Being who we are, even if FOO is different and doesn't like it

[Copabanana]

...very loving and kind...I have tried, but nothing I say to her works.
..everything is twisted and turned around.

The more I think about it the more I believe that kindness cannot work. We are their parents. They look to us for a boundary. For a limit. The love, they know. It is not love they need. They already know.

We need to be authority. Not that we have to say or do anything. But to stand for "right." And to not tolerate from them anything other than that.

We know who they are and who they were raised to be. We will accept no less than this. As Cedar says.

And draw the line. In our territory and with ourselves we can do that. You cannot stop her transgressions except to call the police.

I believe your daughter is still herself. But we cannot accept anything other than this, from her.

The psychologist can, because he is not her parent.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

The more I think about it the more I believe that kindness cannot work. We are their parents. They look to us for a boundary. For a limit. The love, they know. It is not love they need. They already know.

Thank you Copa, this is reassuring. I think in the throes of all of this, as a parent, we continually ask of ourselves, "Have I done the right thing?" Yes, boundaries. I must stop myself from spinning the "what ifs" I have no control over this situation, so I have resolved to calm myself and think, and pray, and think again.

We need to be authority. Not that we have to say or do anything. But to stand for "right." And to not tolerate from them anything other than that.

True words Copa.

And draw the line. In our territory and with ourselves we can do that. You cannot stop her transgressions except to call the police.

Yes, Copa, if things go missing, I will call the police.

I believe your daughter is still herself. But we cannot accept anything other than this, from her.

She is herself, on meth. Meth is insidious. It takes away all, but the never ending demand to get more meth. She is herself, on a drug so powerful, it takes away reason, and conscience.

I am going to post about this in PE, I think it will help me, and possibly others to see what years of playing the enabling game can do. I do not fear her homelessness, I fear her coming home.

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

First, it is your home, with your husband and son. Not hers, anymore. Second, if she wants to be part of a family, she needs to conduct herself as such. Not steal in and away.

"If she wants to be part of the family she needs to conduct herself as such. Not steal in and away."

Yes. A disrespectful invitation to triangulation between you and your D H so daughter can come between and manipulate and triangulate and lead the fray again? (Posted cynical Cedar.) You are kinder than me, Leafy. This is a heartbreaking thing, that daughter taunts her parents in this way. Copa is right, I think. "If she wants to be part of a family, she needs to conduct herself as such. Not steal in and away."

Is this the thirty something daughter, Leafy?

I could not stop him, it was his way of loving his daughter.

What is the message she is leaving you both Leafy, with this article of her clothing. How awful for you, and for your D H.

I did not realize she left you only four months ago.

How to lovingly detach from this, I do not know.

D H does not think any of this can be done lovingly. In a very real way, that is the issue I am confronting now with my son. This morning, I see that there is a heart tug here I was not aware of. Some magical little place where I enable myself to believe I have a choice in any of this. I am learning, it is one thing to wish for a child to make contact when we believe in them and a very different thing when we have stopped believing and don't know yet know that.

I don't yet know that, but at some level I have stopped believing...something.

I don't know how to put those pieces together. If and when I do, I will be face to face with my mother, and with whether I am her after all, or not. Whether I broke that intergenerational chain of endless contempt and abuse, or added another link.

There must be another way. If I can think there is another way, then I can envision what that might look like and work from there.

I will try to find it.

From here, from where I am this morning, it looks like I already have done that. Like there is nothing more.

It is what it is and look, I am still here, alive and healthy and fine as can be.

Huh.

***

D H would lock his belongings away and ignore the rest.

He says things like: They are adults. Cedar, you don't get it. What we do doesn't matter. We helped long beyond the time we knew better because they needed help. It had nothing to do with changing their situations. Only they can change their situations. Not you. Not me.

So I am thinking about that in light of my newest moral outlook.

Am I playing a game here, or do I believe that it matters. I believe that it matters because my mother's rotten treatment of me matters, and I am 63 years old. But my son was not raised like I was. (Or was he, Feeling. I do not know what he heard, or what our daughter may have told him in the middle of the night. I don't know what he needed, when he was so outraged that we were letting her come home.)

How strange all this is.

***

Son called twice last night. We were out, but I did call when we got back. But I still didn't say what I said I was going to say. So, I was telling D H about what I had learned about our son and scorn and about what I thought needed to happen next. I asked him what he thought, especially about my feeling so brave in my thinking and so not able to carry through. Son called to have the kids thank us for something they'd received from us. It didn't seem like the time to start blasting away. The kids were right there too, of course. Which shouldn't matter. But in my own defense, I will say (Ha! I was hoping something would come but nothing did.)

Whatever, you guys.

:O)

It seemed like it would have been nasty to push it. D H said: "I don't think you have to say anything and I don't think you should. It's enough that you know. It isn't something that matters, either way. He is an adult. He chooses his path. You are the one who needs to see that. Not him."

So I said what I had already said, here. And added in the material about his relationship to his mother, and about my standing up turning things around for our son. And about how an adult male could be a moral upstanding male when his mother allows that kind of talk. (Okay you guys. Second reading for me: I hear myself, now. The only part I'm getting wrong is all of it. Key words: Adult male. My son means it.)

And D H never budged.

And about his mother he said: I am not playing a role. I don't like hearing her complain unless there is something I can do for her. We both know her situation. For her to complain about something I cannot change for her is disrespectful. Why should I listen?

So I am thinking about that.

D H said, about my standing up to our son resulting in my son suddenly choosing a higher path that words do not make the difference, behavior does. Son was raised better than to do what he has done.

He's doing it anyway.

End of story.

Son's choice, changeable at any time but not on son's terms.

On D H terms.

D H says I will need to be stronger when he is gone. Then he said: "But I will be dead, so it won't matter to me."

Which is true, and this is how D H sees what he sees, and does not worry about things he cannot affect.

