Waves

Everyone has their own unique lens through which they see the world, but mine are clouded. Not the rose-colored tint that you wear when your world is too dark and you want to see some light. The lenses that get clouded from a past that leaves dried tear smudges behind. The tears that keep showing up and now the stains are permanent, impossible to wipe away. You squint looking through your clouded lenses, desperate for some clarity. For a moment through your clouded lenses you find a speck of clarity, and your eyes can rest. You breathe in this moment, only to be reminded of another. Reminded of when your lenses became so smudge. When you sobbed into your lenses so much that now that smudge is permanent. No matter how hard you wipe those tears away, you can never get them clean. They are stained. This is what it’s like to parent a child with an abusive parent of your own.

Water has an amazing way of comforting us in our deepest sorrows. The only place I ever felt at home was in the water. I was never a good swimmer when I was little, but I learned how to hold my breath and move quickly underwater, like a mermaid. Later my mother asked a friend to teach me some proper swimming strokes, since she doesn’t know how to swim. I was a natural. During middle school, swimming was part of our required classes. The teacher was the swim coach, and was silently watching me, recruiting me, I just didn’t know it yet. Eventually he asked me to race one of the girls in my class. I eagerly accepted and started swimming. I touched the wall and looked back to see my classmate still trying to catch up. I happily looked up at my teacher for approval. In return he told me, “You’re going to join the swim team. When you change, I’ll give you the paperwork you need to bring to your parents. See you on Monday at practice.” That same water that held such triumph also holds so much sorrow.

It was around the same time frame and I could smell the rain as I sat alone on the railing of our front porch hugging my legs close. The thunder startled me every time it boomed, but I sat outside anyway because the sound of the rain hitting the ground soothed me. As I stared into the raindrops my vision blurred. Now in middle school I just moved to a new house and a new school with my mother’s now third husband. My mother was moving from husband to husband, and as a result we both moved from place to place. This was my second school and second house in one year. Her last husband only lasted about two years, and we moved almost the whole length of the east coast to find the only other family members that would help us. I have a stepsister now and she is the total opposite of me. Desperate to fit in, I became exactly like her. I needed new friends if I was going to survive middle school and the easiest way to do that was to get my stepsister’s friends to like me.

Changing who I was to become someone else was the easy part. I have done that for as long as I can remember. The hard part was thinking about all the parts of me I had to leave behind. Wearing clothes that I hated, because that’s what everyone else wore. Pretending I don’t like “nerdy” things like Pokémon and Harry Potter. Listening to country music because that’s what my new stepdad and stepsister listen to. Having to face my friends at my old school and having the words “It’s like you totally changed overnight.” echo so loud in my mind that I can barely think straight. Every adjective I could think of to describe myself either led back to what I pretended to be to make new friends or what my mother made me to be. Even though I tried so hard to be what my mother wanted me to be I never felt like I was ever going to be good enough. No matter how hard I strived for perfection, I always fell short. Everything was always my fault. I will never be good enough. When things got overwhelming, I turned to writing. I could finally speak my truth, as long as it was silent on a piece of paper. The longer I stared into the rain, the harder I cried. It was like the rain was hiding my tears, giving me permission to cry as long as I wanted. The water was once again my peace, holding me, comforting me as I sobbed. After what felt like hours, I rested my throbbing head on my knees and looked out into the street. All that water, all those tears from the sky, being washed away.

These memories can wash over you like the waves of the ocean crest and breaking to return to the ocean. Now as I parent my son, I am constantly fighting these waves to stay present. To keep that small speck of clarity in my line of sight. Fighting to keep myself from getting lost in the smudged parts of my lenses. Sometimes no matter how strong I am, no matter how hard I fight, it’s not good enough. The waves knock me down and that sadness washes over me. After that guilt and shame washes over me in that moment, the next wave that knocks me down is grief.

Some moments are too much, and you just want everything to stop. Your child may be yelling, or crying or playing with a loud toy. Your mind is racing with so many thoughts about your day or your never ending to-do list. The dog is barking and in that moment your mind is holding so much. You need it all to stop. STOP! You scream at your child, to get a few seconds of peace. Instead you are met with tears. Your child is scared. He heard you yell but it was different. He felt it, just like you did. As he embraces you, you embrace for the waves coming in to wash over you. First is the shame. You breathe him in, hold him tight and apologize. Hoping that he understands it isn’t about him, it’s about you. It’s about in those moments we are all human, and when we get overwhelmed, we revert to what we know best. Mine is yelling. Screaming. Fear. Tears. The next wave is that wave of grief. This wave feels like the biggest one of all. This wave brings those smudges in your lenses into focus that it becomes impossible to see anything else. Your vision gets blurred that all you do is create more smudges with the tears that gets added back into the ocean. You remind yourself that this is just a moment. We are all human. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about how we repair. That waves settles back into the ocean and that small speck of clarity is brought back into focus with another deep breath. Your eyes open wide to see your son playing.

In this moment, the grief has settled, but later it returns. This time a bigger wave than before, it’s different. The grief that takes you over isn’t missing something you had. It’s longing for something you never did. It’s knowing that the life you had wasn’t the one you deserved, but you lived it anyway. This grief continues to wash over you even after the tides are quiet. Even after the sun has set. Then you glance at your child. I see my son smiling and, in that moment, those specks of clarity begin to come back into focus. I realize in that small moment; my son isn’t feeling all the sorrow and pain that I did. He is feeling joy, being himself and being with me. These waves of shame and grief take me away from my present, make me unable to see through that clear speck in my lenses. The small quiet moments of joy let my heart know that I am doing the best I can, and that is good enough. That will always be good enough. It must be, because that’s all I have to give.