they tell you in the books about how your teenager will change. they mention the moods and the frontal lobe and drugs and sex and rock and roll. they tell you how hard it will be and how to be cautious in your approach and how to be aggressive in your pursuits and how to bide your time and get through it and to listen and to provide and to support and to be present and on and on and on.
but they don't tell you how much you will miss your child. just simply miss him.
oh you know they're not that same little kid you used to know. and you love the teen they are now. you know that they won't initiate as many of the hugs, you know they will want to be with their friends more than you, that weekends are best when spent with their group. you were a teenager once. you know how it is.
and it's natural. and it happens every day. but now it's happening to me.
and i miss my kid.
i eat breakfast with him and dinner with him and hang out with him when he wants company for homework. and i'm not there when he doesn't want me there.
we make time to do family things.
but it simply is not the same.
because it used to be different.
and i know it's just a transition.
and things will change.
and there is a new normal on the horizon.
and it will be golden.
but right now, i miss my kid.
and they never mentioned this part. not once.
i had a baby. and now i have a teenager.
and some days i just need the world to be a little patient and let me catch up.
x.
3 comments:
(minor edit included)
I hear you loud and clear. I miss my kids SO MUCH. SO. MUCH. I can hardly write it without weeping. My kids are exactly who they should be & where they should be. They are thriving. I want nothing less for them. In all of my dedication to attachment parenting, I tried to believe that when it was time for them to expand their lives, to go--that I would get it. That I would understand how all that attachment pays off--& allows them to go. I forgot that when they went, I'd be left.
yep. that. "when they went, i'd be left."
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