Contemplative

I am not sure that I have much to write and yet I feel the need to write. I sit here in a comtemplative mood. Many things are coursing through my veins as I ponder the weeks, months and year ahead and at the same time, my thoughts shift back to what the last three years have been like.

I have a 14 year old son. When I started to finish my BA he was 11. We (he and I) have undergone many many horrid things and yet tonight my baby boy turning man came up to me, wrapped his arms around me and just held on. So many changes, rapid ones, are in store for him. Soon he will be eligible to drive a car. Then he will graduate. I am not ready for these things. I feel like I missed out on something in the past three years. I heard a response to amnesia today from a client who suffered from it. This client was asked "Do you lose time?" The reply came very forceful, "Never utter those words to me again, losing time indicates a loss of a part of my life, which is very hopeless. I have not "lost" time, I have simply misplaced it and through therapy I will find it." That was an amazing reframe. But sadly for me, it doenst hold. I have lost three years. And soon to be a fourth. Granted, good things were happening, yet I know I missed out on amazing things. Don't get me wrong, I have been a part of my children's lives to the best of my ability juggling all that I do and yet, I have missed out. There have been field trips that I have not been part of. and school plays that i have missed, parties that I could not bake for....so many many things. All in the hope of providing a better life for my kids than welfare would bring us. Thing is, they don't get it. But I do. I know their losses perhaps better than they do and I know my losses with the things I cannot be a part of.

My baby is 7, he was four when we split and I went to uni. Again, so much of his young life I have missed. Mother's guilt. I think thats why I do not push him to sleep in his own bed. For that is something I can give him, in my limited time. Whereas the other two got more waking hours from me, he gets more sleep time hours from me. Besides, he still carries within him much fear. I know cuz he tells me.

My baby girl. I miss her. She has always been one that I have not had a handle on in being able to read her. And it shows. And yet she cries out for girl time. So I try to find ways to give that to her and perhaps over the Christmas break, more opportunities will open up.

Being a single parent is hard. There are many many times, when I am so exhasuted I want to lie down to sleep. Unforutnately that is not for me, as there are little people that just need a little bit more of me. And I have missed so much and denied them so much, its the least I can do and sometimes appeasing mothers guilt is mroe important than sleep.