Camels in Wisconsin

My close and very wise friend Marla reminds me sometimes that, as parents, we are only ever as happy as our least happy child.

Which is problematic when a) you’re as co-dependent as I am, and b) children are a never-ending source of angst all around.

Oh, they are the wellspring of all that is most beautiful in our lives, as well.  I’m acutely aware of how fortunate I am to be a mother; I can’t imagine who I’d be without my children.  And therein lies the rub.

My equilibrium — because I’m old enough to know that “happiness” isn’t really the goal after all — is irrevocably tied to that of my children’s, as it is for most of the parents I know.

Aside from the advocacy role I’ve assumed on my son’s behalf, I don’t think I’m an overbearing parent; I’ve allowed them room to mature and explore, in different ways, while remaining close and involved in their lives, even as they’ve grown up and away.

My peace of mind, though, is dependent on their lives being steady, on track, on being good.  I’ve never learned that trick we are told to embrace as our children reach adulthood, that letting go thing I’ve heard about.  I wonder how many parents really have.

Instead, I ride each wave, every turbulent passage of my kids’ lives, feeling the ebb and flow of their experiences as deeply as my own.

There are times, though, when I wish I could disengage, when I imagine what a relief it would be to do so.

Often since my son’s move early this year I’ve considered our relationship, and my aspirations for him, the goals modified, adjusted or abandoned over time.  His diagnosis 21 years ago was the beginning of the end of almost every dream I had, back when his future seemed as boundless as my love for him.

No divine flash of acceptance acclimated me to the very different life in store for him than that which I’d mapped out so cleverly in my mind.  Submission occurred over years, covert moments of resignation so subtle I often didn’t even recognize their import, the setting aside of one dream, and yielding to another.

He’s living one of those altered dreams now, in a group home tailored and responsive to his unique needs.  His behaviors are accommodated, worked on, proactively addressed.  He is experiencing a fuller world than I’d dared hope for just a year ago.

Why, then, is it yet so difficult to view his life now as the fulfillment of at least one dream I’ve held on to, a circumstance realized after years of uncertainty and despair?

A few weeks ago I received a photo of Daniel taken at the Racine County Fair, which he attended with one of his specially trained aides.  Teeming with crowds and tempting distractions, it was an outing I wouldn’t have dared navigate on my own.

But there he was, engaged and laughing in the summer sun, sitting atop a camel.

He was clutching a boxy, harness-like contraption designed, apparently, to facilitate balance on the camel’s hump, giggling, it seemed, at the absurdity of his position, but enjoying it just the same.

My quirky, unpredictable son was riding a camel.

Laughing out loud in delight, I quickly composed a reply to Daniel’s case manager, who’d sent us the photo.

“Of all the dreams I’ve had for Daniel through the years, riding a camel was never one of them.  Seeing this picture, though, I can’t imagine why not!”

I recognized in that moment how bound I am to my old ideas of how life ought to be for my son, for both my children; what will bring them fulfillment, comfort, or — dare I say it? — happiness.  I understood, too, that so many of my dreams for both of them are my ideals, and mine alone, shaped through years of my own experience and regret, my own longings and missed opportunities.  The finely crafted hopes and dreams I have for my children may, in reality, bear little likeness to their own ideals at all.

How liberating this moment should have been.  How freeing to discern that my children, now adults, can — in fact, must — take the reins themselves, albeit in very different ways, weighing the worth of their experiences by their own standards, their own views on the meaning of “happiness.”  I really could let go at last.

Naturally, it didn’t work quite that way for me.  Lifetime habits are not so easily cast aside.  From my camel epiphany emerged a prickly, peevish reaction that I’ve struggled for weeks to articulate, a sullen acknowledgment of how desperately I would like events to proceed, just once, precisely the way I want them to.

Now that would be liberating.

How horribly self-centered, and how very common: We all want what we want when we want it.  But, oh, to have respite from the worry, the chronic concern over their welfare, their progress, their lives, which mean more to me than my own.  And I’m capable of convincing myself that this would be possible if they’d just follow those paths familiar and comfortable to me, if their lives, so vulnerable and fragile, so critical to my own, played out within the safety of my own comfort zone.

Screw the road less traveled.  I want my children traveling roads I’ve walked for them for years, if only in my dreams, whether they are roads of their choosing or not.

Oh, I know where this tantrum comes from, this petulant demand for a guarantee.  I’ve had enough of uncharted terrain, of stumbling along dark roads, praying for a lucid, benevolent end.  I want convention, the known, even if it’s known only in my fantasy.  How much safer than the fathomless range of possibility, all manner of depravity and disappointment, of suffering and loss the world may casually throw their way.

I want to let my guard down, to sink into the shelter of the way things were supposed to be.

And this is the crux of it, what it’s taken me the nine months since Daniel’s move to accept: that I expected his new life to be different than it’s turned out to be.  I thought I’d relax now that he is in competent, professional hands, and in many ways I have. But this transition has new complications, as well, fresh heartbreaks to adjust to, more painful because I didn’t see them coming. His life is better, infinitely better than it was, but not precisely as I’d hoped it would be.

The better part doesn’t include me.  And being a better part of his life again is precisely what I’ve been dreaming of for years.

Fortunately, I don’t often act on this selfishness.  I am living with the ache of feeling like an outsider when I visit my son, knowing I’ll never be the center of his world again.  I concede that, at least for now, his behavior deteriorates when I am with him, that our relationship is a trigger for the issues we are trying to curb.  I’m trying my best to accept that his need for me is diminishing, and that is how it should be, even though it feels like a loss I simply can’t bear.

I support with all my heart decisions I once could not have imagined my daughter making on her own, finding her way with confidence and grace.  I applaud her independence, knowing each new decision takes her a step further from the protective embrace of my influence.  I believe she knows that I’ll be behind her no matter what choices she makes, if she fails or succeeds; that she can always run back to me even as she’s pulling away; that I will be her champion for the rest of my days.

Weeks of agitation later, I understand that I’m here again, in another stage of letting go; it caught me unaware, as it’s done so many times before.  These periods have taught me, though, that any new experience surrounding my children can feel threatening, their lives in relation to mine in the balance, as I struggle to find my own place, my equilibrium, again.

My desire to hide, to look away from the bright new paths they may follow almost overwhelms me at times.  Who knows the distance those paths may carry them?  It is simply too painful to contemplate.

But holding them back would be more painful still.