Hanging On For Dear Life

Three hours and seventeen minutes ago, I did something that even as recently as three hours and eighteen minutes ago, I would have never imagined I would or could do.

I let go of my son.

Almost exactly a year ago, after the horrendous car accident he was in, my son asked his father and I to let him go, so he could be independently minded and responsible to make his own decisions. I said “Okay,” but didn’t really do it. At that time, I had an image of myself standing at the edge of a cliff holding my one year old baby boy straight out in front of me in a death grip with both hands. His father was standing next to me. In the image my son kept saying, “It’s okay Mommy. Let me go. I can fly! Honest!” For obvious reasons, I just couldn’t do it.

I realize now that I have been in that spot ever since, but the image has changed a bit. My son’s father is still standing where he was a year ago. I, on the other hand, am lying prone with my almost full grown, almost 18 year old son holding on to the one good hand I have left as he dangles over the chasm below.

I have been hanging on to him for dear life since the car accident, the subsequent depression he fell into, the drugs, the alcohol, the impulsive decision-making, and the failing in school.

And, parentally speaking, I have been holding on all by myself.

I have been terrified to let him go, and despite trying repeatedly to enlist his father, I have had no ready or consistent male backup. I unsuccessfully tried to become two parents in one, but instead became an over-bearing, over-involved, over-decorated police woman mom all in the vain attempt to keep my grip, so my son wouldn’t break (or worse) in the fall.

My son and I had a long talk this afternoon. I told him I can’t do it anymore; I am physically and emotionally spent. We confronted the excrutiatingly painful reality that his father is “not a father figure” (my son’s words). He is a significant masculine presence in the tapestry of my son’s life, but in a way that is confusing, painful, and disappointing. We acknowledged that for better or for worse, I am all he’s got right now and in terror for him and in profoundly deep disappointment in myself…

I let go of my son.

What kind of mother am I?...I’m not kidding. Could someone answer that for me? I really need to know.

Do I Really Want to Be A FOO Fighter?

Since my blog yesterday, I have been asking myself, “How is it possible that my son and his father can lie to me (BIG, fat ones), keep secrets from me (BIG, fat ones), and I don’t see? What kind of crazy sleight of hand instruction did I miss? Do I need glasses?”

Those questions have been busy opening my bureau drawers, looking under my mattress, and searching through my closet to find something, anything, that I may have hidden away within myself. I tore through myself with the ferocity of, “I know I put it in here somewhere.”

Well, seek and ye shall find. I found what I was looking for this morning. My 15 year old has been holding a package for me, and, believe it or not, she has been right in front of my face the whole time, standing very straight and tall, patiently holding it out, waiting for me to receive it from her. Through the dust that has accumulated on her gift (well, I told you she's been waiting a long time), I saw that it was a 45 RPM record. I also saw where she had written “FOO” on it. I knew what it meant immediately. Suddenly, the lyrics to that familiar song and her special song title clue brought me right back home.

"FOO." "F.O.O." “Family Of Origin.”

I have always known that there is a very big presence within me, my “Truth Teller.” Now, I have not always (okay, until very recently, NEVER) told truths in a way that allows others to actually hear them and take them in. I have been kind of a “Blurter Truth Teller.” My family function was to consume our family secrets and lies until I felt like I had eaten my third piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Left full to overflowing, I, then, blurted out my truth song. Next, my family completed their part of our duet; they either rested or began playing a completely different tune. Like well-rehearsed musicians, I crescendo-ed in a release of tension just before fatal family injury occurred and, as skillfully as Rachmaninoff, we went directly to our dissident coda and started building the tension all over again.

Now in my current family, I‘m not saying I hold all the responsibility for the secrets and lies, but I can see that the grooves in my part of the FOO harmony are old and deep. I have been co-composing a recognizable re-make of the original with new players.

So I ask myself the question, “Do I really want to be a FOO Fighter?” And my answer is a resounding “No.” Frankly, I’m tired of fighting. However, what I am willing to do is look straight ahead, actually see myself, and accept what is offered to me as something I may (or may not) want to re-orchestrate, re-arrange, or flat out discard as outdated.

For me, it is not so much about seeing other’s sleight of hand tricks anymore. It's about consciously owning my chair in an orchestra whose compositions sing and resonate through me.

A House of Cards

I don’t enjoy playing cards. I don’t have a “poker face.” I have never had the slightest desire to be around card playing or card carrying members of the local Canasta or Bridge Club. Playing cards, watching others play cards, being around cards, anything remotely related to cards; well, it’s just not a part of my life.

Until now.

I have spent the last two months abiding by a commitment that my son and I made to each other: to build a new place to live in relationship with each other. We put our stake in the ground, called it honesty, and began pouring the foundation of our new home. In my head, we have been working side by side piecing our relationship together with good solid materials and a whole bunch of reliable tools (that I mentioned in a blog way back in January).

Our house fell on my head last night. No need to worry. I didn’t get hurt.

We built it out of cards.

And, apparently, I was playing solitaire.

