Last week, my seventeen year-old son broke his toe in a game of frisbee. Suddenly he was home, on the couch, instead of at school or at work or out with friends; and he wanted my connection and support.
I treasured this gift of time with him, but I also resented it; and I’m not sure why.
…Maybe it’s because he already takes so much for granted, making any additional requests outlandish.
…Maybe it’s because the last time that I really needed him–when my husband and I were simultaneously struck down by the flu–he abandoned me, following days and nights of tenderly caring for him;
Both of these points are accurate, and miss the point. I know this because the body doesn’t lie.
And mine’s been screaming.
Up the right side of my rib cage.
So I show up.
Here.
On this blog.
And listen:
…I feel angry.
…I feel my father’s rage–with me–when I was my son’s age.
…We fought about bedtimes and laundry and who was the boss–but what we were really engaged in–is the excruciating shedding of roles.
I must be shedding now too. My skin has been itchy for weeks. Maybe ever since my son decided upon a college.
But I don’t focus on that. I narrow in on his increasing lack of respect, contribution, consideration and caring.
“If you weren’t my son, I’d break up with you,” I say.
“Why?” he asks, sounding concerned.
“Because I would never let another man treat me this way.”
“How do I treat you?” he asks, sounding hurt.
And then I realize,
…We aren’t living in the same world,
…Or speaking the same language,
…Or seeing the same things anymore.
This isn’t fair!
Fairness is where I always get stuck.
How is it fair that he sleeps here (all day), and eats here (some of the time) and relies on us and our provision in so many ways, but so easily dismisses what we need: like respect for our resources and time and patience by not using 6 towels in one week and leaving them scattered on his floor, wet, among candy wrappers and clothing and god knows what else, and then calls me from school to go look for something he left behind.
“Just don’t look in the bottom drawer, Mom.”
(I do.)
Ironically, he has chosen a college room-mate based on this characteristic: “I just can’t live with someone who is going to trash our place.”
(This makes me want to cackle and curse him with the sloppiest room-mate on Earth.)
Oh! And last month, when he took OUR car to Canada with his buddies, he cleaned it from top to bottom–BEFORE they left; and returned it… you know how.
And work? He gives them 150%.
And even with an injury, he can’t miss his game this afternoon to pick up his brother so that I can go to the doctors for this excruciating pain on my right side–the pain that won’t let me bend forward or backward or even turn side to side; even though we dropped everything to help him with his… toe.
I get it. I do. I know he’s transferring all of his good nature, his passion, his consideration–to the world outside of his family; but does he have to be so cliché?
I’ve parented out of the box these past years; can’t he grow up out of it too?
He just called.
He forgot his sneakers.
Could I drop them off on my way to the doctor’s appointment (the one that I had to arrange alternate coverage for) so that he doesn’t have to wear his hikers to “watch” his game?
…Seriously?
It does no good to point out the absurdity of his request. I am in a one-sided relationship. Only he isn’t a bundle of joy gazing lovingly into my eyes like the sun rises and sets on my face. Nope, I am the dark cloud obstructed his obliviously sunny sky. Unless he needs something. Then he pours it on. And I feel like a door mat.
(I leave the sneakers behind.)
But if I really listen to the pain in my ribcage, the one that makese it hard to breath, there’s something more…
…That evening, when he was home, in the living room, like he used to be, and he asked me to come over to the couch so that he could show me something on his computer; and I sighed, put down my work, and shimmied in beside him, something happened…
…As he hit play, my attention narrowed, not on the screen, but to…
…Our bodies
…Touching.
From shoulder to foot, I felt the heat of his body and mine; and in a flash, I remembered everything… the longing I felt for him to come into my life, the preciousness of his growth inside my belly, the tenderness with which I anticipated his newborn needs, the day-to-day companionship of our early years at home together.
I felt a stabbing pain in my third eye as I returned my attention to the computer in front of me where my 17 year-old was sharing a cover of one of our favorite songs, sung by a group of Norwegians (with bad haircuts):
I noticed that we raised our eyebrows at just the same time, and then grinned in the same moments, and then turned toward each other and nodded, just as the voice of the last vocalist swept it away.
I always thought of this song as epic, as biblical, as archetypal–between a man and love. But today, I hear a mother’s story. And I feel the excruciating finality of what has been a soul-consuming journey…
Maybe there’s a god above And all I ever learned from love Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it’s not a cry you can hear at night, It’s not somebody who’s seen the light It’s cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Motherhood is such holy work, and I fail, again and again, to keep the sacred front and center. I was good at holding onto him when he needed that, but I’m not sure how to let go; or at least how to do both at the same time…
But baby I’ve been here before I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch And love is not a victory march It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
What do I do when that little boy, who held my hand and talked to me about life: “Where do faces go when we die? Does the sun know everything?” “Can I marry you when I grow up?” reappears beside me, with thick hairy legs, and a voice deeper than his father’s…
Well your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to her kitchen chair And she broke your throne and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
This is labor, I think.
This is the ripping apart of two souls.
