For the Parent on the Edge...

When it's the middle of the night (or technically the morning) and you can't sleep (again).  You've done everything you can possibly think of and then some.  You've yelled.  You've begged.  You've cried.  And yet...

 All the things you've done; they don't work.  You want the best for your child and yet it seems as though your child does not or cannot or just plain won't.  It's not that he/she CAN'T, but that he/she won't and there is no reason why.  It's not for lack of brains.  Or lack of caring (or maybe it is).  You can't seem to get through and it hurts.

 You care too much.  You push for the best.  You explain. You get through...but it doesn't stick for more than a day (or maybe less).  The repeating cycle that you think you've finally broken...but it hasn't been and the only thing that is broken is your heart (again).  And it hurts.

 When there is no answer or solution.  You keep trying to find one; you won't give up.  Because you are a parent and you care.  You want what's best.  You want success. You want happiness; for your child AND for yourself.

 It's about the grades, but not.  It's about following through and being responsible.  It's about caring.  About respect.  But he/she won't see it; or can't see it.  Or won't see it.  Or gets it and then it's gone again next week...or next day...or next hour.  You are a rat on a hamster wheel.  You keep at it and seemingly getting nowhere.

 You worry about the future; your child is in the now and can't see past the day or the minute.  You want there to BE a future.  You don't want perfection (although it would be nice); you want an even keeled life.

 When you constantly feel sick.  That pit in your stomach; that heaviness in your chest.  The weight on your shoulders that gets lifted for a brief moment only to come crashing back down.  The exhaustion and the snapping awake in the darkness.  The panic and the dread.  For all that you do and yet you feel like you can do nothing.  (Certainly you can do no right.)  Frustration and anger and sadness fill every particle of your being.  There is a constant aching.

 How do you comfort yourself?  Can you?  Can anyone?

 You can change nothing but yourself.  You KNOW that.  Yet you are weighed down with the knowledge that if your child doesn't change; doesn't try; doesn't understand that there is more than just this very moment in time; that the future is more than just unsure.  Doom presses down on your like the weight of a barbell.

 You are so tired.  You ache.  You itch.  You can't eat; you can't stop eating.  It's eating YOU.  Your soul is being gobbled up.

 You are resigned.  You try to accept.  You say you accept.  You don't.  You can't.  You won't.  He/she is YOUR child.  You want success for them; not good grades, but proof that he/she will be able to go out into this world and not just survive but thrive.  Because you KNOW that he/she can; if they only would.  If they only would see.  And he/she does for that moment, but it doesn't last and your heart breaks once again.

 You say you give up.  Maybe you do for that moment or that hour, but you don't even though some part of you might want to.  Because it's your child and you are a parent.

 You are on the edge.  The cliff is there and you feel like you child is about to push you off. Yet you cling.  Even as your hopes are dashed again and again.  You keep going.  You keep crying and not sleeping.  You keep going.  You pray.  You push.  You yell.  You hug.  You love.

 If you are looking for answers in this...there are none here.  If you are looking for sense here...there is none here.

 Just a parent on the edge...like you?  Like you.


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