To be honest, I don't really know if he was defeated or not. We never actually conversed so it was just my mere observation, and I have learned over my life not to take observation at face value without a deeper context, but when I think of defeat, I think of that man trudging the halls of church.
Tonight I feel like that man. I feel defeated.
It has been a hell of a week in motherhood. One of my children wrote me a note that revealed a deeper sense of sadness and loneliness that I could not have anticipated. I'm sure she wrote it in a furry a couple nights ago after being scolded for not doing what she was told, but in the end I don't know that motive even matters--what matter is that I have a very unhappy child, and I don't know what I could possibly do to change that.
Well, I do know because she spelled it out in the letter: "Mom, the only time I am happy is when you are gone." But I can't be gone all the time and we are rarely separated (except for school hours), so that solution isn't really a solution at all. Leaving her alone, ghosting her if you will, would just be a bandaid at best, but it would not be a cure.
So what do I do? Essentially everything I am as a person eats away at who she is as a person. I drip with sarcasm, and she abhors it. I try to be loose and flexible, and she is rigid and steadfast. I make jokes, and she scowls at every one. I talk, but she ignores or screams over me. I am a doer, she is well, not a doer. I don't want to say lazy, but she definitely doesn't see a need and try to make it better. She sees a need and figures someone else will get around to it. I break rules, she is a little nuts about keeping them. The list goes on.
And yet, with all those differences, we share some stark similarities. She has a need to be alone. She doesn't like too many people begging for her attention at once. She likes to make people feel as miserable as she does. She gloats when she does something someone else didn't do, even if in the actual moment of doing the thing, she hates the thing (still with me?). She is a natural pessimist. She is a deep thinker.
When I bring up our similarities, I often feel like the canyon between us widens. It's as if she says to me, I don't care how much we are alike at our core, I dislike you anyway.
Parenting is so hard. Having five children with different needs keeps me awake at night and on my toes during the day. I try to create meaningful moments where each child can thrive in their own strengths, and I often succeed with 3 or 4 out of 5, but rarely do I reach all 5. Someone always reminds me how much I come up short. And for the most part, I take it in stride, but this week has felt particularly heavy and hard. I feel like running and hiding and reemerging at high school graduation.
You hear all the time that each kid needs his own manual. Yes that's true. But kids should also get a manual for their moms too. I often remind myself and my kids that this my first time being a parent at whatever stage we happen to enter. I am often boxed in and nervous at the idea of failure, and yet I almost always find an opening--a window if you will that helps bring new perspective. I'm still waiting for perspective this week.
I don't really know what else to say. I just wanted to write down for myself so one day when I've weathered this storm I can look back and say, "Yep Janine, you were defeated, but only for a moment." Please let this only be a moment. It feels like an eternal minute, but I know it will end. I think the hardest thing about being labeled a failure as a mother is for me is that I waste my days away in the service of my kids. I constantly think about them, create things for them, write them notes, clean their rooms so they can skip chores and hop in the lake, hug their necks repeatedly, and love them endlessly. So when I'm called a failure I look at all that and wonder what more can I do? WHAT MORE CAN I DO?!
Motherhood is the one thing I absolutely don't want to fail at.
