The "Beloved One" Exits-Stage Left by munificent Blog entry

Blog: Cold Water Blog
by munificent

The "Beloved One" Exits-Stage Left

Sometimes our own life can be managable, even when it is not. But when the persons you love and gave birth to, are hurting and ungrounded in their own travails-Then it is heart rendering to be travailing oneself.

Date: 5/1/2005 4:58:21 PM ( 19 y ) ... viewed 2362 times

I am feeling such feelings for this child and myself, she is so beautiful on the outside, and so "second guessing" herself on the inside.

For brevity and to honor her process I will do a thumbnail on the "issue"...There are 3 Matt's in her life. Matt 1) ex-husband and still friend, whom she left for Matt 2-approx. 4 years ago. Matt 2) the Engaged One, but now broken up-this has been going on for 18 months back and forth. There are personality differences and she is looking for the Perfect One, and he may be out there-I'm not clear what part "tolerance of loved one's differences" plays in the "Mix". I know this child to have been good and caring, but I'm smelling a large streak of Perfectionism here. (I have been wrong before.) Matt 3)Babe Magnet, Fun, Triathlete, handsome, smart, malcontent, narcissist-and a metaphysical type which I like.

While I love Matt 2, and was really cheering for him and would have loved him as a son-in-law...it appears no- He is dating a pediatrician (-he's now dating a friend of the family and a pediatrician-she may be a minor God from the sound of my daughters insecurity) I do like Matt 3, but now he has a girlfriend too-My daughter, through her own decisions is the Odd Man out-And I listened to her second-guessing all her decisions and actions for the last few years. She is slightly hung over, and I do remember -nothing like a good hangover to make you feel unself assured, eh?

So now she begins to grieve the long lost self, and the relationship to self and others. Oh dear, It strikes in the very core of me-her pain, her indecision, her grief, her guilt, her reckoning. I know this song, I've sung it many times.

She was my baby, I used to hold her in my arms, rock her, tell her it will be Ok, yes, It Hurts. Yes, these were your decisions...But you will learn, you will get better, It will stop hurting- Oh dear, there are tears splashing off the keyboard.

I feel awful for her, I don't know how to help-she may actually have more chances if she could decide on who is who, and who and what she wants. She understands she has been lacking clarity-she understands that loved ones may not be perfect, oh I can feel the grief oozing out of her. I put my hand on her as I drive, I want to say something motherly, and wise-I am feeling her discomfort and her grief.

All I can do is touch her, she is blaming herself. Finally, I say "you must give it enough time to unfold this time". Almost a non-sequitur. There is nothing I can do for her. This one is her own. Some fabled DNA puzzle for the L-family Women?

I hug her at the airport curb, she sees my helplessness but wants my direction. Unfortunately for us both, those years are over now. I tell her what a wonderful woman she is, and that I know it will work itself out-give it time, don't start rearranging the players or circumstances just yet. She looks at me like this is the most basic of information, and waves to me-she is on her way...

I watch her back recede. I think of the first time she boards the school bus when she was 5, I think of the crazy pilgrim hat she wore home in first grade, I think of her insecurity at 11 feeling fat, before she grew 3 inches in one year...I think of the phone call I got from her in college the first time she had sex, I think I should be better at this, This person who grew in me, who I struggled for hours to give birth to, and breastfed for a year and a half, I cuddled and laughed with-this stranger, this person that hurts so much-where is the connection that could make this bearable-?

I can only murmur Oh's and ummmm's, and well, maybe's. I have no answers for me, how in the world can I have any for her? Oh, now the keyboard is really getting wet, I am not the rock that I was, she has to build her own "rock" for herself. And how I wish it was not so. I say "I love you!" this does not even dent her pain- she is a satellite spinning out in her own orbit-"Bye"

Goodbye my little girl, this beautiful woman, who is feeling insecure, this mother who doesn't know about her own life anymore. "Bye".

time for a good sob-

9th