This morning in my recovery meeting, the speaker asked the question, "When we are spinning out and our minds are full of chaos, what can restore us to sanity? What are we avoiding?"
This weekend I have been spinning out. What am I avoiding?
Pedro will be returning to Seattle this summer before he heads off to Colorado State in mid-August. He graduates from his program June 4. He will have been gone for two years, which I can't even grasp. Two years. I sent my kid away for two years. That was a hard thing to do, and as Glennon Doyle says, "We can do hard things."
Other moms with kids Pedro's age are getting ready for an empty nest. I am getting ready to briefly have the bird fly back, rest and then take off again.
And he won't even be staying with me at the condo. He will be staying with his dad at the house in Ravenna. Or maybe?
Pedro's therapist mentioned to me that Pedro was looking for summer jobs all over the city--up north and downtown. "He can look anywhere and he is excited about that."
Downtown? Huh? I had spent a lot of time mentally preparing myself for and accepting that the Pedro won't be living downtown with me. Pedro thinks of the Ravenna house as his home, not the condo. He has his 75,000 piece Lego collection there, along with his bikes and trampoline. Why would he want to live with me in a one bedroom condo where he has to sleep in the landing? Now, there is the idea that Pedro might spend time downtown, which I had not entertained.
What will that look like if the Boy lives with me? How will I react? How often will I see him if he isn't living with me? Will it be easier to have Jack deal with Pedro now? I had Pedro from 0 to 16. Surely, his dad can handle him for a few weeks at age 18. Right? Jack and Pedro can figure out how to live together without me as the intermediary. I was actually looking forward to that.
Before the kids were born, I nested. For Ada, Jack and I were living in an apartment in Chicago. I bought clothes, a crib and a few small toys. For Eleanor, I didn't do much. I was terrified that she might die like Ada did. I think there was one baby shower, but I blocked it out. Plus, I already had a majority of the stuff I needed from Ada.
When Pedro was born, I was in a different place, physically and emotionally. We lived in a three story, five bedroom house. My friend Gwen, an artist, painted Eric Carle murals on the walls. There was a lion above the crib, a giraffe and a peacock. Maybe an elephant? We ripped out the old, blue shag carpeting and cleaned up the floors. It was a great room, but we moved to Seattle a year and a half after Pedro was born.
Now I am finding myself in the same spot of nesting, carving out space in my condo for my son. I am not expecting a new baby, but my old one to come back home, and it kind of feels the same. I'll need to re-arrange the landing to make space for him. Right now, the landing is my work-from-home-office, storage space for the mattress and place where I keep my spare fabric and piano keyboard. I'll need to move my desk and my monitors to a new location so Pedro will have a place to sleep. I need to get curtains for the giant window, so the sun won't wake him up in the morning. I've cleaned out sections of my closet for him to keep his clothes so they don't have to pile up on the landing next to the bed.
Like when I was pregnant, I feel an urgency to get this done, to have everything ready when he comes home.
He's coming home. He's coming home.
Part of the reason I sent him away was because I didn't have the skills to take care of him, and he couldn't take care of himself. It was a no win situation. While I was gone, I did a lot of work on myself, going to therapy and recovery group meetings. As I learned to change my own behavior, I learned a lot about the crazy and isolating environment Pedro grew up in. I started to blame myself--"If only I had started my own self-work ages ago, maybe the Pedro would have been fine."
Yesterday, I listened to Glennon Doyle's podcast, "We Can Do Hard Things." She discusses her own battle with anxiety and depression. She's been sober and in recovery for nineteen years, she goes to therapy, is in a loving and supportive relationship, she is on medication, and STILL she has panic attacks.
oh.
I guess anxiety and depression are real. Not that I ever thought it was pretend or fake -- god no! Rather, I thought that the Boy was depressed and anxious because I was somehow a shitty mom, that I didn't do enough, that I wasn't well equipped or serene or whatever, that if I had been better, the Boy wouldn't have needed to get shipped off, sent away, that he would have been happy and joyful and not suicidal.
no.
That is not the case, I am realizing one year, eleven months and one week into this progress, this journey. I knew when I shipped him off, that I couldn't take care of him, but that is different than me thinking that I am not to blame.
He is coming home. He is coming home.
I was never truly "ready" to be a parent. I had to make it up as I went along. I did the best I could. Likewise, I will never truly be ready to have him home. I can do the best I can, where I am at today.
And I can do hard things.
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