mine
First week of school for the boy and he loves it, but it makes him very tired. And tired, for him, always means easily upset. Tonight he has already cried at me three times...
1. "Tonight I think I am just going to try and stay up all night" his solution to his new worry over not knowing you are sleeping while you are sleeping. It sounds funny, I know, but it is actually very wearing to be explaining sleep and why we don't know we are sleeping to a child, every night.
2. Totally out of the blue, he's got tears in his eyes and his voice is shaking, "Mommy is it high school or college that you have to sleep there?" And I explain there are both kinds, and again with the tears he says, "Because I want to be able to see you at least a little bit every day." No one, I mean no one, will ever love you this much again ever. And here's a secret, when you start thinking your mom is a little crazy, remember this, you'd be a little crazy too if the biggest most amazing, life changing, love, the kind that fills you up every day and makes life mean something, is ripped away from you as your child goes off and doesn't need you anymore, and doesn't call, or write, or come home for dinner...
3. "Mommy will I have to walk home from college?" "No you could even drive home from college, you'll be old enough by then". That starts him crying again, "But mommy I'll hit something.
The for real problem is that he's got these interests and thoughts and questions of a much older child, but still has the rationality of a six year old. I mean his plan is to stay up all night because he doesn't like that you don't know you are sleeping when you are sleeping. I don't know how to get across how intensely worried this makes him. And that is very deep thinking for a child. And that he has the ability to explain it, and the desire to explain it, and the belief that somehow I can help him fix it. It is so pure and so beautiful and so loving. And he is mine and I am his, and I want to be everything for him, I do even as he drifts away, and I let him, I have to. Because he has to know I can't fix everything and he has to learn to soothe himself and figure things out himself. And he needs to, just like I did. And I see in him things I saw in myself as a child. But I just never knew how to say them. I thought them, just never spoke them. You could say I didn't trust people with my emotions. Although why that would be the case I cannot say. But that feels like the right answer, looking back on my life. I think I have lived my life having to overcome that idea.
And I use to have issues with sleep, nightmares for many years, night terrors that I don't remember but have been told I had as a youngster, fears of sleeping alone. I know I was afraid of being the last one awake, afraid that someone would break into the house and I would be the only one to know. That I wouldn't know what to do.
Huh, I just realized that ties into me always having to know what to do in any given situation. Like just randomly imagining some terrible situation and having to work out the details of what exactly I would do. I have been doing that since at least high school. I remember walking home from the school bus stop knowing no one else was home, and imagining someone broke into our house and killed our pets. But it was all about, thinking about it and being prepared and having a plan. I never actually believed it was going to be true when I got home. I never acted any differently, I just went inside as usual.
When I use to be a counselor a client told me once, "I almost told myself the truth." And they meant it, like there was something they could almost touch on, almost reach, something just below their surface almost coming to them.
I almost told myself the truth.
Something about that speaks to me.
I always try to tell myself the truth. But sometimes, sometimes I almost tell myself the truth, maybe on purpose. Because the whole truth, sometimes we don't want to admit to that. The whole truth is not always as nice and pretty as we want it to be. Sometimes the whole truth is cold, dark, and bitter. Sometimes it is lonely and sad. Sometimes it threatens to rip you to pieces. Or maybe that's just me.
Those dark types of thoughts, I know, sometimes they are just me. And sometimes I forget that a lot of the people in my life at the moment, don't know that side of me. And sometimes I talk about having some crazy end of the world, being shot, run for your life dream, and then I get asked if I've ever talked to someone about those dreams, meaning a therapist. And while that person meant well, has my best interests at heart. It made me realize some things. Can't we learn how to cope with out own craziness? Isn't it possible? Have we come so far that every bad dream needs to be worked through. I don't know I mean I play well with others, I know how to deal with my own anxieties, for the most part anyway. Shouldn't the question be, how do you deal with that? Not is there some professional person who helps you with such a thing?
It also made me remember that my crazy thoughts, crazy dreams, that part of me, makes people really uncomfortable. And in this moment I wonder, is that why I stopped talking, stopped sharing my feelings my thoughts with others? I definitely knew at some point early on that I was different, that my dreams were different, my interests were different from other people. And could it be some of their reactions, intentional or not, brought me to just keep not just it, but everything to myself?
