Don't Let It End

I had kind of a weird day today. It started off well, with a run and a yoga class with a friend this morning, but the afternoon was filled with little bursts of work (all I could muster) followed by multiple naps. In part I think the sleepiness had to do with the germs my kids currently have that I've definitely been fighting, but I also felt sort of a general psychological malaise that I couldn't pinpoint.

After rousing myself from nap #3, I decided to drag my ass to an Alanon meeting. I knew a friend of mine would be there, and I thought it might lift me out of my funk or at least illuminate it a little further.

I wasn't disappointed. I got to hear people talk about how they deal with the desire to control the things they can't control, and that was helpful. And then this woman starting talking about the death of her mother, and her adolescent's lack of appropriate response to it, and then I both realized and shared (complete with tears) that in a way I'm a bit like a 42 year old adolescent when it comes to my mother.

I don't like how things were when I was a kid, I don't like a lot about my parents' lives now, so I try to avoid having too much contact with them. This gives me the illusion of control (plus some real control) but it comes at the expense of what might be a more authentic relationship.

I say might because I don't know that for sure. It might not. I do have the sense that if I can let go of this hardness I have toward my mother, it will allow something to soften in my daughter, and that feels worth the price of admission even if the show is not pretty.

On the way home from the meeting, I heard this song on the radio:

What can I do
Pictures of you still make me cry
Trying to live without your love
It's so hard to do
Some nights I'll wake up
I'll look at your pillow
Hoping that I'll see you there
But I get up each day, not much to say
I've nowhere to go
Loneliness fills me up inside
'Cause I'm missing you
So if you'll give us a chance to remember
The love we had once together
Wait and see
Time is all that we really need
I'm praying you won't say no
I mean to tell you

Don't let it end
Baby we could have so much more
Don't let it end
Honey please don't walk out that door

And I felt so much gratitude for the fact that although my honey did walk out the door, now he's saying things like this:

I'm telling you baby, I made my mistakes
But I'll make you this promise to do what it takes
I'll be there to protect you and hold you tight
You got my lovin' baby every single night

I'm gonna have to wait for a while for the every single night kind of lovin', but it really looks like it's coming, and I'm damn glad. Because as he was leaving, I was saying:

Don't let it end
I'm begging you, don't let it end this way
Don't let it end
I'm begging you, don't let it end this way