"To the immature, other people are not real."
I guess I am immature then. Sometimes. My 14 year old son told me a story today. When he was five I got mad at him for something. He went (or was most likely sent) to his room. He was so mad he threw the teddy bear I gave him across the room because in his mind he just didn't want it anymore. In fact, he didn't want anything I had given him anymore. So, he looked for more to throw. Then, realizing there wasn't anything else in the room that I had given him (you know, besides the bed, blankets, clothes, toys, books, and pictures) he stood in the middle of his room, looked up at the ceiling, and wailed. Me? I was clueless. Clueless to the thoughts of a 5 year old boy.
I can't even imagine how clueless I have been over the years. If I stop and think about it I feel very....inadequate. How many times have I stomped right over a child's feelings? Too many to count I am sure. Stomp stomp stomp. Hush up kid, stop that cryin'.
Then my thoughts turn to friends and family and neighbors. My life is very real to me. My concerns and worries and exhaustion. I care for others. We all do. But there is this gap between caring and loving others as myself.
Over the years I had a real problem with that commandment. Love others as you love yourself. Huh. Love myself? Do I? I spend most of my time hating myself. At least I used to. Not pretty enough, not stylish enough, not funny enough, not talented enough....that list is endless. I have grown out of that. Thank goodness.
I am not sending myself a dozen roses too often, but I can see that as real as my life is, Mrs. So and So's life is just as real. She is real. So is that kid over there. That kid thinks about stuff. He is only 5 years old, but he is real. He will remember. He will tell me someday. 'Mom, I was trying to find something to throw that you gave me because I didn't want anything of yours anymore.'
'Son, I was trying to make it through another day with 3 babies in diapers and no sleep.'
And he will understand. Because I will drop that line when he is 35 with 6 small children. And then, finally, I will be real.
9 comments:
Misty,
Thanks for such a great post. I see so much of my self in it and the the thoughts I have been having lately. Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone and that someday I will be 'real' too.
You know, there are so many times I have thought back on my past and wondered how my mother could not have known how hurt or upset or lost I was.......and now as a mom......I think she did a pretty dang good job!
Great post Misty!
How did you get those thoughts out of my mind, organized, and written so well? Thank you.
Wow - that picture of the kids. it's like how in anime and manga, sometimes they do the cheebe forms of grown up characters - the baby forms, smaller, rounder, more wide-eyed. I could tell immediately which was which, but it was like their real selves hadn't emerged yet. I think we are like that, too - young girls who become mothers, then become transparent - more of a force of nature to those they live with than a fellow traveller. Then as they grow, we start to become visible. But my mom - through my self-centered eyes - didn't become real till I did a book of all her childhood pictures. And really not until I had lost her to that nursing home, a place where I cannot follow her to ask the questions that might help me fill in her selfless outlines -
Poignant and so very true. I get nervous when my kids tell stories of things I did that they remember and I don't.
I wonder if they have any idea that at times I forced myself to do hard things because I didn't want my kids to say 'mom never...' when they grew up.
Oh Kathy! Truer words were never spoken! Hence the climbing of the "Y". :) And a gazillion other things that we do each and everyday that about put us on our death bed......
just having them was hard enough...we have to go and try to be great moms on top of it...sigh....problem is...the boys will never know....
I am told.......we'll see if this is really true.....that they won't get it until they have daughters of their own and their daughters marry and have children....and then......they finally get it.....
long wait. as long as it eventually happens...good enough!!! sounds about right! thank you for the ray of hope rachel!
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