D H does not judge the kids for where they are, the way that I do. It isn't that he does not believe son is wrong in his behavior. It is that D H credits son with the intelligence to know what he is doing is wrong. That is where I am disrespecting my son ~ that I believe he does not know. This is where I empower myself in my mind. It seems a choice to me, when it is not a choice for me.'

My son knows what he is doing.

It isn't that I need to accept it. It is that I need to see what is for what it is.

And not be forever trying to pretty it up.

What I should have said: "Why are you talking to me like that." Or, "What do you mean." I will remember those words.

"Why are you talking to me like that." Understanding when I say it that the answer is: "Because I choose to."

Huh.

She diminished her dad to her servant, and he did it because he loves her and grieved for her situation.

He loved her the way she would allow him to love her.

There is dignity in that.

I am beginning to feel foolish about believing I could change any of this with my ten thousand words by changing the sequence of the wording. How did I forget that of course I have said these things to my son in the past.

He really means it.

And he means me, when he says it.

Huh.

Just as my mother or my sister mean it and believe it.

So I am thinking about Leafy's determination to find the loving response. Maybe, it is like Nietzsche's love, Leafy. Or, like the joy underlying all things. Maybe love and joy are just something that is there, but we are remiss in allowing...I don't know. In putting myself in some arrogant place where I believe my words can change anything.

"...and to lose even one felicity is to have been robbed of more than we have a right to spare."

Charles Williams

So, I am cleaning floors today. Grout cleaner: Baking soda into the grout. White vinegar. This works almost immediately. Also in the kitchen, there was a film comprised of seven years of incorrect cleaning. Steaming has removed this, but only over a long period of time. This film has dissolved, as well. I may have used too much of everything, so I stopped, rinsed and rinsed and dried with a towel.

The difference on the tiles I have done is astonishing.

I had heard of this before. But I decided to use it again when drips from the kitchen trash bag ate through that film. I have tried everything, including rubbing alcohol and Magic Eraser on this floor. Only steaming worked, and took forever.

I had done an apple pie yesterday. That acidic mix was in the trash. D H took the trash out, never noticing the bag was leaking. This morning, the drips were clean. I was like, what in the world was in the trash? Then, I remembered there were apple peelings and coffee grounds, for sure. So I tried vinegar, which is also acidic, of course. When I added the dry baking soda: BOOM.

I think we have to rinse really well though, so as to not damage the grout. This would not work on marble. Only porcelain ceramic. I rinsed with electric floor scrubber and lots of water. Dried with a towel.

Beautiful.

I may not have a stellar relationship with my son? But my floors are really pretty.

D H would say that is a pretty good trade.

Cedar

I don't know where I've been with this, this morning, but what I am seeing now is not that I was wrong in how I was seeing so much as that I was still fooling myself that it would change the way my son feels about me. He did not pick those words or attitudes to hurt me. They hurt me because he picked them.

When I turned that around so I could believe he loved me enough to want to hurt me, I could wrap myself in denial about what this is. I don't know why everything needs to be so darn ugly.

The answer, as I see it now, is that D H may have been correct in saying it doesn't matter whether I say particular words to son or not. That is what D H meant. That this is not a coyness on son's part. He knows what he is doing and he means it.

WTF.

I am mind boggling that he means it. This is not like when a mother corrects or ground or punishes her child to train him or her to grow in a correct way.

My own son actually means what those words he says mean.

He actually believes he will have what he wants when we are dead and he "inherits". For heaven's sake, we don't even have anything worth calling an inheritance to wait for us to be dead for. And he must know that too...so that is my worth to that person.

Okay.

That is not much to be worth, you guys.

Ouch.

roar

I feel badly for myself, now. What in the world do you suppose is the matter with me that these kinds of things keep happening right in my own family.

Well, that's why, of course. Whatever is being worked out here, I wanted the family dinner and the family because of the way I was brought up. However it happened that I wanted it so bad that I messed it up, that is what happened.

How does that go? What of him who has nothing? He will lose what he has.

They say that verse means we must not be too cautious with what we have left. We are meant to risk and grow. It's sort of like saying, "Easy come, easy go." Like what the woman pirate did.

Courage. No playing the victim. Admitting instead what is true and that it is what it looks like and nothing better and there is not point in believing for the future and being treated badly in the now.

I am still mind boggled that my son means the words he says. Not in some coy game to hurt me but in some ugly game to eradicate the meaning of mother and of father for himself.

As I have had to do with my own mother.

"Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken Halleluiah."

Leonard Cohen

***

"Lest I grow cold...."

Headlights Mom

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I am on heavy pain medication so consider the source of this. My tailbone hurts so much I took a codeine. I hated sleeping in the master bedroom and hated the bed. I did not sleep. And now my beloved bed and haven no longer exist. There is nowhere to retreat so I am in the living room. Which is a better thing. So I will endure. For now.

Only they can change their situations. Not you. Not me.

So I am thinking about that in light of my newest moral outlook.

Am I playing a game here, or do I believe that it matters. I believe that it matters because my mother's rotten treatment of me matters, and I am 63 years old.

This is what I am thinking now. On Codeine.

I am not saying your son is a jerk. There is no way a son of yours and your D H and grandson of D H Mama could ever be a jerk.

But there do exist jerks in this world. (I will not comment here on my own son.) Who have mothers. There are millions if not billions of jerks in the world. All of them have mothers.

What in the world does it have to do with us? Does every mother in the world who has a jerk for a child suffer as we do?

No. My sister is a huge jerk. Actually, she is worse than a jerk. It is also her birthday today.

My mother did lament, how did she turn out that way, Copa? I would guess she feared it might by her fault. But my mother lived her life well, and did not miss a beat.

Which I think is what D H is doing and wanting you to be able to do too. Let it go. It is the business of our sons how they live. To get to the point where we do not feel responsible. What is done is done.

