Happy, that my ten year old returns to school to further challenge his intellect. It has been a lonely summer for him without a vacation. So a vacation without a vacation is a "stay-cation" and a prison term for a ten year old boy.
Yes, there were a few events to look forward to this summer. Events such as numerous family birthdays and movies and BBQs with friends. Sadly they were all at home and with very few little kids his age. As his Mom I fought the urge to let him wile away the hours playing video games or watching television till an hour melted into four hours upon my return from work. His older sisters were all too happy to let him melt into the "boob-tube" to keep him from being that ever annoying little brother with countless memorized knock-knock jokes and asking questions he already know the answers for. We have watched movies together and tried to maintain some sense of politeness when he becomes "Captain Obvious" announcing every written word or stating the obvious in each and every scene change. There isn't much I can do to protect each and every nerve left by the end of the summer from his annoying boy like habits of picking his nose, grabbing his penis when he is nervous or twirling his already short hair.
It has been a seriously challenging summer for all of us, not just the infamous irritating ten year old boy. I spent the end of June telling and retelling myself that I could actually "do this" private practice and writing thing. There were so many times people would question me as to why I was insistent about leaving teaching in deaf education. I was burnt out and stunned by the shrinking pay, respect and support each of us teachers had endured over the past fifteen years. I knew I had a superstar inside me my whole life and that some magic needed to come out and it wasn't going to be in the walls of a special education classroom. Sadly my love for the students and the deep seeded compassion for their life has left me melancholy about not being able to be with them in their school year to celebrate their accomplishments or see their souls emerge each year a bit more valiant and revealed in their own personal journeys.
I gladly welcomed home my middle daughter from her first year away from home at college. Dorm life was a challenge for her coming from a family such as ours. She struggled from being away from home and yet struggled with being a part of a new community. She realized how much she was loved and missed by her boyfriend and her family at the end of the school year. She also realized how much she appreciated home and her family, even if they were nutty most of the time. I also watch her get her first job and feel the mantle of her choices in adulthood when she was tired and didn't want to go to work after already completing a long shift the day before. I relished the idea that her feet and lower back ached when she finished her first few days working as a hostess in the local IHOP. I appreciated her joy when she got her first paycheck for all of her hard work, and yet was told she could pay me back all of the IOUs on her next few paychecks. Her facial expression was priceless at that moment frozen in my memory forever. Smart, beautiful, full of integrity and authentic transparency.
I watched my youngest daughter graduate from high school with her freshman year of college already under her belt. I watch and cried as I realized how proud I was to see her feminine power and her authentic identity shine. I realized how truly powerful she was in her own beauty and in her own skin. Unapologetic in her world and generation for what she wanted or what she didn't know she wanted as she walked across the graduation stage to participate in the last rite of her public education. I believe she is such a powerful not to be reckoned with that she can barely see the magnitude of her own spirit and intelligence. I see in her so many beautiful and powerful things that she will take the world by ear in the next few years.
I sat on the couch across from my ex husband and received the first ever, deeply authentic remorseful apology I had ever encountered in my life. It was as if he had now been relieved of his mantle to his girls and had realized how harshly he had judged my road and our trials with the impact of his choices. I had relived all the sadness, joys and trials on that couch in a thirty minute time span that evening after our youngest daughter's graduation. That was so deeply healing and such great closure.
This summer I watched as my oldest daughter get married. I cried at the misogyny of the event and at the beautiful young woman she had evolved into. I worried and cried over her keeping her voice and not loosing her passion to be an independent woman in this world. I was horrified to see how people had judged me and our family at her wedding because we had no longer belonged to the same church as her in-laws. It all felt like such a head spinning nightmare for me to be reminded of how it felt to be once again "not good enough" after I had worked for the past eight years to undo that terrible inner script and feel powerful and more than enough. It was terrifying to see how easily the shoe slid back on and I had to remember that it was a bad shoe to wear and that it would never allow me to stand in my own power.
The day after the wedding was the hardest of the year. I drove home alone with an empty car from the wedding in Sacramento California back to Seattle, Washington on my 50th birthday. I was angry, hurt, sad and confused at life. I cried for what felt like the entire eleven hours straight. Actually I sincerely believe that I had been crying for the past days, including the days prior to the wedding. This all seemed so empty, so deeply wrong. Why turn fifty and have lost sight of my joy or perhaps felt I never had any joy, or even worse that I didn't recognize my joy? I had to maintain my poker face upon my return home to the kids. I was greatly relieved to see all had survived without my supervision and had done a great job at keeping the house in order and their brother out of the dog house. There was comfort in my typical chaos of home. There was a place a familiar disdain as I crossed into the city boundaries. I knew even if it wasn't perfect it was familiar. Familiarity is a great fishing spot. My dear friend, Teri, would always remind me that fishing is good in a predictable place, she would say "Go where the fishing is easy!". There isn't an easy way to break free. This is the terror barrier that AmyJo Goddard speaks of in her work SPECTRA. Familiarity breeds discontent.
I realized how patriarchal my life had been and deeply ruled by the power given away to men in our society. I realized how much it was important for me to see this imbalance. Could there have been a greater shift in my consciousness than that at such an auspicious time. Here I was in my prime and power and realized I have been programmed to give that power away and to accept not having control of it in a very deep rich sense. As if someone had subliminally convinced or hypnotized me to giving over the keys to this luscious Maserati of my body and soul. With no privilege or say in its use and misuse.
I can see how the years of work in a career driven by male authority figures seemed so mysterious to me. How could I ever have validation and appreciation from them? Years of living a life without compliments from men in my life that didn't treated me as an equal. I often wondered how it was that I should actually be able to ever feel good about who I was, or feel good about what my skills and talents could produce. It wasn't until I was forty years old that my own father told me he was proud of me. It was a moment that knocked me to my knees. It was a moment that he struggled to articulate how in awe he was at my personal power, tenacity and strength and vulnerability. I cried for days and still tear up while typing now. These are life changers no doubt. These are the moments that I will hold on to. I will mourn them and celebrate them in their gifts. The gifts of release, the gift of accepting humanity and understanding society. I am now gifted with the ability to move on and "Let it go!" for my highest good!
It is easier to say than do and thus makes my next biggest trick...Letting go of the ties that bind me to my old life and beliefs! Allowing for space to grow and release the scripts that run a muck in my scattered mind of self doubt and confidence. This is the great challenge in this season of change!
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