blessings and curses

In recent months I've learned what letting go is all about, and how it's not about me. Having children reach adulthood is--as the saying goes--a blessing and a curse. 

First, the curse. Never considered myself a helicopter parent--perhaps a hummingbird parent. I tried for balance, being there if they needed me, but out of their way when they found their own direction--similar to when they each first began to walk. As long as their falling wouldn't hurt them, I let them experience victory and failure and getting back up again. The curse has been watching their struggles from two steps back when all I wanted was to pick them up and carry them. The curse has also been trying to find the balance between letting them know I care and distancing myself from them enough to stay out of their way. It's been a hard, hard series of lessons for me. And as they've reached adulthood it's become a matter of respect. Respect for them and their judgment, respect for who they have grown up to become.


Hence, the blessing. Seeing who each of them have become as adults is the most rewarding and humbling experience. Rewarding to see that my efforts as a parent resulted in caring, compassionate, thoughtful, intelligent people with wicked senses of humor, and humbling to know that I had some excellent raw material to work with. All of my efforts could not have produced such amazing people if they had not already been amazing from conception.


Infractus. I've been broken away from my children as their parent.

De novo. I begin anew as their friend.