Stages of Letting Go

Oh, I suck at letting go. Only with God's help will I be able to. There sure are times when I want to ditch my 'journey' thinking and am hell bent on 'arriving' on this spiritual plane. And not only that, I want a seat sale for that ticket to arrival gate #7 that says I am a completed work. Finito. Done with learning. Sick of looking within and dealing with what is. I know, I know, not in my lifetime. My kids whisper, "Thank you God."

Tears today. My youngest son went to talk to a trusted family counsellor about how hard it was to juggle his girlfriend and mother at the same time. I trust this woman with my kids. She loved me long and hard until I learned to love myself too. She said the hard things in love over and over until I could hear them. She spoke her words in due season. I know she will tell my kids the truth about me and about them and about the situation. I am grateful for that. When I went to pick up my son I had a few minutes alone with her. She encouraged me to let go. I told her that this girlfriend of his was a mirror of myself at that age. I didn't mean that in any good way. She looked at me lovingly and said,"Maybe she will begin the healing much earlier than you did and you will have a part in that." Instant tears flowed down my face. Snotty faced tears from hearing hard things, said in love. I had wanted to hear that yes, this girl was bad news for my son and he should flee from her. I wanted my way. My will be done. But the tears flowed because I know in my heart that what she said has a ring of truth to it. I wasn't a finished work at 14 and neither is this girl. I am not God. I do not know the whole story. I don't see the whole picture. I muster the courage through my tears to whisper, "Thank you God."

When my son started dating this girl the words of my mother came back to me from the late 1970's. Words I had not thought of for almost 30 years. My older brother phoned home to tell my folks that he was getting married. My mom's reaction when she got off the phone? "He could've done so much better for himself." Ouch, how ugly. It was her own mother-in-law's reaction to my mom and dad's engagement years ago and now history was repeating itself. I was aghast when those kind of thoughts went through my own head and this is with a girlfriend, never mind a wife-to-be. I need to bring these thoughts into the light before a wedding is ever on the horizon. I step over the shame of my thoughts before I can whisper, "Thank you God."

I realized today that once again I am at a stage in parenting that feels like the cut off point is instantaneous. One day they need diapers and bottles and one day they don't. I just never knew that this kind of starting and stopping was one long continuum. And now I am at the stage where one day I was the most important woman in my son's life and "poof", that stage is gone. No warning. And there is a part of me that says I should be whispering "Thank you God" but I'm just not there yet.