The problem.

June 06, 2007 | Category: In My Life

I never expected to resent him.

For 5 years, our relationship was mostly brilliant hued dates. Family dinners and funny anecdotes. Long afternoons snatched out of our regularly scheduled programming, playing and laughing and nodding at how happy we were.

Oh, I'd say. I want this all the time.

Your freckled smile, your sly wit, your intelligence and goofiness. I don't want to miss another day.

Almost a year and a half ago, I woke up and stretched and realized - "This is IT!"

Bouncing around like cartoon character to be free to be with my son without all the other priorities ripping me away.

A year and a half.

I'm a wreck.

Not from being his mom. This kid? Is a rock star. So many months spent has only confirmed his Twinkie goodness. Even at his absolute worst - overtired, bratty, and manipulative in a way only a 6-year-old can be - he's a walking miracle.

I'm a wreck from ME.

Working a highly demanding career, loving a complicated man, mothering an amazing son, propping up a crooked house, and juggling fire sticks all one after another left me with a razor-sharp wit and a lean, swift imprint on this Earth.

But behind that blur that was me there was a secret: I rarely did it all, all at once.

My sequencing came in hours-long stretches. Yes, with overlapping moments of multi-tasking. But by and large, when I was working - I was working. When I was walking with him under dusky sky to the library, I was with him. When my husband and I sat side by side, on the front steps, bumping shoulders and exchanging anecdotes at the end of the day, it was just us.

I thought it was chaos.

I was wrong.

THIS? This is chaos.

There is a titanium structure underneath the seemingly loose and flowing life of raising children. And I didn't build mine well, at all.

My fault.

My consequences.

Except it has also been all the people who love me who have paid. As I've flailed about, exhausted and confused... they've had to watch me. Like a bad movie. Maybe one of the strange Keanu Reeves flicks.

So many times I've tried to figure out how to fix it...and?

I still don't know the answer.

But I thought I'd start this morning by defining the problem.

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