Parents

Let's get personal for a minute.

Or we won't. Whatever you prefer. But this is my blog after all, so there are going to be days when I'm going to need an outlet for those deep, pensive, sometimes painful thoughts, you know?

And sometimes letting it out can make it all freeing...

It was hard growing up with cutouts of parental perfection all my life. From television to books to games to other people, parents get a good rep all the time. Of course, you have a Judd Nelson circa Breakfast Club type situation now and then, but I remember staring in wonder at the setup for an idyllic family time after time. The beautiful woman who tucked you in, held you while you wept, and kept her own problems, her own fears at bay. You didn’t often see the challenges she faced, or, if you did, the child she raised did not. And the big, strong, protective man beside her who valued family above everything, consoling his daughter through a fight over a blender or gifting his precious son the BB gun he desperately coveted before Christmas dinner. I remember constantly thinking that I wish I had those parents. That God should have chosen those parents, for they are what I would have chosen for myself. That I couldn’t truly be meant for the pair who had me, who were raising me. The woman who toiled away at work and withdrew when she came home, leaving us to the despair of our hearts and the confines of our rooms. Laughter was met with reluctant tolerance, adventure was forbidden, and the mischief so inherent to children was barred in disdain. She kept us to the prison she was sentenced to, for selfishness and for fear. 

I resented her the longer it went on. 

Maybe because she hadn’t always been that way. 

And the man was far worse, a recurring nightmare that hovered around the edges of the mind during the day. A vampire that stole the joy from even the happiest of moments with his volatile moods and vicious rage, tampering with my childhood for as long as I could remember. 

Feeling betrayed by the woman for leaving us in the weekends to the man, when she should not have entrusted us to his keep. 

She never noticed the fear that shook us, the watchful glances as he spoke, as we waited for the temper to spike in his words, for his voice and hands to rise. 

It would be hard to love your parents when you feel as though they abandoned you to the things that unwound them, that kept them from being people wholly focused on your warm care. 

How do you forgive those people when you blamed them for everything they failed to notice, failed to stop, failed to protect, failed to build?

It’s not really a wonder that I didn’t speak to my father during an entire year, that every word I hurled at my mother bore a poisoned tip. 

I couldn’t purge the anguish I felt, nor could I save my sisters from acquiring the same scars. 

I may have even deepened some of them. 

I thought that I would carry this bitterness, this hatred tempered with love for a while yet—until, perhaps, I had children of my own. Maybe for far longer. I didn’t expect to begin to let it go so early on. 

It isn’t until now that I realized twenty years is long enough. 

The elusive "they" say your parents are supposed to fork over %110 to you, to your happiness, to your betterment, to your future. 

But, what if they don’t have %110 to start? 

What if they can’t? 

Because they’re run ragged, beaten, stabbed, quartered by life and the devils who serve it. Or the devils in their own hearts and minds. Who can expect them to find the strength? 

Who? 

Others can and have, but… not all. 

Not all. 

I don’t think I necessarily could have. And when I think like that… well, I feel proud. Of my mom. Because she didn’t have that 110% to start, but she’s been grasping for a little more every day, every year. She’s not without flaws, and yet… And yet, this is the best she’s ever been as a mom. And I commend her for every effort, despite all the setbacks, she’s made to get there. 

And I can learn to forgive. 

To let go. 

To be free. 

I can try.