My son has that poker face that I can’t seem to find. He knows my “tell,” but I can’t see his. He has been bluffing with a stacked deck, but somehow my eyes weren’t trained for (or willing to recognize) the sleight of hand.

Last night, he put his actual cards on the table, and I folded. My head was aswirl with how I have failed him, how he has failed me, how his father has failed both of us.

But I don’t want to play that game anymore. And I don’t want all the growth the three of us have made in the last several months to get lost in the shuffle.

I woke up this morning and decided that I have to see this as an opportunity for one of the biggest high stakes games of my life. It is the Tournament of Champions, and I am ready to take my place at the table, deal with what I, my son, and his father have been dealt, and ante up. I’m going to gamble on us all winning this tournament by using it as an opportunity to grow.

With one caveat…..

I’m going to make sure the dealer breaks open a fresh deck.

SEX And The City

In my opinion, SEX And The City, continues to be a mega-hit because we see ourselves in each and every one of those women. Miranda represents the Masculine Us out in the world fully engaged in the process of To-Do lists, envisioning societal structures and building them into law. Charlotte is the encapsulation of the Eros Us: searching for and releasing deep love with her friends, her men, her children and her beloved art. And, Carrie is the Seeker Us, illuminating deeper levels of self-awareness and connection with others.

I embrace and identify with them in their transparency and deeply admire how each character’s choices trace back to their unique North Star: doing the right thing, giving and receiving love, or evolving the consciousness of New York City.

However, for me (and maybe others of you), Samantha is the most exciting, the most outrageous, and sometimes the most difficult character to watch and identify with because of her full and unabashed embodiment of the SEXUAL Goddess Us. Her libido is her North Star. She never takes her eyes (or other body parts) off the prize. And, to make it worse (or better) she makes no apologies and takes no prisoners. Diving deep (sorry) into SEXUAL foreplay, SEXUAL excitement and SEXUAL gratification are her ways of being, and if she has no partner, she makes no bones about taking care of herself (thank you very much).

It has been a very long time since I had SEX (with another breathing body), and I am afraid I have lost my desire for it. Once, many moons ago, desire was my bright and brilliant North Star, but now I can’t find it anywhere on my astrophysical chart. (And, trust me Honey, I’ve looked.)

Now don’t get me wrong. Vibrators are great. They do the trick (sorry), and my life can go on with my Miranda, my Charlotte, and my Carrie selves, but I really don’t want it to. I am tired of feeling like an amputee, a three legged table: incomplete, unfulfilled, and top heavy (sorry again).

Okay, I’m just gonna say it. I’ve tried, but my life can’t climax without Samantha. I need her passion born of the juice, the force, the joy, the adventure, the passion and celebration of being born female. And while she is the symbol of SEXUAL passion expressed mano-a-woman-o (and more), Samantha’s passion also underlies and infuses the lives of her co-stars. Her energy gives Miranda the courage to stand up to her convictions, Charlotte the ferocity to love in the face of all odds, and Carrie the fire to dig deep and welcome, witness, and name who she is.

Simply, Samantha gives us the courage to live our lives “balls (or vaginas) out.”

I feel hopeful now as I remember that in the movie, even Samantha lost her way and her passion. And if she can get her groove back, so can I. All I need are my three closest friends and free-flowing Cosmos.

I’ve Got A Secret

When I was 12, my best friend, Sandy, and I would get together everyday after school at her house, play Mah Jong (yes, Mah Jong), listen to Andy Williams’ recording of “Moon River” (over and over again), hold hands, look deeply into each other’s eyes, and share our deepest and most intimate secrets. She trusted me to wrap myself around her secrets, and I trusted her to wrap herself around mine. As we shared more and more, our bodies, like vines, intertwined. It was a deep, full bodied and unbreakable connection, head to toe. When things in our young lives were confusing, or threatening, or out of the realm of our understanding, we found comfort in this most sacred, secret intertwining of our Selves. It was our way to feel rooted, safe, and supported in the complex and unpredictable world of family, school, and life outside of our limited experience.

This weekend without any conscious forethought, I unearthed a secret (a BIG one) that I had long ago “forgotten.” This is what I unearthed. I share a secret with my son’s father that carries, for me, a tremendous amount of shame.

I thought we had “dealt with it” before we were married. We sat in a therapist’s office many weeks talking about it. We analyzed our families of origin. We made behavioral changes. I thought I had found peace and let it go. I thought it had no lingering effect on my feelings, my relationship with or my love for him.

Back then, I didn’t understand the insidious nature of the secrets of shame and their root system. So I merely looked at our secret (albeit, from every possible angle), maybe even pulled it out by its stem, but never really put my hands in the dirt, dug deep somatically, and exorcised it roots and all. I didn’t know that, like a weed, shame’s roots go deep and are far reaching. They wrap themselves around healthy roots and relentlessly and systematically squeeze the life force out of them.

When I unearthed my shameful secret this weekend, I thought it best to consult an expert. I sat down with my 12 year old (or, as she likes to call herself, “The World’s Most Super Duper Sharer and Keeper of Secrets Gardener”). What we decided to do is remove all the debris, weeds, and dead roots from our garden. We have committed to planting new growth and feeding, watering, nourishing and actively participating in keeping our garden healthy, abundant, beautiful and weed-free.

