Ah, the joys of living with people. Reality, right? Right now, there is cat puke by the door to my balcony. It’s my son’s cat who puked, so my son said he would clean it up. That was hours ago, but right now my son is sleeping. When my son was awake earlier, I overheard him having some profound discussion with someone online about the nature of time and a world of four dimensions. But the cat puke remains.
My other son is also in his room sleeping. He is sleeping off his latest methamphetamine binge, but at least he is not bugging me for money, and at least he took his medication.
As is frequent for me on days like this, I wonder how we got here. I try to imagine my friends living this way, and I doubt that they would. My oldest son, the relatively sane one, once told me, “Mom, when I was living at your sister’s, they disciplined their children.” Message implied, “Mom, you didn’t do enough of that.” My son’s words struck me right in the gut, my two worst pain points, being a failed mother, and my sister being better than me.
I have never been good at disciplining my children. There are reasons for that, good reasons, I suppose. For one, when they were little, it took everything I had just to survive, and usually, I was barely succeeding. Trying to raise three hyperactive sons under the worst of conditions – a single mother, working full-time, surviving a disastrous divorce and experiencing poverty. Often, my children didn’t get what they needed from me.
But besides those obvious reasons, one of the reasons I have never disciplined my children well is this is just not part of my personality. One might say this is a reaction to the strict way I was raised, but however it ended up, being a drill sergeant, and that’s sometimes what they need, is just not part of my make up, and I am sure it never will be.
So today, even though my sons are grown, even though neither has a job or even any prospects of a job right now, I did their laundry, and I did the dishes and I fed the cats, and will likely clean up the cat puke eventually. Maybe it isn’t the socially acceptable thing to do, and maybe it’s not like my sister, but then again, maybe it makes up for what they needed when they were younger that I was not able to give. I half-harbor the notion that if I do this for them for a little while to make up for the past, my sons will eventually learn how to do things differently. In reality, I think that’s unlikely. It’s more like wishing.
This reminds of an old friend of mine and something he used to say. He said, “If a frog had wings, he’d be a little green bird, and he wouldn’t have to go around bumping his butt on the ground.” I didn’t understand that for a long time, but now I think it is about wishing for something that will never be. “If only this…” or “Maybe that…”
The reality is that both my sons have significant mental illness. It’s not so apparently crippling as a physical handicap, that’s why it’s sometimes hard to see when they are doing fine. While I am thinking about all the things they could be doing, all the things maybe they should be doing, all the things that maybe I should be making them do, at the same time, they are reasonably sane. More importantly, they are safe. At least one thing I know when they are with me, at least right now, my sons are safe, and they feel safe, which is critical for mental health.
One could make the argument that baby birds sometimes need to be forced out of the nest to learn how to fly. I’ve often thought that, and I’ve also acted on that. But in my case, with my sons, sometimes that has led to catastrophic disasters. Sometimes, maybe when baby birds get kicked out of the nest, maybe it’s fatal.
My children are never going to have wings, and neither am I. It seems we will just keep going on like the frog, bumping our butts on the ground.
But one thing I also know - that frog never spends even one minute of his time, ever, wishing for wings.
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