The present of presence
25 December 2011 06:04 AM Categories: Friends | Quotidian existence
It may not surprise regular readers to hear that I have problems with family and connection, that it’s easier for me to remain self-sufficient than to ask for help even from those closest to me, and that even though I have a small family of my own, it has been difficult for me to be present with them. This is something that has come up in various therapy work, how to feel like I am a part of things, how not to stay separate, how groupings of three are threatening, especially for those who have generally been excluded in such groupings (child, parent, parent; child, parent, parent’s love interest).
And you know what? It’s gotten better. Not perfect, but better. There is a thread of connection between us. I’m less absent (again, not perfect, but so much better) when we’re together. I didn’t want to run away from home on my birthday, though I thought about it a lot the week before. We have had times when all three of us could sit quietly in a room, comfortable in our separateness, connected, too, without fraught, silent history hanging over our heads. This was the first year that my husband and I coordinated on the boy’s Christmas and also worked out a Christmas Eve misunderstanding without me exploding (tough, especially when the house is full of people and I am tense with the requirements of it all).
I worry about my parenting and the worry gets in the way of figuring out what is good for me. Sometimes I imagine going up in a poof of smoke, the midnight disappearance, the running off to another town, just to be free of the potential pain that connection brings – the threat of loss (it is inevitable, no matter what), the future break between child and parents, the wrenching ache of death and abandonment. I’ve created a life of total submission to child and home, which only makes the stakes higher and the center of my life more fragile, which ramps up the anxiety, the feeling that the walls in my small room are closing in on me.
I’m figuring it out. I focus on the future, on the grad school path, while keeping an open mind. No matter the path to external happiness, to contentment, to self-sufficiency, I will not lose the connection. I will be present.
So this is Christmas … a holiday I don’t totally care for, one that takes over, all macho with its Christian origins and its focus on consumerism. Today I focus on the rest of it, the boy, the greenery, the lights, the feeling of gratefulness for my wavering yet strengthening ability to be here, and for my friends, those of you I’ve known for years and those of you with whom I’ve developed a friendship across the mysterious Internet ether. I am so lucky to know you.
I am grateful for family, too, for the spark of connection, the elusive silver thread. It's not a trap. No matter how things change and shift for me – how I make them change and shift – the connection will be there, the history, the shared, ineffable love.
Merry Holidays!
Image of the boy playing at the park yesterday.
Obviously, I was able to carve out an hour or two for writing -- it's one of the benefits of waking up at 4:30 in the morning!
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