Hard to Find

Today I had the pleasure of some alone time with my high schooler. There are many things that freak me out about being the parent of a teenager, but there are also perks to him getting older: I can take him to see PG-13 Bill Murray movies, as I did tonight. We saw St. Vincent, which we both thoroughly enjoyed, and then we went out for sushi. It was awesome.

In some ways I know that times like that with my son are numbered, but in a way, they are a bridge to the kind of relationship I will have with him after he leaves home. And I'm super grateful that even at 14, he's good company.

The song that most resonated for today for me from the movie soundtrack was this one:

I can see the glowing lights
I can see them every night
Really not that far away
I could be there in a day

I wonder if you live there still
I kinda think you always will
If I tried you'd probably be
Hard to find

What I feel now about you then
I'm just glad I can explain
You're beautiful and close and young
In those ways we were the same

I think my favorite verse is this next one:

There's a lot I've not forgotten
I let go of other things
If I tried they'd probably be
Hard to find

I'm trying to let go of as much as I can that no longer serves me, and my son is someone who often assists me with that process. Because we enjoy such ease in our relationship, I'm able to hear things from him that would be harder to hear from someone with whom I was not as close. I also felt this way in my relationship with the New Englander: though it wasn't always easy to hear about something in me that was presenting a difficulty for him, eventually I always landed on wanting to do what I could to increase his comfort with me and with us.

I'm working on doing that now with my daughter, it's just harder, probably in part because she's like a little version of me and I'm still working on healing the mini me that dwells within:

I don't know why we had to lose
The ones who took so little space
They're still waiting for the east
To cover what we can't erase

I'm also REALLY trying to say out loud every day that I'm not in control and I don't need to be and can instead trust my higher power (Alanon speak for God or what I usually call the Universe) to keep me safe and healthy and provided for and loved.

And it's a good thing, too, because:

I'm not holding out for you
I'm still watching for the signs
If I tried you'd probably be
Hard to find

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

A Groovy Kind of Love

I woke up early this morning, and when I did, this song was playing in my head:

When I'm feeling blue, all I have to do
Is take a look at you, then I'm not so blue
When you're close to me, I can feel your heart beat
I can hear you breathing near my ear
Wouldn't you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love

I found this somewhat inexplicable, because I haven't heard this song in years. But there it was. Well, I said to myself in my semi-wakeful state, I would have to agree that in many respects, my favorite New Englander and I have a groovy kind of love:

Anytime you want to you can turn me onto
Anything you want to, anytime at all
When I kiss your lips, ooh I start to shiver
Can't control the quivering inside
Wouldn't you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love, oh

Then I went back to sleep, and when I woke the next time it was with the memory of a very vivid, very sexual dream. Not super unusual, but there was something unusual about the dream -- the man in the dream wasn't anyone I've ever met. This struck me as strange, maybe partially because I remember the vivid dreams I used to have when I was married about having sex with other men. Night after night, they'd come back, as if to give me a message. This one could've been a fluke, since I only had it once, but as I laid there with an odd feeling of having sort of semi cheated on someone I'm on the one hand not in a committed relationship with and on the other hand can see myself sharing my life with, it did feel like some sort of message from my subconscious.

I think the message was something like this: Having a groovy kind of love may or may not be enough on which to build a life with someone, and it's important to keep that distinction somewhere in the back of my mind so that I don't end up in a committed relationship that doesn't have all the elements I need to be my best self and live my best life. I know that my groovy lover wouldn't want that for me nor I for him, but I also know that I can only work on making myself into the best possible partner I can be. I can't do his work for him. And the hard part of that is it leaves me without control, which, I reckon, is all part of the lesson.

Lest on the eve of St. Valentine I seem less than fully appreciative of having found such a groovy kind of love, I'm not. I feel tremendously lucky and I don't take it for granted for one single minute that:

When I'm feeling blue, all I have to do
Is take a look at you, then I'm not so blue
When I'm in your arms, nothing seems to matter
My whole world could shatter, I don't care
Wouldn't you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love
We got a groovy kind of love
We got a groovy kind of love, oh
We got a groovy kind of love