Once we lived in a Prostibulo for a year (that is a more delicate way to say whore house. Of course there is a story behind it.)
Ha! I have always been curious about prostibulos! What an extraordinary thing to have done, Copa! Was it very exotic? I am picturing that Brooke Shields movie about growing up in a New Orleans whorehouse. Pretty Baby, I think it was. And that beautiful red headed woman who is so liberal politically was in it, washing her feet. Her own feet. In the sunshine. I have never forgotten that. She just loved every inch of herself; all her skin, both her feet.
She played Brooke's mother.
She was very beautiful, in that movie.
I don't remember too much more about it at all. The music.
So, not a very good movie and yet, I have never forgotten the beauty of the naked woman, washing her feet in the sunshine.
Just lovely.
Copa, you have had many adventures.
Of course there is a story behind it
It is still dark as night, here. That is how early in the morning it is. And I cannot wait to hear the prostibulo story. It sounds like some exotic Italian dessert. "Prostibulo." I am getting it all confused with that imagery of the beautiful red headed actress washing her feet in the sun.
A sweating glass of sparkling prostibulo beside her.
:O)
Will I see him from Heaven? I feel that you are at your best age and 'normal' again in Heaven. When he joins me down the line, he will be back to the son I knew before the illness.
It is said that there is a pattern, and a purpose, to every smallest thing that happens. In the space of our lifetimes, we cannot see it. We do not have the perspective necessary to understand. At the touch of Eternity, so they say, we will know.
For today then, our job is to do the best we know in the moment we are in. For me lately, that has been about being present to the moment I am in. It's shockingly difficult to just be present. It is a choice though, and there is a clear way to just be. The world becomes heartbreakingly beautiful, when we remember to do that.
I think that is the difference between being young and being old. When we are young, we are so fully ourselves and everything is all about us. When we are older, and have been tempered and have become curious about how to survive, then we see with different eyes. The world of the young woman we were was not more beautiful than this one.
Okay.
It was, in some ways having to do with beautiful men.
:O)
I am dying inside. I want to tell him that I love him and that I am sorry.
This is where we can work, then. Where you are the one who is sorry, sparkling like the priceless gem it is. Would you like to explore these feelings, Feeling? We have learned that, having been raised as so many of us were, blaming ourselves (taking responsibility), condemning and tearing into and hating ourselves has become a kind of automatic expiation response we require of ourselves in our adulthoods because our dysfunctional families of origin required that of us in our childhoods.
It was wrong then, Feeling. It is wrong, now.
When we are not perfect.
That is when it strikes.
When our children are troubled, that is so not perfect that we tear into ourselves without mercy or compassion. We will do anything, pay any price, to change things for our kids. Part of this is genetically mandated, I think. Is instinctual response to a child refusing or unable to launch. We fixate on getting them healthy and strong and we so desperately want them to be happy.
***
But what our children need is strong mothers, able to believe in themselves and their children whether we (or they) are perfect or not.
Would you like to post about your expectations for your son, Feeling? He is...I don't remember how old he is. Thirty five? My son is 40. My daughter is 41. It has made a very huge difference for us for me to have changed how I see them functioning in their lives, and how I speak to them and believe in them.
A huge difference.
I think that whatever bad place the kids have come to in their lives, a small piece of how they can find strength to do the right thing for themselves is if we believe they can; if we see them as competent, responsible people. (Physically or emotionally ill, or addicted, or not). Part of that is for us to have a look at whether blaming ourselves for their actions (thereby excusing them of responsibility for what they have done, just as we were taught to do with abusive adults in our childhoods) is the best thing for the kids. The best thing I think is not to blame, at all. There is a theory called: Radical Acceptance. It just is what it is and we take it from there and do the best we know. No blame. Not for our children, and
not for ourselves.
Blame is a useless thing.
Out it goes.
I don't like you to blame yourself, Feeling. You are doing the best thing you know. I believe it will help your child, for him to be in the world. He is a man.
He is not meant to be living a life behind closed doors and shuttered windows in the house of his mother. He is meant to be in the world.
He will be fine.
You are here with us, now. You are going to be fine, too.
***
We have all learned so much here on the site over the years, Feeling. I am so glad you found us, but I get it that I am sounding like I know what I am talking about. I don't, of course. None of us does really, or our kids would be okay and we would devote our time to some other aspect of self. But here is one more very important thing I have to tell you about the five years. Don't write the end of the story, Feeling. You don't know what will happen, either. We have to bring our focus back to today, when our children are troubled.
We will not survive it, otherwise. When I find myself thinking in overwhelming ways, I tell myself that. Don't write the end of the story. Open your eyes and see the beauty and joy that is there and take it with both hands, because the pain will come whether I have taken the joy that was mine to take, or not.
We learn to hold ourselves very much in the present, Feeling.
It is how to survive this.
I think there is nothing worse than watching someone we love willfully self destruct.
Another thing we have earned here on the site Feeling is that so much of this is genetic. You cannot change your child's genetic heritage. Whatever it is, you child must develop the skills to address and cope with who he is. Hurting his own mother is never going to be a good place for him to begin. Being made to stay away from his mother, being required or requiring of himself that he accomodate himself to the world is crucial
for his sake.
You did the right thing, Feeling, in requiring that restraining order.
The other way did not work, because your child is not better.
This is his chance.
Pray for him, light a candle for him, set a place setting for him on the holidays Feeling, but love him enough to love yourself through these five years, too. When you do see him again, let him see a strong, loving, committed mom who believes in him and celebrates his success; his independence.
It is very hard, to come to these places where we can see ourselves and our children differently.
But that's okay. You are here with us, now. Together, somehow, we are able to stand one another up and get ourselves through it.
Very hard, though.
I am so sorry for the pain of it, Feeling.
It's all so horribly different than we dreamed.
Cedar
. Little by little. 