We lived in the best way we knew how to do. It is like with my mother, all of the things I grieved, where I erred. I did the best I could do at the time. When I could do better, I did. End of story.

There has to be an end to breast beating. I think that is what D H is saying, too. It is self-indulgent. It does nothing to change what is or what has been.

D H said: "I don't think you have to say anything and I don't think you should. It's enough that you know. It isn't something that matters, either way. He is an adult. He chooses his path. You are the one who needs to see that. Not him."

This is exactly the truth. How patient is D H, with you.

It does matter, terribly much, to you, that you know. But to your son, not at all.

With your son there is nothing more that can be done. It is what it is.

Can you take heart that he tries to be a good father? And that he does so, is a tribute to his own parents?

D H said, about my standing up to our son resulting in my son suddenly choosing a higher path that words do not make the difference, behavior does.

I think this is especially true with respect to our own choices, about what we permit them to say and to do with us and our homes.

Except that I am thinking that if at some future time, you understand how your son hurt you and continues to do so, you tell him.

Except I am thinking about D H here, now. How does he handle that? When son is cruel to him, intentionally disrepectful, treating him in such a way so that D H will feel the contempt of his son, the contempt that son wants to deliver to him: How does he respond?

That is the way to do this.

What I am thinking is that son no longer be able to treat you this way, without consequence. In words or deeds, I do not know. But D H will know.

D H says I will need to be stronger when he is gone. Then he said: "But I will be dead, so it won't matter to me.".

Cedar, why do you and D H assume it will be him that leaves first?

D H credits son with the intelligence to know what he is doing is wrong. That is where I am disrespecting my son ~ that I believe he does not know. This is where I empower myself in my mind. It seems a choice to me, when it is not a choice for me.'

With a small child, we assume they do not know. We hold the knowing and the responsibility in us...on faith. With an adult, we do not hold the power to render their intentions and their choices, as of no consequence.

"Why are you talking to me like that." Understanding when I say it that the answer is: "Because I choose to."

This is the choice point for you, Cedar. Knowing this, how are you going to proceed? How would D H proceed?

I was still fooling myself that it would change the way my son feels about me. He did not pick those words or attitudes to hurt me. They hurt me because he picked them.

Cedar, I do not think he knows how he feels about you. I think it is very similar to my own feelings about my mother. He does what he believes will protect him. It is a very short sighted way to see, ignoring a whole lifetime of feelings. He is speaking from the skin out. Not from the heart.

But this does not mean he is not responsible. That is the teaching you can still do. To tell him how it feels. To tell him the effect, the consequence of his words. What they mean.

That to you it means this: To be held in low regard by a person you love and value the most in the world, is a most hurtful of things.

He knows what he is doing and he means it.

He means it to a point. He means it in his conscious mind. Sometimes. Somewhat. But I am thinking he needs to be held accountable for saying it. (Unless D H thinks otherwise. Then I agree with him.)

That is not much to be worth, you guys.

How is it you are going there, Cedar? Have you forgotten Viktor Frankl? It seems so.

Not in some coy game to hurt me but in some ugly game to eradicate the meaning of mother and of father for himself.

Yes.

But he needs to be held responsible for saying the words. That is what I think. He is a man. Not a child.

If he wants to eradicate the meaning of father and mother, let him go to therapy. Let him stop again altogether seeing you, but let him not use you as things, to deal with his own lack of strength or inability or unwillingness to come to grip with his own life.

Because that is what we are doing, here. Can he not be held responsible in the same way? Why should he be able to injure you? Why should you let him?

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

"If she wants to be part of the family she needs to conduct herself as such. Not steal in and away."

I am thinking that we are all at the same point more or less with our kids. Or at its precipice.

The sense that they are responsible, in all that means. They are responsible for their lives, the course of them. That they are responsible for their actions towards us and their words. Not us.

And that we are entitled to feel as we do, in response to their choices towards us. To not ignore it. To make excuses. To willfully not see. To choke on our feelings. Our dread.

Here is some of your work Cedar, on Nerfie's precept thread. One of them. I hope she is OK.

In this interpretation, the first precept has to do with accepting what is.

I think, in the sense of not railing against fate. Yet, if we were not to rail against fate, how could there be change? If Isolate of Being has to do with self management, or with change occurring effortlessly through determined self possession, then this makes sense to me. In Eastern culture though, fate is viewed differently than in Western culture. I think fate is seen as the engine in Eastern culture, and that our task is seen to be to work within it thereby refining the self. In Western culture, we see it as our work to challenge fate.

So this is interesting, Cedar. What are the implications of one view or the other? For you and your son?

My first karate instructor told us that the peasant classes were not allowed weapons or fighting skills (and) learned to challenge invaders with empty hands and to transform whatever was at hand into lethal weapons. When armed soldiers were come to destroy them, the native practitioners of this art of transforming themselves into weapons filled their bellies with small stones to damage the soldiers' swords when they cut them in half.

Winning, though losing.

So, that would be an apt description of the Isolate of Being, right?

And this, even more interesting.

Okay. I got it. I think I got it. An isolate is what is left when all extraneous matter is removed. The essence or essentialness of the thing. So, The Way of Isolate Being would be practices to inform us regarding the essence of being alive and conscious and aware of time and mortality and Now. How to celebrate and appreciate the aloneness of that, how to be open to what that is, instead of fearing it.

And this the most interesting of all.

So with the wisdom of the first precept, I think, we might not speak at all. To our sons, about our hurt. At their hands. We would fill our bellies with small stones. We would accept our pain and anger in the spirit of being alive and open.

But we would not allow our bellies to be sliced open without consequence for the sword.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

D H does not think any of this can be done lovingly. In a very real way, that is the issue I am confronting now with my son. This morning, I see that there is a heart tug here I was not aware of. Some magical little place where I enable myself to believe I have a choice in any of this. I am learning, it is one thing to wish for a child to make contact when we believe in them and a very different thing when we have stopped believing and don't know yet know that.

I am feeling down to earth today. What that means is that I did the best I could as a mother. All I could have done. I forgive myself whether or not it was enough or not.

I am me. My son is himself. I love him. That is it. My measure as a person is in me. His, in him.

I am not responsible anymore. I took responsibility too long. He is responsible now. Even for his own life. I think that is what really wore me out. I cannot be responsible for his life.

I don't yet know that, but at some level I have stopped believing...something.

Perhaps here it is not that you stopped believing in him but in your control over him or responsibility for him. He is a free being now. No strings. No tether. No umbilical cord, either. Is this bad?

I don't know how to put those pieces together. If and when I do, I will be face to face with my mother, and with whether I am her after all, or not.

I do not see this. She is she. You are you.

I think your fear is the contempt. The sneer. The scorn.

Or maybe closer to the point it is the belief in perfection. In Elegance. Classicism. Rules. Formality.

Your mother believes I think that she knows and can assess and can deem whether or not any person meets a criterion. She has claimed ownership of judging whether one is in or outside the winner's circle.

Yours is a far different thing: You seek to be inside. You are waiting for the ring of success. You do not judge. You feel judged.

I do not believe you have really judged your son. You have wanted him to win. Perhaps, according to the criteria of your mother. But this is something that you can reassess. Because I think for these years you have been developing standards of your own. You already had them. Really. But I believe if you look back at your posts you will find laid out a Cedar Code. That is one hundred percent different from that of your mother. It is only yours to own.

There must be another way. If I can think there is another way, then I can envision what that might look like and work from there.

I will try to find it.

I believe you already have. There is no more work to be done. You are already there. It is just a question of accepting it. Owning it.

Whether I broke that intergenerational chain of endless contempt and abuse, or added another link.

You broke it. It is only now for you to see. Your mother was always wrong. About everything, I think. The world is not winners and losers. She cannot judge. She is an afraid person. She was afraid to play the game.

Going to the Greek Orthodox Priest would have been playing the game. She was afraid. She would not put herself to the test. She would not test her mettle. She balked. She blamed him.

She knows on some level she cannot do it. Or worse yet, that she probably could but that she might try, and lose. Imagine that kind of smallness? Sorry, Cedar. You are so much bigger than your mother.

You have always been in the ring. Your mother. Not so much.

From here, from where I am this morning, it looks like I already have done that. Like there is nothing more.

Except in you. Look back at your work on the precept.

D H would lock his belongings away and ignore the rest.

He says things like: They are adults. Cedar, you don't get it. What we do doesn't matter.

What is the saying? Chop wood, carry water. D H is a Buddhist.

Am I playing a game here, or do I believe that it matters. I believe that it matters because my mother's rotten treatment of me matters, and I am 63 years old.

This is how it is the same: Your mother cannot be allowed to hurt you. Your son cannot be allowed to hurt you.

Your son is in charge of himself and responsible for himself. If he believes his parents hurt him, let him be responsible for his belief. Not you.

COPA

PS I am thinking now about history and the different theories of history that I have read in the past.

The thing about history is that it is in the eyes of the beholder. It is always told according to the winner. That is why for the past 45 years there has been such an emphasis on Cultural Studies: Black Studies, Native Studies, Womens Studies, Diaspora Studies, etc.

In the USA this means the losers in the Culture Wars.

Your son or daughter and my own son can write whatever history they want. It does not make it so. I am thinking now of your mother and her glee that she controls the pictures...and can be the only one who can tell the story. Or my sister. I have the pictures. We'll have our own memorial. Let her kill me off. What does it matter?

Big Deal. It is like D H says: I'll be gone. What do I care.

We live our lives well. We have lived our lives well. Enough of all of the rest.

Being the winner is not all it is trumped up to be. I am now watching Donald Trump.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Except I am thinking about D H here, now. How does he handle that? When son is cruel to him, intentionally disrepectful, treating him in such a way so that D H will feel the contempt of his son, the contempt that son wants to deliver to him: How does he respond?

He would never say these things to D H, Copa. If he did, whenever he has tried, D H shut him down hard, fast, and nasty...and I sided with son against
D H. In the sense that I thought D H was too rough, and that terrible things we say echo through the generations and etc. Which was very wrong, but I could not, for the life of me, see it then. When I was done trying though, back when son was in his late twenties, and insisted that without treatment, we would not help in any way (I had found the site by that time) D H leaped in, bringing food and dog food, paying fines, driving three hours one way twice weekly, attending court dates, everything.

I was not allowed to come.

Or even, send cookies.

And at the end of it and forever after, what we hear is that D H gave just enough to be sure son could not make it.

(This was long after the times with the chicken and frozen broccoli. That D H and I did together. Also a three hour drive one way. Son was different, then. He was still someone you could love when D H tried, by himself, to save him.) Son has actually lived with us two or three times after that time. Two of those times we set him up financially. The third time, D H got him an old car and gave him $500 and that's all.

At one point, son wanted a truck and we had two so D H gave him one. Paid for the transfer. Though it was a fine truck for D H (Dodge RAM) son said it was a piece of s***.

So, that's a terrible story. There was, always and always and always, dunning us for money and then, one day finally we stopped because I stopped thinking the same way because I was here on the site, again.

For daughter, this time.

So, I have to think some more about how I think myself into believing anything is ever going to be alright.

Now you see what I mean, about wondering how D H could even stay with me.

Oh rats, you guys. Now I've blown my rep.

I just literally don't know how to think or what to think or anything at all.

Happy Hour here everyone. Have a good night.

Copa, did you hurt your back? Or is it that you are not comfortable with the mattress?

I swear you guys, my head is spinning.

That is the problem, just as D H suggested. I somehow, I convince myself I can change this by being tougher because saying no money seemed to have helped son. But the truth is, son knew he was on his own and so, did what he had to do.

I wonder why he calls me at all.

Someone told me once that when we are too understanding of inappropriate things, people turn ugly because they can.

I suppose that's what happened, then.

 

[Copabanana]

And at the end of it and forever after, what we hear is that D H gave just enough to be sure son could not make it.

He can go f-ck himself with his stupid theories. This is hurtful.

Neither you nor D H can win for losing. There is nothing that pleases Dear Son, who I am not feeling dearly about. He just seems to want to hurt you.

Hacerte culpable. To make you the guilty ones. Do not permit it. When his so-called downfall came, he was already 16 years old. This is a man in most societies.

That he blew it and chose another path, is not your fault. He had received by then all he needed to stand on his own two feet. And he was doing it.

Even if he was still very young. He is not young now. Let him stand up now.

Cedar, what in the world does it have to do with you, anymore? Why do you persist in feeling responsible?

So, I have to think some more about how I think myself into believing anything is ever going to be alright.

Nothing is ever going to be alright, Cedar. It is an illusion. A belief in fantasy. We all die. We all get sick or have terrible accidents, first. You know this.

You do not any longer have to live a fairy tale. You are living real life. And you are living with dignity and grace and beauty and love and commitment and hard work. That is all there is. There is nothing more.

All the rest is the purview of people that do not and will never have what you do: A real, beautiful life and self.

End of fairy tale (or tail), Cedar.

COPA

I hope I am not out of line. If I am blame the codeine.

 

[Copabanana]

I am really on a roll with this codeine. I posted on Sherrill's thread something like this: Nothing you do or do not do will make a difference with your son. What you do or do not do is for you, not for a specific result in him or for him. Do whatever you do, with that in mind.

I believe myself.

So, I have to think some more about how I think myself into believing anything is ever going to be alright.

Cedar. I want you to think about what exactly you have in mind "alright" would be. To spell it out. What is happening in an "alright" scenario?

Until you really operationalize "alright" and are able to look at it, "alright" does not mean anything. It is just shifting sand, a mirage.

Copa, did you hurt your back? Or is it that you are not comfortable with the mattress?

I think I must have hurt my back working yesterday. But I blame the new room and my mother's bed. I just know that if I was able to sleep in my old room, in my own bed--all of which do not exist anymore--I would have been alright in the morning. And I would have slept soundly. Our old bed was a full. This new bed is a California King. I feel as if I am sleeping on the Sahara Desert. My old be, I felt like I was sleeping in a crib. With my sleepers on.

I hate this new bed. While pretty, I miss my old room. My old room is now M's Den.

But at least I am in the living room, which is really a Great Room, so I am in the center of my house. So maybe I will begin to feel comfortable in my house, now that I am unable to be in my room and in my bed. Which would be a good thing.

M is at the other house. With a crew to put in some cement and repair other cement. I am grateful to him.

M called his sister to tell her not to come.

Nobody commented on her remarks to me (I posted about) about treating M better by not saying, I want this room now. Or I do not like the chair where he wants it.

I told M. He said: Both of you are fools. Or something like that. And let it go.

Which was the right thing to say, because within relationships we all have the right to err and be foolish. We just do not have the right to hurt each other. And each of us is responsible (like D H models for us) to not allow ourselves to be hurt....

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar,

Please, please try to not be so harsh to yourself. You are not D H. D H is not you. Each of you had a right and an obligation to parent your son. And to change course.

That does not make you wrong. Or D H wrong.

All of this is about Dear Son and his own life. Let it be about him.

I wish you could forgive yourself.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

A disrespectful invitation to triangulation between you and your D H so daughter can come between and manipulate and triangulate and lead the fray again? (Posted cynical Cedar.) You are kinder than me, Leafy. This is a heartbreaking thing, that daughter taunts her parents in this way. Copa is right, I think. "If she wants to be part of a family, she needs to conduct herself as such. Not steal in and away."

Is this the thirty something daughter, Leafy?

What is the message she is leaving you both Leafy, with this article of her clothing. How awful for you, and for your D H.

I did not realize she left you only four months ago.

She is 36, Cedar, a grown woman. Whether or not the yoga pants message is the other side of yellowed snow, marking territory, an insult (for I found an article of my clothing muddied on the ground), or the benign explanation of coming to bathe, and relax, it is what it is.

My rationale is this, if my daughter has changed, would she not have come when we were at home?
Better, yet, would she not avail herself of the many shelters here, of the many residential treatment facilities?

My son does this, too. This is why he wants to be home. He wants the safety of home. He wants the love. The food. The comfort.
But he does not realize or does not want to face that I feel he transgresses. He dominates. He disregards. He controls. He takes over.

This is what daughter attempts. I need to name her. My d c with children is Tornado, this one shall be...I don't know yet, I shall think on it.
Anyway, looking back, this is what she does. Overly comfortable and presumptuous to a point of contempt.

We need to be authority. Not that we have to say or do anything. But to stand for "right." And to not tolerate from them anything other than that.

How can one be a good house guest, with no respect? Certainly, my other adult children will come and make themselves at home, but in a respectful way. The d cs, ugh. You are right Copa, if we cannot be respected in our own homes, the d cs should not be welcome there, until they have changed. That is how I feel. As son said to me "Mom, why should we have people (sisters) in our home, when we have to lock away our valuables?" Smart, smart boy. Would this locking away valuables pertain to our hearts and feelings, too? If our d cs not only steal from us, but use words and manipulations to hurt us, should we have them in our homes? On our minds? Huh.

D H does not think any of this can be done lovingly. In a very real way, that is the issue I am confronting now with my son. This morning, I see that there is a heart tug here I was not aware of. Some magical little place where I enable myself to believe I have a choice in any of this. I am learning, it is one thing to wish for a child to make contact when we believe in them and a very different thing when we have stopped believing and don't know yet know that.

I don't yet know that, but at some level I have stopped believing...something.

I still hold hope for my d cs, in giving them to God. Within that, is the cold, hard, ugly truth that they are still in the throes of active addiction, and if or when they are not using, have a long battle with their disease.
Still, they may come out of it with contempt for me. And I? I shall love them, but from afar, if that is what I must do to protect myself.

There must be another way. If I can think there is another way, then I can envision what that might look like and work from there.

When you find it, please let me know sister.

D H would lock his belongings away and ignore the rest.

He says things like: They are adults. Cedar, you don't get it. What we do doesn't matter. We helped long beyond the time we knew better because they needed help. It had nothing to do with changing their situations. Only they can change their situations. Not you. Not me.

How frank and honest and pragmatic menfolk are.

Am I playing a game here, or do I believe that it matters. I believe that it matters because my mother's rotten treatment of me matters, and I am 63 years old. But my son was not raised like I was. (Or was he, Feeling. I do not know what he heard, or what our daughter may have told him in the middle of the night. I don't know what he needed, when he was so outraged that we were letting her come home.)

How strange all this is.

It is indeed strange. As we examine our pasts, what do our children have to say about their FOO-us? In the long run, we are all imperfect humans trying to do the best we can in an imperfect world.

Son called twice last night. We were out, but I did call when we got back. But I still didn't say what I said I was going to say. So, I was telling D H about what I had learned about our son and scorn and about what I thought needed to happen next. I asked him what he thought, especially about my feeling so brave in my thinking and so not able to carry through. Son called to have the kids thank us for something they'd received from us. It didn't seem like the time to start blasting away. The kids were right there too, of course. Which shouldn't matter. But in my own defense, I will say (Ha! I was hoping something would come but nothing did.)

Whatever, you guys.

And that is okay, keep it simple. Will he even hear the words as you speak them? I have learned that in my d cs contempt of me, like teenagers, they will twist everything said, even the kindest of things. Keep it simple.

It seemed like it would have been nasty to push it. D H said: "I don't think you have to say anything and I don't think you should. It's enough that you know. It isn't something that matters, either way. He is an adult. He chooses his path. You are the one who needs to see that. Not him."

Wise, wise D H.

The only part I'm getting wrong is all of it. Key words: Adult male. My son means it.)

So do my d.cs, in every way. That is why after hurling the vilest of insults at the top of her lungs for her children, God and all the world to hear, Tornado has not called to apologize. She meant it. Then the oldest, slipping off without a word, she means that. Their birthdays have come and gone. I felt a twinge, just a tiny one.
But there is nothing left to say.

I believe your daughter is still herself. But we cannot accept anything other than this, from her.

No disrespect from her or any of my children it is unacceptable. Yes Copa. In many ways she is herself, in many, not. As Cedar struggles with her son, meaning what he says, yes, she is herself.

She is herself, on meth. Meth is insidious. It takes away all, but the never ending demand to get more meth. She is herself, on a drug so powerful, it takes away reason, and conscience.

It is up to her to find herself, somewhere locked up in the crazy addiction, and get help. I have not enough words to help her. She does not see me as I would see myself in this journey.

D H said, about my standing up to our son resulting in my son suddenly choosing a higher path that words do not make the difference, behavior does. Son was raised better than to do what he has done.

He's doing it anyway.

End of story.

Choosing a higher path, Cedar? That would be enough for me, at this point. I do not want to go to the pit of despair due to my deep love for them. I have numbed it, the deep love. I love them, but will not sacrifice myself anymore. I do not need to speak with them, it would fall on deaf ears. Wasted breath, wasted words.

D H says I will need to be stronger when he is gone. Then he said: "But I will be dead, so it won't matter to me."

Which is true, and this is how D H sees what he sees, and does not worry about things he cannot affect.

Smart man. Epictetus wrote
"It is not external events themselves that cause us distress, but they way in which we think about them, our interpretation of their significance. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble. We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them."

D H does not judge the kids for where they are, the way that I do. It isn't that he does not believe son is wrong in his behavior. It is that D H credits son with the intelligence to know what he is doing is wrong. That is where I am disrespecting my son ~ that I believe he does not know. This is where I empower myself in my mind. It seems a choice to me, when it is not a choice for me.'

Huh. I guess our heart strings tug at us to see things how we would be able to accept them. It is better to think our d cs do not know that they are hurting us I guess. I need to have this in the front of my mind now, because it is true. Because I have to look not only at the damage done to hubs and I, but to my son. Seeing through his eyes, the agony his sisters have put him through, Cedar, and the sisters don't care.
And now I am angry at them and at myself, for not seeing this way earlier.

My son knows what he is doing.

It isn't that I need to accept it. It is that I need to see what is for what it is.

And not be forever trying to pretty it up.

What I should have said: "Why are you talking to me like that." Or, "What do you mean." I will remember those words.

"Why are you talking to me like that." Understanding when I say it that the answer is: "Because I choose to."

Or even, "Do not talk to me like that" .
I think that is what John Rosemond is trying to get at. That in raising children, society has come so far away from the values once taught, that rules are made and expected to be followed. Parents should be respected. My favorite parental quote "Because I said so." That is what has been lost now. The simplicity of it. I see parents at my school trying to stand up for their children over and over again, as if they could do no wrong. Children go home and complain of their teachers, we did not do this Cedar, we would get in trouble ourselves. Now, the parents are calling and complaining to the school, on the word of their children alone. Things have gone topsy-turvy.

He loved her the way she would allow him to love her. There is dignity in that.

Yes, there is dignity in my hubs showing love through washing our d cs clothes. But there is also the other side of the coin, her taking advantage of that love. This hard, hard working man, washing her clothes while she was stealing from us, our hearts, time. She is drugging, that is why she does not have a home, a place to bathe, to wash clothes. That is the ugly, naked truth of it.

I am beginning to feel foolish about believing I could change any of this with my ten thousand words by changing the sequence of the wording. How did I forget that of course I have said these things to my son in the past.

He really means it.

And he means me, when he says it.

Huh.

Just as my mother or my sister mean it and believe it.

It is the truth Cedar, they mean what they say. They are our children, and they mean what they say.

So I am thinking about Leafy's determination to find the loving response. Maybe, it is like Nietzsche's love, Leafy. Or, like the joy underlying all things. Maybe love and joy are just something that is there, but we are remiss in allowing...I don't know. In putting myself in some arrogant place where I believe my words can change anything.

"...and to lose even one felicity is to have been robbed of more than we have a right to spare."

Charles Williams

So, I am cleaning floors today. Grout cleaner: Baking soda into the grout. White vinegar. This works almost immediately. Also in the kitchen, there was a film comprised of seven years of incorrect cleaning. Steaming has removed this, but only over a long period of time. This film has dissolved, as well. I may have used too much of everything, so I stopped, rinsed and rinsed and dried with a towel.

The difference on the tiles I have done is astonishing.

I have cleaned many a floor with misery, frustration and angers' tears.

I may not have a stellar relationship with my son? But my floors are really pretty.

You are funny Cedar, in the throes of deep discussion, the laughter is refreshing, thank you for that.

I don't know where I've been with this, this morning, but what I am seeing now is not that I was wrong in how I was seeing so much as that I was still fooling myself that it would change the way my son feels about me. He did not pick those words or attitudes to hurt me. They hurt me because he picked them.

As did my

The answer, as I see it now, is that D H may have been correct in saying it doesn't matter whether I say particular words to son or not. That is what D H meant. That this is not a coyness on son's part. He knows what he is doing and he means it.

WTF.

WTF. Is right, Cedar, for all of us, WTF.

My own son actually means what those words he says mean.

He actually believes he will have what he wants when we are dead and he "inherits". For heaven's sake, we don't even have anything worth calling an inheritance to wait for us to be dead for. And he must know that too...so that is my worth to that person.

Okay.

That is not much to be worth, you guys.

Ouch.

Ouch.
For me too, Cedar, my eldest d c has said similar things, "Dad has money stashed away" Huh.
So it comes down to this, waiting for us to go, so that she may have what little we do have.
Which is not much at all. She will be disappointed.That kind of makes me smile. Ha ha.

I feel badly for myself, now. What in the world do you suppose is the matter with me that these kinds of things keep happening right in my own family.

Well, that's why, of course. Whatever is being worked out here, I wanted the family dinner and the family because of the way I was brought up. However it happened that I wanted it so bad that I messed it up, that is what happened.

How does that go? What of him who has nothing? He will lose what he has.

They say that verse means we must not be too cautious with what we have left. We are meant to risk and grow. It's sort of like saying, "Easy come, easy go." Like what the woman pirate did.

The matter is Cedar, that we all mess up.
People have come out of all kinds of terrible, terrible situations and lived healthy, meaningful lives. I refuse to believe that my mistakes led to my d cs self destruction. Then, I am buying into their...propaganda.

Courage. No playing the victim. Admitting instead what is true and that it is what it looks like and nothing better and there is not point in believing for the future and being treated badly in the now.

I am still mind boggled that my son means the words he says. Not in some coy game to hurt me but in some ugly game to eradicate the meaning of mother and of father for himself.

The "Emperor who Wore no Clothes" and there it is, for all it is worth.
And, so we live and breathe.

"Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken Halleluiah."

If Gods children even his angels fell from His grace, who are we to question when ours stumble and fall of their own choosing?

The answer to this is free will, sisters. Our children became adults and exercised free will.
They chose.
This does not mean they will stay where they are at, but they chose.

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, this is my last post before I ride off into the sunset.

"Alright" I think is whatever is now. Because that is all that exists.

That is my last word.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Cedar, this is my last post before I ride off into the sunset.

"Alright" I think is whatever is now. Because that is all that exists.

That is my last word.

COPA

Copa, I hope you are okay, I am just getting up to speed with things and read about your tailbone, OUCH Copa.
OUCH.

I hope you are "Alright"

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I hope you are "Alright"

Thank you, New Leaf. I am taking it very easy. Thank you.

New Leaf, How are you doing?

It is so hard when they are in our space. I know how different I feel when my son is 2 or 3 hours away. And how it is to remember when he was here.

It is so hard to feel you have to steel yourself against your own child or children.

Thankfully we have each other. How alone I was before.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

The answer to this is free will, sisters. Our children became adults and exercised free will.

This does not mean they will stay where they are at, but they chose.

New Leaf, I live at Ground Zero of meth labs and use since the early 90's.

I recognize the faces of those who have stopped, because their bodies still bear the scars while their minds seem to have cleared.

So many people stop. They do. They decide to and they stop. They do not do so for their mothers and fathers. They do so for themselves.

There is hope.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Oh Copa, thank you for writing, it must take great effort while you are in pain, that means a lot to me.

I am okay. Thankfully off today, so I spent a lot of time reflecting and praying.
My daughter has not shown up, I feel she will not, while I am home.

Yes, it is hard. But reality. I have come to accept it for what it is.
I still have hope.
I do not accept the ill treatment.
I must go for a bit and will be back later.
Take care dear Copa, and go to the doctor if you need to.
Back pain is excruciating.

Kind of like our D cs.

Pains in the you know what.

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I still have hope.
I do not accept the ill treatment.

New Leaf, this says it all. Good for you.

Thank you. I am feeling a little better.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

I wonder why he calls me at all.

Someone told me once that when we are too understanding of inappropriate things, people turn ugly because they can.

Cedar, why is it that you hold yourself responsible for your son's ill-treatment of you? Is there some calculus in your head that if you allow him to do so, especially in your own head that something will change, for him?

Like a pound of flesh. If you allow him to beat on you...in your mind...he will tire of this fit he seems to be throwing?

