So three months has been spent mostly Being Available To My Children. I hope it was skillful gardening. The thing is, I'm not sure what the spring tasks are with regard to teenagers after a longish chilly season.
As near as I can tell, there is little immediate reward, and, lacking the satisfaction of knowing one is putting in the right kind of effort, one is left relying on ?good judgement cobbled together from similar tasks in different fields, or different tasks in the general field of contributing-to-adulthood. The advice of others is a little like that proffered on the first foray into parenthood - a well-intentioned conflicting tangle coming from a multiplicity of unexplored assumptions.
When to set boundaries? When to assert authority? When to (try to) force control? When to be glad for the good stuff and ignore the rest? When to stop and learn from them rather than insisting on what (it seems) must be right? When to offer unsolicited advice? Why isn't this easier? Everyone's questions.
"Before", we had a guarantee that a momentous unwanted event would, at some point, release the status quo of a demanding and severe situation.
"After", which is now, there is no culminating event. This is it. The loveliness, hassles, uncertainties, comfort, companionship, incompatibility, allowances, security, compromises, creativity, freedom and sweetness of Gerald&Lois are gone, not to be renewed. Along with a pile of tiny things that had become part of the fabric of a life - does unravelling now threaten?
Will it be this painful, on and off, for the next ?year, ?3years, ?10 years?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
{ Shouldn't that be "So three months has been spent mostly Being Available To The Youngsters"? } <-- More conflicting tangle, no doubt.
ReplyDeletethank you - you are expressing yourself so well it seems (you may or may not feel that, but it seems that way to me!
ReplyDeleteGod bless,
Richard
No and Yes to the last two questions (just a suggestion). What was knitted up so well will not unravel easily, and the knitting continues to a different pattern, with painful threads as well as delightful ones.
ReplyDeleteThreads
ReplyDeleteThere is a thread
Running between
The first and last
Breath that we breathe
And in this strand
Of flesh and bone
Reside the hopes
And dreams we call our own
And there's a hand
That sews the threads together
Around one strand
Of saving scarlet thread
Come as you are
Weary worn and tattered
Come and take
Your place among the threads
There is a thread
Sometimes unseen
Moving through life's tapestry
And when this strand
Enters a soul
It's woven to the One that makes us whole
And there's a hand
That sews the threads together
Around one strand
Of saving scarlet thread
Come as you are
Weary worn and tattered
Come and take your place
Among the threads
Come and take your place
Among the threads
- Lyrics by Geoff Moore, Steven Curtis Chapman, Toby McKeehan