Lou has remarked that I am probably feeling down owing not only to the inevitable ending of summer, but also, and more pointedly, because of the endless demands of caring for my parents, whose extreme age has caused them much humiliation and pain, despite my efforts to make their lives more pleasant. This is true, but adding to their (and by extension, my) slippery slide down into old age, there is also my son's 18th birthday, this Thursday.
I have not been able to motivate myself to plan a celebration for this momentous event. For one thing, he doesn't have much interest in spending a lot of time with us, at this point. He sees himself as the new model, while we are definitively outmoded, yesterday's news. Though he has affection for us, clearly, he regards us with a sort of condescension, I think, as most people of that age see their parents. Suddenly we are so much less than savvy than he thought. We have diminished in power, in knowledge, in effectiveness. It will take some years for some of that to return, I think, when he is dealing with his own children.
Most people's kids begin behaving in this way when they hit puberty, but my kid stayed a kid until very very recently. The transition happened very abruptly, and it shocked the hell out of me, though I should have expected and even welcomed it as a sign we have done our job and allowed him to separate from us naturally.
I think I've taken it hard, and have been unable to find purchase on the slippery rock of his indifference. It's difficult to craft a new role for myself in his life.
I'll live.
8 comments:
Wow! My son is 23, and has seperated and came back. He now, will go places with me. I do remember when, he was about 12 he began to sepearte from me. This was horrible. I suddenly felt alone. Jeremy is at a late stgae now, where he is showing his ass!! He will burn out, and get himself together. Good luck!
Beth
He's always done things later than others because of his disabilities. He's a good kid, and I'm sure he'll come around. He isn't bad at all, given the age and circumstances. I just have to get used to it.
I think it's important during this apron-string-umbilical-cord thing to keep a sense of humor. Just don't let J. catch you laughing at him. ;-)
Absolutely. There is much that is humorous in this stage of life, now that I am looking at it from the outside.
Today he went to pay his tuition for the first time, and was absolutely terrified, paralyzed. I was so surprised. What happened to the grown up who had insisted he didn't need us anymore?
I had to guide him, finding out exactly how much he'd need to pay, and where to go to pay it. And he still went to the DSPS for help, he says.
My students remembered similar experiences of fear and paralysis the first time they signed up for classes and paid their fees. It was something totally new and frightening, apparently, akin to the moment I was lying in the delivery room waiting to give birth, wishing I could back out, but knowing it was way too late now.
"Boarded the train there's no getting off."
Yep, As Sylvia Plath said, and probably others before her.
Gasp! She didn't come up with that herself? It's the context, though, right, all those metaphors, 9 9 9 9 9.
Yes. She probably came up with it herself, though it sounds so inevitable, doesn't it? There are lots of 9s in that poem. My students wondered what it was about, then laughed when they realized that it really was written all over the poem!
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