Why is it so strange to just accept being loved?
Being loved with no problem to solve, and no tension to pull on, and no drama to confront, and no worry to chew…
Love like the ground under my feet...
Writing that sentence tells me why. Because I don't want someone else to be the ground under my feet! I own the ground under my feet! This is private property! I control my destiny!
Isn't it interesting how personal property feels like security, how controlling it alone feels like power?
When the truth is the opposite. Safety is in the tribe, in connection, in relationships.
Last night I had at my house at the same time my son, my friend James, her two kids, and my sweetheart. A web of need and support. Beautiful, terrifying.
Particularly being a mom in front of my sweetheart. It's okay to do it in front of my friend. She's a mom too. And even if she is one of the best moms I know, still she fucks it up, as all parents do. She does not suffer from the disease of believing herself to be a perfect parent before ever being one, as I did before I became a mom. Like my sweetheart? I would never think that of him! But Edith does. She whispers in my ears when I mother in front of him.. all the things she says he's thinking: that I am to lax, too strict, too impatient, too soft…
Plus, it was Sunday night of a parenting weekend, and as usual I was a little exhausted. Not because anything went wrong! It was a beautiful weekend. But I become exhausted by not having uninterrupted time for myself. An hour and a half! An hour even…
(Personal hygiene time does not count.)
James recently sent out a photo on Facebook: A mom is talking to her child. Under the two, the words say something like "My daughter asked me what it was like to be a mom, so I interrupted her every 11 seconds until she cried."
It's the being interrupted that kills me.
That leaves me an impatient mess by Sunday night. That has me drinking shots of whiskey, offering tequila and whiskey to my friend and my sweetheart. Both of them have either the friendliness to not let me drink alone, or just love the jab to the blood alcohol level. Either way we all had a shot. Or two. And then my friend fed the kids while I cooked dinner for all the adults. And had an hour and a half of uninterrupted time. It was a miracle. After James and her kids went home, I put Forest to bed and asked my sweetheart what he wanted to do.
"I just want to hold you," he said. (Sigh. What did I do to deserve this?)
"I just want to numb out with alcohol or sugar or TV," I said. (See. That's real love. Truth, baby.)
So we went downstairs and I turned on the TV and the PBS Sherlock Holmes season finale was on, and we watched that. Or rather, I watched 15 minutes of it, and my sweetheart fall sleep, and then I got up because my son was calling me… Every 15 minutes. For an hour. This is unlike him. He usually has such an easy bedtime. But tonight he was plagued by insomnia, and weird chicken nightmares. Sometimes the end of my patience coincides with the explosion of his need. And I have to suck it up. And that is what I did. As downstairs my sweetheart snoozed and Sherlock hurtle toward his own (spoiler alert) fake death, I trotted up and down the stairs, taking deep breaths, calling up my love for my son which is never that far away, and going back down to accept (and return) the love of man downstairs who opened his arms to me every time I came back.