It isn't even a question for them.
We succeeded.
It must be very awful for them now, to find that we are telling them this has changed. We may be able to see this differently, now. We believed ourselves to have done something terribly wrong. What if the truth is that our children were so certain they were loved, and are so certain still that their worlds are safe places, that they risk in ways we find reprehensible.
I don't know what I am talking about again. I know this is an important piece. I am thinking about that mom whose son took his bike to California. He learned many things ~ it was Albatross. Remember Albatross? And her son was the same way our kids were and none of us could understand it or where we had gone wrong.
That fits here.
Could the answer be explaining this method of parenting to the kids once we get it fully ourselves? Could that be the answer to the abandonment they feel, and the guilt we feel.
We were right in believing in them, in requiring that they take charge of themselves and their lives. We were wrong in doing that in anger or frustration or fear. We were wrong in harboring guilt or anger that we project onto them or transference onto them. (I don't know my psychiatric terms well enough here, Copa. You will know.) Transference. That is the term I mean, but I am uncertain of the meaning.
I wish we'd been thinking this way sooner.
Transference.
Why we feel as we do.
The Sleeping Beauty kiss. The wonder of loving someone that much and coming alive through loving them ourselves. The rejection of losing them.
So the question we would be correct in asking them then would be: "What have you learned?"
"What have you learned about what matters, since we talked last?"
I wonder what it would sound like, if they were to tell us the stories of their lives.
Okay. So, I am fishing around in here. But I think there is something here for us that is an important piece of how to do this.
Of how to be wise.
I had a great humanity and empathy as a child. Now he is hard and mean. At least to me.
So is my son, Copa. What have we taught them, that this is their response. Where is that meanness coming from. I always attributed it to drug use. (Once I stopped believing that the relevant fact about his addiction was how it affected me. Oh, roar I wish I'd known how to think about these things then.)
We are better, now.
Whew I am glad we decided to do this.
One adopts the opposite of that in oneself one most fears.
I did not want to be my mother.
Cold sweat: I do not want to be that person with the blank eyes.
We need to identify it and to channel it cleanly and clearly and intentionally.
That is going to be harder than what we have done, already.
I like the strength in this way of seeing, Copa. I will stop feeling bad about looking ugly and begin honoring my strength.
Could this be going on with my son, who is a martyr? That attention, winning, producing got twisted and is only expressed through his defeat? How will he ever get over it?
No I don't think so, Copa. I think we have no frame of reference to understand our kids. We will heal ourselves more and then, we will see differently.
They were not raised like we were, Copa. They were well-loved, well-provided for. Where we would feel intense shame, they get mad at the other guy.
We are seeing our children and ourselves so differently already, Copa. We will continue to heal.
Then we will know more.
Maybe it can be enough for now to know that we don't know.
Yet.
M tried to help me out yesterday when the computer was broken. He said. My Goodness. The keyboard is full of food. I was only mildly ashamed. The rest of me was defiant. I love to defy him, in a childish and self-indulgent way. Just to be bad, bad, bad
My entitlement is manifested by going to bed. Eating there. Triumphantly. Wrecking the computer. And mocking anybody who dares to question me.
(Until I bought 2 Kayaks and I could not get in. I returned them.)
This is so funny, Copa. I would never have thought about how big the kayak opening would have to be either.
Copa, you could write such a funny book about this buying.
You are not the only one who does this. There is a lady in my Book Club who buys things on E Bay to the extent that at one meeting? Her teenage son said, right in front of everyone, that she was "Making the family broke buying dishes on E Bay.")
We all pretended we never heard that.
That was the same teenager who told his mother what Tea Bag meant.
So we liked him twice, though one time was in secret. We are Book Club ladies, not super-evolved, kindly ladies.
And though we never once discussed that occurrence among ourselves? Her home is very beautiful.
And so, we liked him twice.
I keep trying to deal with the fact that here I am finally wanting to "be everything I can be...all that I can be (the join the Army slogan)...and I am this old thing. Gray. Wrinkled. Fat. Old. In paid. Lagging. Lacking.
I cannot help Copa because I am feeling very awful about myself too, lately. Part of it is real. We are not beautiful in the way we were when we were young. But Copa
we did not think we were beautiful, in the sense of owning our beauty or sensuality when we were young, either.
So, there's that.
Here is what happened to me the other day. I went to the dermatologist because I have a history of skin cancer. A new one (dermatologist). And he said: "Blah, blah, blah
After the lift, then blah, blah, blah."
He meant face lift before I had anything else done for improving the skin to be healthy, like skin peels or scar revisions and etc.
How old must I look.
So he referred me to a plastic surgeon because he can do everything I need done. And then, we could do the rest of it.
Huh.
I must not be aging as gracefully as I thought. But I think I do not want a facelift.
I am going back to my old dermatologist. I am going to sneak back there and have a skin peel without a face lift. Though I am sure that dermatologist was probably recommending things in the most efficient way.
But still.
Plus I am sure face lifts are very expensive.
Whatever.
Anyway, that is what happened to me a little while ago.
Or...how fortunate.
What do I want? How do I know?
This is the most important question. The answer has to do with perfection, and with letting go of that because making ourselves into someone presentable to ourselves will never happen until we are happily who we are, already. That is the difference I see in those who are centered. They do not have a core of self-hatred driving them. Where we have that Copa, they have a sense of wondering curiosity. Like, a gentle probing feel to them, but without judgment or self protection or something. In that they are like children, open to their emotions ~ even sadness ~ and very much in the moment they are in.
I have actually seen people like that with my own eyes.
That is how we will feel, once we are done, maybe.
Once we are done cooking.
Or we incorporated only our own negatives. I am not sure which it is for me.
I think I could not have incorporated mine. They are making me very sick of myself these days. Well, that is not altogether true. At the same time, I am coming more real and permissive with myself, and happy at times with me.
Cedar
