It’s One O’clock am, And What Am I Doing Here?

I cannot sleep.  It might have something to do with the wind, which is howling outside my bedroom window.  It may be because I have my window full on open, so I can hear the wind howl.  I love windstorms – ever since I can remember I have loved them.  Thunder and lightning as well, though we don’t get that so much in the part of the country I am in nowadays…

Why am I so wide awake?  Is it because this evening I poured over some of my old journals, and they took me back? Back to both good places, and not so good places.  They made me realize just how far I’ve come these past few years…and that made me feel proud.

It might also be because lately, I’m finding that I feel more intensely than I ever have before.  This morning, as I sat in a restaurant for breakfast, at the table next to me there was a 3 year old girl crying.  At one point her father told her that she’d better stop crying or he’d take her out to the truck and leave her there while he and her mother finished their breakfast.  My heart felt as if someone had stuck a knife in it, and I grieved for that tiny child.  In my heart I cried out to that father…please….please don’t say things like that!

And later in the day, as I stood in line in a grocery store I watched as a young woman turned a tiny boy (maybe two years old?)  over to a young man…..a separated couple, perhaps?  Maybe Dad getting custody of his son for the weekend?  Just speculating, but that little boy was upset.  He did not want to leave that woman, and he clearly did not want to go with that man.  His sobs got the attention of many of us standing in those grocery lines…and I found myself praying for that tiny boy, asking God to wrap arms around him and calm him…asking that the man this boy was going with would not become angry with his cries…

Somehow I can’t stop thinking about those two children that passed through my life  today. And thinking, too, of my own two year old grandson, who is loved beyond words.  Children are so incredibly precious.  They arrive here on earth so innocently, asking  little, yet teaching us so, so much!   And sadly, still, even in this day and age of awareness,  too many  come into this life and are robbed of the love they deserve.

Children are a gift from God.  I believe that, with all my heart.  And it is for us as adults to cherish them, to honor them, and to handle them as carefully as we would handle precious jewels…because that’s exactly what they are…..precious jewels.

In my prayers recently,I have been asking God to help me see the world through His/Her eyes.  Is this the reason for my intense feelings of late?  Today, those two sad children made my heart hurt.  

Is that how God feels when we are sad?

On Motherhood, and Letting Go…

How does a mother let go?  I’m sure I do not know, maybe I will never know.  I try.  I try not to be possessive.  I try to respect boundaries.  I try to let them live their own lives as much as I can.  But it seems I still do too much….just in asking how they’re doing and if they are happy and have everything they need.  It seems even doing that brings annoyance.  So, I give up.

I will try to remember when I was their age.  Maybe that will help.  When I was in my early twenties, I moved about two hours away from home.  It was not easy for me at first…but I came to love it.  I thrived, actually, during those few years.  And guess what?  I never phoned home, either.  I mean, rarely.  I was living my life, and I was having fun doing it.  I didn’t need to keep in touch.  Let’s tell the truth….I didn’t want to keep in touch!  I had my own life and I was living it, with no one to judge me or tell me what I was doing wrong. My family was out of sight and out of mind, soooo…

Now the tables have turned, and I have a very independent child who moved far away and sees no need to stay in touch.  Who gets very annoyed, in fact, by my (maybe overly?) motherly concerns.   Funny, yes?  The tables are turned.  And it causes me anxiety…

Thing is, it most probably is more about me than about them.  Isn’t it always, after all?  As some of you know, I am trying to heal from deep abandonment issues that rise up way too often for my liking.  But, that’s not my child’s problem, is it?  That is something that I need to learn how to deal with..it’s not really fair to put my stuff on them…

Sometimes mothers will say...just wait till you have kids..you’ll understand.  Well, now I do.  I realize, now, what my mother must have gone through, waiting to hear from me, wondering, always wondering…is she ok?  Does she have enough to eat?  Is she happy?  Does she have enough money?  And so on….

So, my child, I don’t know if you read my blog at all, but if you do, there’s only one thing I can say….just wait till you have kids….then you’ll understand….