I have vaguely alluded to the fact that I've had a bad run of luck recently, and not to make light of that, but come on, if you can't laugh at yourself, who CAN you laugh at?
Recently I learned that maybe I wasn't the world's best wife, mother, OR employee. Color me SHOCKED. I thought I absolutely killed all three roles. Turns out I killed them, all right. Just maybe not in the way I defined "killed."
As I enter this rebuilding phase as a parent and as a worker, I take two things from my experience.
First of all, if I'm blamed for being sub-par, part of me feels an intense desire to rebel and become just as irresponsible as I'm accused of being. If people don't believe in me, what's the point of being good?
Secondly, well, wait. I guess it's just the "first of all" part that's tugging at me today.
I am a big proponent of making your own happiness and reaching for and achieving your dreams. If something that once caused you happiness is now causing you great despair, why would you continue to make yourself miserable by marinating in that negativity?
On the other hand, there is something to be said for responsibility. For fixing what's broken and knowing that you did a job and did it well. For sticking with something even though the last thing it feels like is fun.
How do you strike that balance? How do you maintain responsibility and still have fun?
Seriously, I'm asking. Because, personally? I don't know the answer anymore.
As a parent, I'm determined to do the right thing. As a worker, my tenacity/stubbornness is keeping me from walking away. I can do this. I will do this.
But sometimes I get tired. Sometimes I couldn't give less of a shit about any of it, because I just want to relax. I just want to have fun. I just want to enjoy my life.
Working seven days a week and worrying every bit of those seven days is not fun.
The other day my son told me he just wanted to be an adult. My heart broke for him. I remembered that feeling so well when he voiced it. I thought things would be great. I thought I would have all this freedom. I thought that my life would be like a solid roller coaster of fun and sophistication.
What a child yearning to be an adult doesn't think about, because how can you know that feeling, really, until you experience it?, is that, bills. Responsibility. Work (often boring work). Aging. More worry than you know what to do with. Sleepless nights. Deadlines. Being in charge of another person.
The fun parts? Not being grounded. Going somewhere without having to ask permission first. Not being too young to do something.
Actually, being married often means having to ask permission to do things, so strike number two. Still, One and Three are pretty huge.
I was grounded a lot when I was a kid, and I should have been. I don't blame my mother for the choices she made in my upbringing. I often did at the time, but I was a stupid kid.
I just want my son to reach adulthood, and, if it's not too ambitious to add a codicil onto that, I want him to do so and still love me.
There are a lot of things I could walk away from, but my kid will never be one of them. No matter what trials life brings us, he is the absolute coolest thing I ever made.
Someday you will be an adult, son, and I hope it brings you great joy and frustration and exhilaration and anger and sadness and happiness, in ever repeating cycles that remind you periodically that you're completely, crazily ALIVE.
And all the while, your mom will be there, if not literally then certainly in spirit, and she will love you more wholly and completely than she has ever loved anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment