Stop And Stare

(I began but did not finish this on 05/31/14.  Much, much has changed but it's going to take me at least as long to record that bit of history.)


I made all these notes on a page yesterday that were supposed to become this.

This post, this explanation, this clearing-house.

I'm here now and can only hear

Stop And Stare, OneRepublic

A post is missing.  I've been supposed to (by my own instruction) write one that's somewhat about being the mother of an addict.  It wouldn't be a novel post, no world-changing words.  I'm just swinging on that hinge between my recovery and my daughter's descent and needing some place to go with it.  Maybe I'll get to write that out.  Maybe it'll stay here with me.

All of it's so heavy and feeling so necessary to disclose but there's always, always that "other people's business" thing.  That's been a big part of the battle ~ to say or not to say.

But this is my business too.  This is my life and I've settled on saying, 1) because I know there are others in similar circumstances; and, 2) this stuff has to go somewhere.  So who's the lucky reader?!

I am raising my kid's kid*.  I've had him for a few months now, but after a very long and stressful year of fighting it - of trying to force an alternative.  [(That's code for trying to make my kid straighten up and fly right.)  (I do not have the power to make my kid do anything.  We can talk about that whole paradigm later on.)]

You know, I'm not really old by most standards.  Women my age are having their own babies so this should not intimidate me ... not as far as ability, endurance, skill, etc.  In many ways, I should expect to be better at parenting this time around.  But I catch myself wondering, "Do I really think I can do this again?!  Raise a kid from scratch again?" and a little "#*!! no!" crosses my mind.  But that's really just a joke I tell myself.

To note, big and bold, I am not doing this by myself, of course.  My husband ... I can't even go there right now.  Can the compassionate people just imagine what this kind of thing does to a marriage?  We are solid but also being tested daily.

There are places to go for encouragement.  I have my man, as stated, and very good friends who are supportive and patient with me as I'm an even lesser friend than before.  Meditation and prayer, communion with Jesus ... this should go without saying, but, as many of you know, having a toddler impacts EveryThing.

Everything.

I still have favorite bloggers.  (They say that blogging is already dying out but I refuse to accept that.)  There are women my age who are writing ~ about watching their kids graduate from high school, a normal expectation, I think, for someone my age.  There are women who are writing as they have kids the age of my grandson ~ but they, themselves, are half my age.  I am inspired by their stories:  "I played Uno with my daughter."  "I cleared the stack of books from the dining room table."  But I am not really rising up as I'd hoped.

Instead, I just post a lot of pictures.  And those prompt friends to ask things like,

"Does that boy even have a shirt?!"
"Could it be that he eats too many crackers?"
"Do you always have a camera ready?"

(And y'all, please never stop asking these kinds of questions!)

There are other things I could or should be doing besides posting pictures.  I'd like to be writing.  Or reading.  Or making better on my commitments.  But again, everything has changed.

Picture-posting is just about my only viable creative outlet.  And there, my thousand words can usually be found.

Yes, the boy eats too many crackers.  Too many everything.  Honey calls me on it though he really doesn't need to.

Yes, he has shirts.  And it's turned out that dressing a boy is not so durn awful as I thought it might be.

But Lord, he is a boy and that's a whole other thing.