I guess I will never know. And that's okay.
Time to put the boy to bed.
1. "Tonight I think I am just going to try and stay up all night" his solution to his new worry over not knowing you are sleeping while you are sleeping. It sounds funny, I know, but it is actually very wearing to be explaining sleep and why we don't know we are sleeping to a child, every night.
2. Totally out of the blue, he's got tears in his eyes and his voice is shaking, "Mommy is it high school or college that you have to sleep there?" And I explain there are both kinds, and again with the tears he says, "Because I want to be able to see you at least a little bit every day." No one, I mean no one, will ever love you this much again ever. And here's a secret, when you start thinking your mom is a little crazy, remember this, you'd be a little crazy too if the biggest most amazing, life changing, love, the kind that fills you up every day and makes life mean something, is ripped away from you as your child goes off and doesn't need you anymore, and doesn't call, or write, or come home for dinner...
3. "Mommy will I have to walk home from college?" "No you could even drive home from college, you'll be old enough by then". That starts him crying again, "But mommy I'll hit something.
The for real problem is that he's got these interests and thoughts and questions of a much older child, but still has the rationality of a six year old. I mean his plan is to stay up all night because he doesn't like that you don't know you are sleeping when you are sleeping. I don't know how to get across how intensely worried this makes him. And that is very deep thinking for a child. And that he has the ability to explain it, and the desire to explain it, and the belief that somehow I can help him fix it. It is so pure and so beautiful and so loving. And he is mine and I am his, and I want to be everything for him, I do even as he drifts away, and I let him, I have to. Because he has to know I can't fix everything and he has to learn to soothe himself and figure things out himself. And he needs to, just like I did. And I see in him things I saw in myself as a child. But I just never knew how to say them. I thought them, just never spoke them. You could say I didn't trust people with my emotions. Although why that would be the case I cannot say. But that feels like the right answer, looking back on my life. I think I have lived my life having to overcome that idea.
And I use to have issues with sleep, nightmares for many years, night terrors that I don't remember but have been told I had as a youngster, fears of sleeping alone. I know I was afraid of being the last one awake, afraid that someone would break into the house and I would be the only one to know. That I wouldn't know what to do.
Huh, I just realized that ties into me always having to know what to do in any given situation. Like just randomly imagining some terrible situation and having to work out the details of what exactly I would do. I have been doing that since at least high school. I remember walking home from the school bus stop knowing no one else was home, and imagining someone broke into our house and killed our pets. But it was all about, thinking about it and being prepared and having a plan. I never actually believed it was going to be true when I got home. I never acted any differently, I just went inside as usual.
When I use to be a counselor a client told me once, "I almost told myself the truth." And they meant it, like there was something they could almost touch on, almost reach, something just below their surface almost coming to them.
I almost told myself the truth.
Something about that speaks to me.
I always try to tell myself the truth. But sometimes, sometimes I almost tell myself the truth, maybe on purpose. Because the whole truth, sometimes we don't want to admit to that. The whole truth is not always as nice and pretty as we want it to be. Sometimes the whole truth is cold, dark, and bitter. Sometimes it is lonely and sad. Sometimes it threatens to rip you to pieces. Or maybe that's just me.
Those dark types of thoughts, I know, sometimes they are just me. And sometimes I forget that a lot of the people in my life at the moment, don't know that side of me. And sometimes I talk about having some crazy end of the world, being shot, run for your life dream, and then I get asked if I've ever talked to someone about those dreams, meaning a therapist. And while that person meant well, has my best interests at heart. It made me realize some things. Can't we learn how to cope with out own craziness? Isn't it possible? Have we come so far that every bad dream needs to be worked through. I don't know I mean I play well with others, I know how to deal with my own anxieties, for the most part anyway. Shouldn't the question be, how do you deal with that? Not is there some professional person who helps you with such a thing?
It also made me remember that my crazy thoughts, crazy dreams, that part of me, makes people really uncomfortable. And in this moment I wonder, is that why I stopped talking, stopped sharing my feelings my thoughts with others? I definitely knew at some point early on that I was different, that my dreams were different, my interests were different from other people. And could it be some of their reactions, intentional or not, brought me to just keep not just it, but everything to myself?
I guess I will never know. And that's okay.
Time to put the boy to bed.