redemption vs. red socks

April 26, 2006

Salina - 34
Los Angeles, CA
1 child – son (11)

I need to share with someone. I just found this blog. This is the first time ever that I am blogging but today I had such a remarkable moment with my son.

He's eleven going on twelve and today was an amazing day. I see he's becoming more open and comfortable; not an easy task when you're a Cancerian boy being raised by a Cancerian mom - no buffers to assuage the dramatic mood shifts and the maelstrom of manic-like behavior I sometimes rain down on him. After my periodic ranting and raving ends, I apologize, telling him that mom is just "having one of those days". That he is the greatest and most wonderful human being I know. I can tell he believes me, but still, there's the ambivalence about how much he can and should say sometimes.

He never really knows how the dirty clothes balled up in the drawers, the missing homework assignments, the uneaten lunch stuffed under the car seat in his effort to destroy evidence of wasted food, or even the occasional lies, will affect me. On a good day, we can just talk about it, I encourage him to reflect and keep becoming his highest self. On those dark days where I wake alone in a bed, after ten years of single parenthood; those days when the palpable loneliness, albeit self-induced, overwhelms me, I snap, yelling, screaming, and literally pressing him into a corner. I'm loud; so much that my voice alone can send him into paroxysms of fear and shaking. Of course my heart breaks and I go crying in the bathroom, cursing myself for not being able to talk with him; for showing those traits and ways of the adults who tormented and tortured me as a child.

Yesterday however, was a new day. I explained to him that mommy's yelling and screaming is never okay. I apologized for the example it sets, told him about PMS, and the fact that I battle clinical depression. It's not him, it's me.

"Is there medicine you can take for PMS mom? Is there something you can take to make your moods better?" A wonderful, brilliant young man he is.

I assured him that on those days, I would speak less, and breathe more slowly, so as to not get near the brink again. This was a revealing moment - in his eyes was the hope that my words were sincere. Never again I decided, would I allow my anger to amplify my voice to the level that it broke my child's spirit. Never again would I allow my battle to compromise the relationship between my son and me. The thought that he, would become as I: the proverbial mother-less child, unable to even speak to Her. We talked some more and I could see that he believed me.

The Universe gave me my first test this morning. I noticed he had on red socks, a direct clash with his standard school uniform, and basically a potential threat to his safety. Today was a sad morning, so rather than joke, I asked him directly – “Why?”

“No clean socks,” he assured me, forgetting that I had just done laundry four days ago. "None in my drawer. I didn't see any clean socks."

I took a deep breath, remembered our deal, and calmly told him to go and find socks. After a few minutes too long he appeared, clean white socks in hand. This was the moment of truth. How would I respond? I didn't. I simply said "I need to trust you, and it's hard when you don't tell the truth." My response was met with a stunned silence. He looked at me, swimming in relief. "Ok mom. They were hard to find ‘cause they were in a different drawer. I didn't look hard."