Therefore, in service to our garden, the first thing my 12 year old and I did was to sit down with trusted friends. We held their hands, looked deeply into their eyes, and shared our deepest and most shameful secret.

We could have sworn we heard Andy Williams in the background.


(Thank you Denise, Ashley, Susan, Judy, and Tracey)

The Homecoming

I don’t sit at the Singer anymore and sew nice straight seams that meet perfectly at the crotch. I have stopped worrying about the kind of setting I need to use to make sure all the stitches stay tight and uniformly aligned. I have taken my foot off the accelerator pedal, removed the bobbin from its home, and re-attached the machine’s removable protective plastic cover. I slowly and methodically cleared the workspace taken up by that machine, stored away all the fancy needles and accoutrements, and gently placed the sewing machine with all its high-tech, high-speed, fancy-dancy accessories out of my everyday awareness.

I may have even posted it for sale on Craig’s List. I’m not sure.

I’m not sure if I posted it or not because, until last night, I was not consciously aware that I even used a Singer, much less that I had packed one up and put it away.

Last night, I connected with a somatic opening that has been making itself known to me slowly and incrementally since I began those quiet, empowering, meditative moments last July.

Crazy as it sounds, what I realized is this: My thoughts no longer automatically generate from my brain. The logical, cognitive, goal oriented thinking that dominated my life (without any input from my feelings and emotions, intuition and inner knowing) has been systematically deconstructed. The linear, single minded, go from point A to point B thinking is still there, yes, but my life no longer follows its patterns.

I work on a loom now. My body is fully engaged in the process. My feet pump the pedals. My hands caress the rich feel of the multiple yarns of my life threading through my fingers. My eyes witness the organic reveal of the weave: the beauty of colors that have never existed before as they merge with patterns and textures that my brain would never have thought to juxtapose. My ears detect a vibrantly delicious hum as it exits my lips and resonates on every frequency of the Universe simultaneously.

I am no longer concerned with checking tasks off my to-do list. I sit at my loom and co-create my life. I have relinquished creating a life dictated by a pattern (even if McCall’s size chart tells me it will fit). I prefer to open myself to my tapestry as it reveals a life lived in unprecedented, breath-takingly expansive and miraculous ways.

It is taking some getting used to, this way of being. It’s a whole new, whole body infused existence.

And, I’ve got to tell you. It feels like I came home.

Into Every Life A Little Pain Must Fall

I absorb all the space that pain takes up in my relationships with men I love. As a woman, I don’t think I am alone in this. For a lot of us, pain comes with the womanly package: monthly menstrual pain, the pain of childbirth, the pain of abuse and oppression for our collective (and in some countries, current) female lineage is embedded in our DNA. We are accustomed to pain in our bodies. Therefore, (I tell myself) I really can't be assigned any blame for absorbing it. In addition, I am a mother. How many years did I magically make my son's pain go away with nothing more than a kiss? We're moms. We don't want our children to hurt.

But at what point does absorbing the hurt for our child cause them more pain?

I think as women, (okay as one woman) I/we took it too far. I have spent my mom lifetime with my pain antenna poised at the ready to zero in on and absorb any kind of pain (with the ferocity of the newest high voltage vacuum cleaner) that comes my son's way. And doing it feels just as natural and routine as running my Dyson under the couch and sucking up all those free-floating dust bunnies.

The problem is that turbo vacuuming is great for cleaning the Berber. Not so great for living a life, or sharing one.

Last night, I watched as my son regressed into some old and non-productive escape behaviors (web surfing and hiding out in his room). I felt a definite shift in his energy, but he acted fine. I, on the other hand, felt a wave of disappointment and sadness. I tried to find an answer to his energy shift. I tried to engage him so I could make it all better. Did he fail a test? Have a bad experience at school? Feel defeated for any reason??

His response? A grunt or two (peppered with a growing annoyance at me for continuing to pop my head into his room). My inner knowing told me to leave him alone, but then I found my body PLOP! smack dab in the middle of his space. Never gave him an inch or a moment to reflect on his pain.

This morning I woke up feeling a deeper sadness with a more profound level of disappointment sprinkled with a new feeling…worthlessness. I took a deep breath and acknowledged what I already knew. These are not my feelings. I think they belong to my son. I think this is how he is feeling.

And my grabbing it away from him may have made it worse.

Rather than allow his feelings to be in his internal space so he could breathe into them and own them in his own time, I absorbed them, identified with them, gave them permission to run rampant in my body and call themselves me. Let’s be honest here. I wasn't only trying to help him; I was trying to make his pain go away so I could feel better, too.

I gave my son some space this morning. I asked for his permission to have a conversation instead of an interrogation. We met in a space that felt fertile, safe, and ours alone. I apologized for taking what belonged to him, and he opened the door to his painful feelings. It's a beginning...for him and for me.

I also shared a precious secret with him that most men don't know. Into every life a little pain must fall because we know, as women, that new life does not happen without it.