Battle for Inner Balance

It was very depressing driving home today. I couldn't help thinking that I should be attending a graduation today. My son's graduation. I'm stuck somewhere between total helplessness and my last sliver of hope. 

I try not to let myself go too deep in thought during these moments because I can get very lost. I have to stay positive and focus on each day as they come. I can't look back and I can't get to far ahead of myself either. A life in limbo, if you will.

 I have to concentrate on the healthiest things possible. Healthy thoughts and a healthy attitude. I don't always succeed. The bad things creep in and sometimes I don't treat myself the way I should. I feel like I'm one or two bad days away from completely losing it. I am battling constantly for balance. Battling my inner demons, battling my family and battling my responsibilities at work. Sometimes I come home and literally just melt down until it is time to go to sleep.  

Sometimes the only people I want to talk to are my dogs. *sigh*. 

I've been trying to avoid thinking about graduation and trying not to be envious of those with kids going off to college. It's to much to take when my day to day wins are keeping my kid out of jail.  He needs 15 credits to get his diploma. He'll get 10 at the Adult Ed summer program. Then I think he can finish in the fall. I don't even know if that is correct. Ugh. He won't be graduating from Foothill. He'll be graduating from Adult Ed. The requirements might be different. This, if course, is all contingent upon him not violating probation or getting any new charges. 

Thinking about it gives me a headache. And? If I see one more graduation themed commercial or television plot... I can't be responsible for my actions. 

Heart Outside

No matter how old they get my heart is out there walking around in those two bodies. Sometimes the ache is so bad that I lose my breath. Sometimes only the warmth of my tears can start the healing process until the next ache begins. I never, in a million years, imagined the roller coaster motherhood would be at this point in my life. There are days when I don't know if I'm going to make it through. I have to take a step back, I need to get my heart to accept what my brain is telling me; that I can't save them, I can only love them. Ah, but that heart of mine, does it ever listen? No, it runs out in traffic and plays chicken with everything on wheels.

Damn heart.

Tears

A little boy asked his mother, “Why are you crying?” “Because I’m a woman,” she told him. “I don’t understand,” he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, “And you never will.” Later the little boy asked his father, “Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?” “All women cry for no reason,” was all his dad could say. The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.
Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, “God, why do women cry so easily?” God said, “When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children. I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him without faltering. And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed.” “You see my son,” said God, “the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides.”

Author: Unknown

And? Upon reading this I immediately felt my eyes well up with tears...