Or the Start of a Letter I won't Send
Dear Elias,
I am late in writing your birthday letter. I keep putting it off because 12 is not easy, it comes with mood swings and hormones and upheaval and unrest-- and I find myself looking at you as a different kind of being than the little boy I once held to my breast.
Who is this child with hands larger than mine? This boy who can eat four salmon salad tacos for breakfast and still have room for salami and toast. Who says thank you without prompting one moment, and smacks me in the gut the next.
Elias, I write about you often, and lately my posts have been more brick than air. More hurricane, less rainbow.
And yet despite the weight and the wind, I won't stop loving you.
Not now. Not ever.
You should just send him away, someone essentially told me through Facebook. Stop feeling guilty and show some compassion for yourself and your daughter.
And oh, Elias, how her words worked their way under my skin, into my nerves, through my veins, and settled in the chambers of my heart, only to make me want you here in our home to the tenth degree times all the questions you have ever asked multiplied by the number of times I have said your name.
The morning after I read those words, you sat on the bench, brow furrowed, saying, 'I don't want to go to school today."
And I embraced your resistance with the patience of a thousand elephants, for I saw you not in the light of stormy weather, but as this miraculous almost teenage boy finding his way in a world that will never be easy.
And yet here you are, rising in the morning, all on your own, to start another day.
Even though its hard.
And I too shall rise.
Self-assigned parenting police are the worst! The pre-teen and teen years aren't easy under the best of circumstances. Hang in there! You're doing great!
Posted by: Catherine Colgan | 03/29/2016 at 04:59 AM
Hard to read, sad, patient loving, honest, beautiful!! God bless you all.
Posted by: Karyl Scrivener | 03/29/2016 at 07:57 AM
That idiot commenter can bite me.
Posted by: Kristen H | 03/29/2016 at 02:08 PM
I like that expression: "Self-assigned parenting police". Thank you!
Thanks all for your constant love and support and for understanding that this is a hard road.
Posted by: Christy | 03/29/2016 at 02:10 PM
Kristen, I just spit our me tea as I read your comment;)Love it!
Posted by: Christy | 03/29/2016 at 02:12 PM
I'm not talking as much about my Robbie lately (12 at the end of february, autism, severe end of the spectrum). Some of it is just too hard to write about. Some is my fear for the future. I sometimes wonder if we shall survive the years of puberty. I appreciate your words on this space. It's nice to know we're not alone.
Posted by: Tracy | 03/29/2016 at 08:06 PM
Christy, I'm glad you liked my comment, it was from the heart. But reading your response, I'm pretty sure you were drinking wine, not tea. That would be both fitting AND it would explain the "our me tea" bit. Hahaha ;)
Posted by: Kristen H | 03/29/2016 at 08:21 PM
None of it is easy but you handle it with an uncommon amount of grace and humility and humor and honesty and eloquence that keeps me coming back time and again and cheering every triumph and commiserating every setback. Just keep swimming, swimming swimming.
Posted by: Kate | 03/30/2016 at 03:27 PM
Kristen, you didn't know I was talking pirate:) it was actually tea, on my lunch break, since wine is frowned upon, but I obviously did not check my wording, not till later, when I was drinking a glass of wine and read your second comment. Cheers!
Tracy, not alone at all; I also fear the future and am struggling with puberty and all that it brings. Thank you for writing.
Kate thank you for your kind words I will continue to swim along.
Posted by: Christy | 04/01/2016 at 11:13 AM
Pirate!! Of course.
Posted by: Kristen H | 04/01/2016 at 02:56 PM