I'm waiting for Lily to wake up
so we can begin our day's adventure. She's not one to sleep the day away like
her brother, but this is her first week with true summer freedom since summer
began. I want her to enjoy it although I'm not exactly sure whether
she'll be happy or grumpy when she wakes only to realize I've let her sleep half the morning away. Teddy's not here. In true teenager
fashion, he came home from spending all day at an amusement park yesterday with one friend only long enough to pack a bag to spend the night at another friend's. I asked
for a hug. He pulled the "sweaty" card. I took the hug in spite of
the perspiration. He's almost sixteen so I'm aware this is all natural and
healthy, yet I cannot help but fast forward to that time when he's not even
passing through anymore gathering things for his next stop.
******************************************************
I came home from work yesterday
spent. I woke up at 2:45 and worried until it was time to get up. This doesn't
happen to me often, but when it does, it's usually a Sunday night. I intended
to take a nap so I put on some mindless television and then got sucked into an old
episode of Teen Mom...the
one where the adorable couple (who remind me so much of me and my high school
swetheart) decide to give their baby girl up for adoption. I sobbed. I was wrecked
for them and for all parents. We all have to give up our children at some
point though. Kahlil Gibran was right in On Children:
"Your children are not your
children.
They are the sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not
from you.
And though they are with you, yet
they belong not to you."
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Yet children always need their
parents. I still need my mom. There's something I want to tell or ask her every
single day and I'm going on 47 here. We're never too old for their comfort,
wisdom or support despite the fact we travel through know it all and do
it all phases.
I'm uncomfortably in the phase where I realize how little I know and
how much I need. I only expect to know less and need more from here on out. Yet
there's a certain freedom in accepting one's faults, flaws and shortcomings.
There is peace in knowing and loving oneself as is. It's called humility, grace
and also maturity.
******************************************************
How many times have we heard it
said that we cannot love another deeply and truly until we love ourselves? I
believe it. We cannot give that we do not possess, and yet even in dark periods
of self-deprecation or loathing I still love my children unconditionally
because they are me despite all the wisdom in Gibran's words.
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