Cedar, there are millions and millions of siblings that are overshadowed for a time by the needs of an ill or distressed sibling. They go to therapy and they work it out. Or do so in another way. They do not verbally beat up their mother. I am speaking here about my own son, too. He cannot scapegoat me for his problems or his birth or illness or any other thing. It is wrong. I will no longer accept it.

There are millions and millions of adult children, who go down wrong paths...and correct course. Let your son take responsibility. His choices are not your fault. Let my own son take responsibility. It is not my fault.

Nobody should turn ugly towards us. If they do, they are accountable. The hard part is deciding what to do or not.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I wish you could forgive yourself.

Copa, you are right.

This comes down to self-forgiveness. We may mark the time in the sense that we are able now to be upset at inappropriate behaviors. That is a big step for us. To see in that changed way, I mean. Somehow though, we are (I am) still curving the hurt of it back onto myself for the empowerment in taking that kind of control rather than just sitting with what it feels like.

Well, that's because the feelings suck.

Which they do.

***

Looking in this new way of seeing is confusing. It makes sense that we would use old skillsets to self soothe. We are working through it and you are right, Copa. I am falling into old patterns where somehow, the responsibility is mine because it empowers me to believe that I am responsible for what is happening. Instead...well, I don't know what to do about the pain in the dirty rotten things that are happening, either. But we do know imagining ourselves somehow responsible in a doomed effort to control the hurt of it works really badly.

So we know something then, that we did not know, before.

***

So...how do we practice self forgiveness.

We would need to begin with unconditional positive self regard.

Unconditional. So, we begin our practice with "kinder". Kinder to ourselves, when we feel the anger that covers the shame that infects the wound, which is abandonment.

That is the key wounding, the core of every wound: Abandonment.

What do you all think about that. Is that true? I think it is true. That is the pain of shunning and the fear in being labeled or losing beauty and the loss in old age.

Abandonment.

***

Probably, we need to begin with the little things. In the piece Leafy posted for us, one of the positives was to drink a glass of fresh water every morning for 31 days. Some simple something that is very good for us and very simply accomplished as a way of setting, and reminding ourselves of, intent.

A beginning way to be good to ourselves; an act simple and sincere as holding the intention to be kinder, to ourselves and to others.

***

I have come such a long way. I stopped writing to read through poetry from the beginning. I have come so far. The woundedness was the same, then. In spite of everything that has happened, in spite of all the things I name it, the essential woundedness was the same then as it is, now. If the others of us have written material from years ago, or maybe pictures or memories would do it too, the essential wound is the same, though we did not know then how to name it.

I am putting this together with what is happening with my son.

I don't know what that is going to look like.

I have this from Thich Nhat Hahn:

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That is the message he is sending.

T.N.H.

Without the capacity of listening deeply, we cannot understand, and without understanding, love is not real; love is not possible.

T.N.H.

Which is the kind of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place. Except for the part about twisting responsibility back onto myself to pretend to an empowerment I don't really feel.

So, he is writing about the self, here.

For us, in this context, he is writing about how we perceive ourselves.

***

If we see forgiving ourselves for our pain, if we acknowledge and claim and forgive ourselves for the echoing pain of abandonment, rather than trying to take control of it or make sense of it or do anything with it at all but acknowledge it in much the same way a physician practices medicine or an attorney practices law or Thich Nhat Hanh practices presence, I think that would be a way to begin, too. We acknowledge first that we are prepared and second that self forgiveness is a practice ~ is an ongoing, everchanging, pivotal event of depth and color and time ~ and third that, just as doctors and attorneys and Buddhist monks must take their practices seriously and sincerely and with determined intent instead of fear, so must we.

That is the piece we are missing. That is why the above material from Thich Nhat Hanh matters.

We are that important, that valuable, that alive and aware, too. It isn't about the other guy. This is about us.

Which is a little humbling.

***

This is the underlying message in the work piece I have been hearing and listening for and remembering as I go about my day.

Here is a quote for us to begin with, then:

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the Earth revolves ~ slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future."

Thich Nhat Hanh

This is a very hard practice to engage in sincerely and with simplicity and high good humor. It is a direct counter to the fear of abandonment. A direct, in your face encounter with the fear of abandonment.

It is the same: When chopping onions, just chop onions.

Speaking of which, it was the baking soda, and not the vinegar at all, that was responsible for cutting through that film on the tile. The climate here is humid and very warm and a kind of mildew grows on everything outside. I am wondering if that is what that film is ~ something we are tracking in with the soil on D H shoes. (I take mine off when I come in. D H does not. I love to blame D H for what I can.)

:O)

I will be scrubbing again today, but in a more organized fashion.

The tile is beautiful, the grout very clean.

And now my beloved bed and haven no longer exist. There is nowhere to retreat so I am in the living room. Which is a better thing. So I will endure. For now.

You are cold turkeying it, Copa. I am so pleased for you. I am sure it is hard to do this. Claim it. Claim all of it Copa and M and your life, too.

We are doing this, everyone.

From the Benedictines: "Cherish, honor, promote, and protect."

We have everything we need, to begin. Holding you in my thoughts and prayers, Copa.

In time, could M's den become an office for you both?

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the Earth revolves ~ slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future."

Thich Nhat Hanh

This is a very hard practice to engage in sincerely and with simplicity and high good humor. It is a direct counter to the fear of abandonment. A direct, in your face encounter with the fear of abandonment.

So...drinking our tea slowly, in sincerity and simply and with high good humor can only happen when we are fully present to ourselves. Not the sunrise or the music or the future or the past. Not covering over with how much better we are going to be or who we would rather be or how we wish it were.

Not that I have ever done it.

But to do it properly, that is where we would have to be.

And once we are there, we are present, and abandonment of self becomes impossible, in that joining.

The abandonment we fear is abandonment of self; is how we have lived our lives. That fulcrum of fear.

But I am not sure what I mean.

It has again to do with what was learned about ourselves in the eyes of the abuser, abusing. It has to do with what we were taught, then.

Cedar