archival.
It is interesting, the manner in which you disclaim things before you begin them. ‘A whole lot of nothing’, you call it. But there is a lot here that is much more than nothing, by any definition.
I decided to sleep on this, rather than try to reply in the moment of receiving. Both to allow myself to really absorb it as well as to insure my thoughts and intentions were where they needed to be when I returned to reply.
I note how you prefer to frame this contact as if speaking to someone unknown to you. For all that has been true over the years, it is not completely so, and I’m sure you have at least one memory of me that is softer than the combined total of all the resentments that have kept it company.
It is to that memory I will speak, and to that part of you that hasn’t quite managed to be convinced that it is all hopeless. Maybe that part can still hear me. Maybe.
Unknown to you, I have followed your progress over the years. For all it was readily obvious that trying to be present in your life would only bring misery to you, me, and those who were raising you, it remained and remains that there has been no moment in which I have not loved and cared for you, had concern for your well-being, and felt the
tug of all the things that circumstance and old angers impeded.
I knew of your trouble in school. And of your stint with ——– —. And of your entry to college. I was and am proud of you for returning to get that certificate. I never had the luxury of college, and it doesn’t look like I will… so seeing you and ——- both find and
accomplish in that area is of special enjoyment here.
And I could guess as to the torments and travails you endured in high school. It is interesting, really… the things you tell me in this underscore all the many things of you that mark you as my son. I think you would be very surprised to find just how much we have in common in our interests, our hobbies, and even our thinking processes. I’m sure
——- must have mentioned it.
I remember the young man who wanted to argue with me over the correction pronounciation of ‘gauge’. *chuckle* I remember as well the look on your face when you held ——- . I am thankful that the two of you are finding your way to closeness. As I’m sure you know, my history is fairly bereft of family, and thus, she has never had much
of one beyond me. To have you in her life is a much deeper blessing that you may realize. Thank you for that.
I chuckle at the reference to ‘the only sane people in your family’. The layers of meaning there are also poignant. I can ‘hear’ the ambivilance and for what it’s worth, it’s ok. I knew when I gave you up that this was the most likely outcome. It was worth it for what I knew you would gain, even as I knew also what you would lose in it. In the end, it all balances out… and, as odd as this may sound, I would rather you hate me for not being there than hate me for being part of what was quickly becoming a highly dysfunctional web of interaction.
Whether you care to see it or not, for all the hurt you did find, there are layers of hurt and anguish you were spared in it. I suppose it is hard to explain since you won’t have a frame of reference for them… and perhaps it doesn’t matter. You’re still busy trying to tell yourself you don’t care and the last thing I want is to point at something you’re not ready to see.
Even as I know to say as little as that will be to do so.
I read of your ‘non-existant social life’ and admittedly, chuckle. Not for humor at it, but for how much we’re alike in this, too. Feeling adrift and alienated from the world at large is not uncommon here. And it is not uncommon among those of high intelligence. You inherit more than you think you do and for all I know the intellect will serve you well, I am sad for the mandatory alienation that seems to come with it.
I’m 41 and only recently have I found any way to assuage that sense of alienation. I’m not foolish enough to think that what worked for me will work for you, but I sincerely hope you find the combination of insights and experiences you need to manage it in less time than I
did. It is not enjoyable to feel the best you can manage is to withdraw from others. Nor is it enjoyable to forever be misconstrued, misunderstood, misjudged, and misperceived by them.
The thing that often helps me most is understanding that, in reality, most people simply are not aware. Nor do they wish to be so. It is work. And it hurts. And unlike me (and possibly you) most people have the sense to shy back from such things as the indicators of massive change that they represent.
The world does not encourage such thinking, depth, and contemplation. Too close to being free for the comfort of most. Fortunately, I can report that the closer you get to that freedom (which is the goal, even before we know enough to conceptualize it), the less such things linger and tug and hurt. So… there is relief.
As for ——- and guilt… the rejection she had gave her lessons that acceptance in that moment would not have delivered. And she has grown as a person for it. That is not a bad thing. Additionally, you have found lessons in it that you would not have met had it not
occurred as it did. That also, is not a bad thing.
Guilt for things that can’t be changed only bring suffering. The real indicator of learning and grace is finding regret/remorse and then, the resolution not to repeat it, followed by carrying through on that resolution. All of which you are doing. So perhaps you will find the way to be kinder to yourself for it. I hope.
You get your writing from me. And your preference for writing as a form of communication.
I am not at all surprised to hear of it. ——- is a great writer as well, for all she doesn’t yet find the way to enjoy it.
You say you’re not looking to ‘start up some kind of relationship’. But in truth, —— , we don’t need to ‘start one up’ because we’ve had one all along. I’m fine with acknowledging it, even as doing so is also to admit it has been severely neglected by both of us, albeit for
reasons that were very human, unavoidable, and completely forgivable.
My own opinion of what ‘you are trying to accomplish’ likely doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things. Just as your opinion by the time you get to this line probably won’t upset the gravitational field of the earth. All the same, we are who we are, we feel what we feel, and we try as we can to make sense of things and find a place where hurts and happinesses can, if not cancel one another out, at least balance one another.
You say you think what you sent was ‘poorly thought out’. I think I must disagree. I think you just disengaged and let it roll because you really didn’t want to dig up the things hiding in the back of your head. And that’s likely for the best. Sometimes, old hurts need time to age so they aren’t too tender to touch and set to rest. So, in that respect anyway, I think you thought it out quite well.
The email is not random. It is not out of the blue. In fact, I’ve been expecting it for a while now. As I told ——- shortly after your first encounter some years back, I gave you up those many years ago banking on the day when circumstances and life would be kinder… and I could get to know you without having to worry that someone else was going to punish you for wanting to know me.
I hear in your words the many years and ways you have thought I didn’t want to know you. I am sorry I could not tell you more convincingly and clearly how very, very untrue that was.
When I could say these things, you were too young to really hear them. And today, there is so much hurt in the way that perhaps it will not make it through to the place where that one memory still hums and is certain of how true it is, in itself.
But I’m something of an idealist, not to mention a stubborn mule of one. So I’m going to say this anyway… I’ve been waiting a very long time to do so, and I am glad I have the chance now…
I love you, ——. Despite time and circumstance and all the unfairness of how they impact and impede, I have always loved you. And I miss you, ——. I have missed you from the day I handed you to ——- and he left me to be homeless in ——— all the way until
this very moment.
There has not been a June 30th to pass that I have not thought of you and wished it were different.
There has not been a holiday upon which my hopes for your happiness have not been present.
There has not been a mother’s day to pass upon which I have not harried myself for all the things I wish I could have been and done.
I have always known there is the possiblity that too much time and hurt have been given and you simply would not care to know all the things of me that still wish things could have been different. All the things that have waited and wait still for the chance to be known by you.
And I hear you saying you do not want a relationship with me. And if that is your choice, I accept it and will respect it. But if that is your choice, then at least let it not be made for thinking there is nothing here for you.
You are my son. You were and remain a shining light of hope and joy that arrived when I had nothing whatever of either. In many ways, your birth saved me, even as Leighla’s birth later saved me yet again. It took both of you to remind me I deserved to live. And I find it both ironic and somehow fitting that here, now, in this moment, it is both of you that bring to me yet another lesson of how all things find their right place in the fullness of time.
Thank you for writing. You are welcome to do so if and as you like. The days of having to keep distant to spare adding to things are no more. Here, anyway. Now, the table turns… and it is your choice to make. As it should be.
May you choose as best meets your need, regardless me. As always, my primary concern is that you find peace and balance in life. Whatever that requires is automatically alright here.
With love,
me