Skip to main content

The Intersection

 


The intersection

I always wanted to create independence in my children. Yet, there is a dichotomy in parenting.  It's the push pull. Or at least that's what I call it.

In my mind, the constant ebb and flow of parenting has been since I was a child. It was subtle then.  But I knew what it was.  I watched it. I was the parent-child. The parent-child is perhaps the Great worrier. As ironic as that seems, it's the intersection I've wrestled with.

I wanted to be free. As a child I knew I had to be somewhat of a 'Babysitter' to not only my older and younger siblings, as well my parents.  For I was the child parenting the whereabouts of my parents. The whereabouts was not just a physical  entity. It was the arena of their status of an emotional whereabouts that they might be.

I was always in check.  I knew at some point and time I would have to let go of parenting my siblings, or rather monitoring their whereabouts.  My parents?  I wondered when that would end.

Even when I entered Marine Corps Bootcamp it didn't end primarily with my parents. Even there I was tortured.  In the middle of bootcamp, our first lieutenant had me brought into her office. Why? To talk about the status of my parents. I wondered why.  I was ordinary. Kept a low profile.  Was obedient,  striving to do all and then some as I was ordered to do. Yet somehow, the instability of my parents selfishly arrived during my bootcamp. I'd done nothing wrong. I was fine. Although worried, I never expressed it. I prayed.  That was how I handled the problems in my life back then.

I was called in for a sit-down meeting with my lieutenant, she appeared more upset than I.  I showed no emotion. I knew I'd helped my mother monetarily before I left.  She hadn't committed suicide yet, so I was lucky. That's all that mattered. Making it so that my much younger sibling was safe. And my Dad hadn't crashed a car or lost his license due to his getting stoned or drunk. So there was that. I was good.

Yet I was pretty certain the lieutenant had no clue on those fronts. So, I was good with that. She was stunned when she felt she'd delivered bad news to me about my parents that day. She thought she knew the bad news before I did. I hate to say the situation made her get emotional.  I couldn't believe she allowed me to capture that moment.

Evidently, they had gone through my mail or someone had called the Marine Corps bootcamp with information I'd accepted easily. And back then such information was not considered too digestible. But for me it absolutely was. It relieved some pain. So, the meeting was short, as our stunned lieutenant tried to see me arrive at some emotional pitstop.  But that never arrived. Or at least it never showed. Most times I refrain from showing tears at funerals or the like. I despise my own public display of such emotion, for I have too much to care for.

After releasing my parents from my parenting, as for my Dad it was when I was forty-nine. Oh I tried. I'd thought I had twice in my thirties, and once in my mid forties. Then finally, I verbally cut the umbilical cord on the phone with him. I released my Mom multiple times, but I failed till she died. Then at age forty-one I was quite less tortured.  Life was splendidly lighter. My siblings were the easiest, because they appeared properly Independent early on.

Now, as I am a single parent due to the death of my husband, I still pray with concern for our two daughters. However, I am at the intersection of failed trepidation. This morning I recognized their desire,  need and accessibility to independence.

It arrived as my oldest daughter was exiting to get a cup of coffee before her school day, apparently not wanting to even say goodbye. It's not me,  its "Mom, I got this". So I waved to allow her independence to forge ahead. I know what she wants and it is truly all good. I had lots of practice early on. ----Jody-Lynn Reicher



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow
2 comments
Read more

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to
Post a Comment
Read more

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.
Post a Comment
Read more