I don’t think people talk enough about what it’s like to parent adult children.
When they’re little, everyone tells you to protect them. Kiss the scraped knees. Chase away the monsters. Hold their hand crossing the street.
Then one day they’re 23 years old, texting you at 4:00 in the morning to tell you their car just died on the side of the highway.
The first thing I did was make sure my son wasn’t hurt.
The second thing I did… was fail him.
Instead of imagining the fear he felt at that moment, I simply heard another problem landing on a heart that was already carrying too many. I blamed his driving. I told him I wasn’t paying to fix the car. I wouldn’t let him borrow my truck. Instead of making an awful morning a little easier, I made it heavier.
I wish I could erase and restart that conversation.
The truth is, I’m not angry at him. I’m exhausted.
For a week now, one of my beautiful cats, Winston, has been missing. Every time I walk outside I still find myself looking for him, hoping I’ll hear that familiar little meow or see him come trotting across the yard like nothing ever happened.
My sweet old Blitz… I know the hardest decision of her life—and mine—is getting closer. Every day I wonder if today is the day I have to choose love over holding on. There isn’t a guidebook for that kind of heartbreak.
On top of that, my own mind has been betraying me lately. I keep fighting these ridiculous feelings that I’m not loved, even though the logical part of me knows that’s probably not true. Depression, stress, grief… whatever cocktail my brain has decided to serve me lately, it’s a cruel one.
My soul is just… hurting.
My son is so much like me it’s almost funny. We’re stubborn. Emotional. Independent. We both think we’re right until enough time passes for us to realize maybe we weren’t. Maybe that’s why we butt heads so often. Sometimes I swear I’m arguing with a younger version of myself.
That doesn’t make it easier.
If anything, it makes it harder.
Because I know what it’s like to need compassion when you’ve already screwed something up.
I also know that being a good parent doesn’t mean you always say the right thing. Sometimes it means recognizing when you didn’t.
So if you read this, Seth… I’m sorry.
Not because I don’t want you to learn responsibility. I do. That’s part of becoming an adult.
I’m sorry because, in that moment, you needed your mom before you needed a lecture.
Those are two very different things.
I don’t know if this is just a rough season or if life has finally found the crack in my armor, but I can feel the pressure building behind the dam. I keep telling myself I’m okay, that I’ll push through one more thing, then one more after that.
I’m not so sure anymore.
Maybe writing this is my way of opening the floodgates a little before they burst on their own.
If you’ve ever felt like a bad parent, maybe you’re not. Probably you’re not.
Maybe you’re just a human being trying to keep everyone else afloat while quietly taking on water yourself.
I’m going to try to remember something I hope my son already knows:
Even when I get it wrong…
Even when I say the wrong thing…
Even when life has me so twisted up I don’t recognize myself…
I have never stopped loving him.
Not for a single second.
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