Just as it was at birth…
There was a time You let me know What’s real and going on below But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you? The holy dark was moving to And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
I remember the first time he moved in me, and how we became one, until he grew so large inside that he began to press under that same right rib, until it hurt so badly that I could hardly breath, and I wanted him gone, and when he was, I ached that he was no longer there, inside me…
Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this: The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I love you, Lloyd. I’m so sad you’re gone. I can’t believe you’re still here. I don’t know how to live without you. I don’t know how to live with you. I don’t know how to let you go and love you at the same time.
The first time I ever yelled at my son was at our back door on our way out to preschool. I was pregnant, feeling awful, and my steady supply of patience had suddenly evaporated. It was downhill after that. My bubble as a “perfect parent” popped, again and again, particularly once I became a mother of two boys.
That said, I had a strong skill set for parenting. I had been the oldest of eight and an elementary school teacher by profession. In fact, I had been my son’s preschool teacher for 2 years until he fired me: “Mom, would you leave like the other Mom’s do?”
When I left the preschool the following year, I was given the job of coordinating an ongoing parenting workshop in our district. I was an eager participant as well. I explained that I held so much personal power in the home that I wanted to be sure my boys came into their own. The majority of the others complained that their children never listened to them.
“All I do is yell,” confided one mother.
I’ll never forget that admission because her sadness touched me, and I also wondered about it. Why did she yell? Didn’t she bring her boys up to listen to her? It takes persistence, but it can be done; and it’s much more effective and empowering than yelling.
It would be ten years before I realized that I had become that mother. It didn’t happen over night. It crept up on me, like a slow, growing fungus. Frustration played a part, fatigue did too, as did the diminishing return of being a perfect parent.
My oldest was 10 when the fungus picked up its pace. It was time for violin practice, and he not only balked, but refused. When I insisted, with accentuated volume, he had the audacity to leave. He ran out the door and hid behind his rock pile. My husband encouraged me not to follow him.
But when he returned, there were fireworks. I’ll never forget coming face to face with my own powerlessness as we yelled at each other at the top of the stairs; or the desperate absurdity of my next move: “I’m going break all your toys,”I said.
There was a long pause while we absorbed my threat, followed the expansion of our mouths into a smile, and then laughter.
It was time for my role as Commander in Chief to change; and to tell the truth, looking back now, seven years later, as my son rounds out the last semester of high school, I did a pretty good job with the transition. We still like each other; and even though the fireworks have increased over time, they are more frequently followed by understanding and acceptance and even… affection.
Lately, this emerging adult confides that my personal power is intimidating. That even though I listen and consider and even change my mind at times, I have such a commanding manner, that even when I’m giving, I can be taking away.
I resent this. I want everyone to find their own power. I don’t want to diminish mine just to make them comfortable. I’ve worked hard to claim this power in my life; it’s what enabled me to transcend a great deal of pain and to create the beautiful fulfilling life I have now –which includes a positive relationship with my teenager.
It seems a shame to be giving up my voice just when I’m coming into it as a middle-aged woman with dramatic hormonal surges of clarity, but I listen and consider and begin to shape a plan; because that’s how much I love these men–not only my husband and my teenager–but his younger brother, who at 12 is still a sensitive soul who can’t bear these heated arguments.
I know that the last handful of years has taken its toll on my youngest; and that by the time his brother is off to college, he’ll begin his own adolescence. Perhaps this second act will be less intense, simply because it’s no longer a complete unknown. Maybe it will feel as easy as it did when he was born and we had already endured the initiation into parenting so that we spent much of the time coasting. Maybe we’ll be more relax more this time around with a teenager, knowing that we didn’t totally fuck up the first one.
But you never know. Things can be going on swimmingly, and then a tidal wave comes out of nowhere. Like the day before last. When my oldest and I went head to head at breakfast and I banged my fist on the table like I’d seen my father do. My younger son resigned himself to leaving the room, while my husband rebuked us, again and again.
Growing up in what could be a volatile home, my husband was afraid of anger, and rarely expressed it. He was also the middle child, the peace maker, and so his first-born wife was infuriated each time he stood the middle ground instead of rolling up his sleeves to tackle the intensity of parenting a teenager. “I’m raising a man!” I’d rant with all my mid-life fury, challenging him to tell me what he was after.
This is how the intensity built on Sunday so that what started out as a typical disagreement between two parents and their son mutated into ongoing fireworks between husband and wife; only I was the only one launching anything of color. By the time my husband truly engaged, at the tail end of a tiring day, he was fully loaded–with pain. The pain from a lifetime of witnessing volatility, the pain of fear and powerlessness, and the frustration of facing my angst and anger without expressing his own or without being able to communicate how toxic the build up was for him.
The result was–chilling and sobering and a wakeup call–for both of us. His–to more fully explore the pain he never felt or flushed; Mine–to realize the impact that my own volatility might have on my family.
I decide to go on a diet. A volume diet. A power diet. I will not relinquish my hard-earned voice, but I will cultivate it on the inside so that my sons and my husband might have more space to cultivate their own.
I check the calendar and discover that “lent” begins tomorrow. What a coincidence! (I’m not even Catholic.)
The Empty Nest Diary 