A change of pace

Let's get off the "lecture" circuit for a bit and try an exercise in daily writing for 30 days about books. Thanks to Dianne Sylvan for the suggestion. Don't know how far I'll get, but I'll try to go the distance.

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

I love reading books in a series when I seriously love the book or the author. (perhaps that's a 'duh'...) I even love reading my way through an author's entire published works, one after another after another. I've read that way since I was a child and worked my way through the Betsy-Tacy stories, the Boxcar Children, the Bobbsey Twins, and all of Laura Ingalls Wilder, one after another.

There are, however, a few that stand out in my admittedly fuzzy memory, after some contemplation, most of them more recent reads (meaning in the last 15 or so years...)

I confess that I would have liked Harry Potter to have gone on for another couple of books, but I suppose it ended when it should have -- not sure I want more about Harry's offspring and ordinary married life, although I appreciated the wrapup in Rowling's last book. I'm eagerly anticipating the last movie(s), but I preferred the books, as I almost always do.

I was introduced to the Kushiel series by a friend and loved the richness of character, place, and story development, and yeah, okay, the tinge of erotica. But the subsequent trilogy about Imriel was not nearly as riveting, and there were times I just wanted to slap the man. I doubt I'll bother with the latest spinoff.

The ultimate series, though, is Lord of the Rings. I tried to get into The Hobbit around 1970 or so, and just didn't get it. But during the summer of 1975 I began reading the Ring Trilogy with the first book I'd checked out from our local library. By the end of the first few chapters, I was totally hooked and dashed back to the library to get the other two, since I knew I'd get little else done until I'd finished the series. It remains the only series that I regularly re-read.

Motherhood, revisited

I'm trying to remember really hard tonight why it is I so desperately wanted to be a mother, why my ex and I went through years of fertility testing, adoption interviews, emotional pain that was devastating to our sex life and self-esteem.

There was a charming, delightful little bundle of baby at the end of all that. She grew up reasonably okay and we had some good times -- or so I thought until the last several years, when I discovered secrets she'd hidden which are now contributing in no small way to mental and health issues which are now front and center in her life, and which have certainly impacted mine, financially and emotionally.

Didn't protect her very well, it seems. Bad mama.

And then when my beloved came along years later with two more daughters, I was delighted to have them. And I fell in love with them. Oh there were issues there too -- but there also were some good times, some real bonding.

One has estranged herself from us for reasons we know not. Poof. Gone. No crystal ball here -- no explanation, no demands, no nothing.

REALLY bad mama.

The other, the one who has called me Mom for several years and who regards my first daughter as her sister, has pretty much said that I'm a crappy person who she has lost both faith in and respect for because I/we didn't leap to bail her out of an admittedly difficult place, and because I sent e-mail links without signing them or even so much as a note. And I didn't call her back when I said I would. (I'm guilty of that, no question. The e-mails were sent on the fly, in haste, not deliberately being 'cold,' and were intended to offer helpful information. I didn't call her back because ... it's complicated. But I should have.) She's saying she doesn't need this kind of 'family.'

Bad, BAD, ROTTEN mama.

So what's the solution since I can't go back to the past and change how I did things then, teach lessons better, act as a better example myself?

Beat myself up some more?

Self-flagellation may be the road to spiritual bliss in some cultures, but I'm not good with pain.

Give them whatever they want/need whenever they ask, regardless of the impact it may have on our own retirement plans or emotional health? Because that's what 'good' parents do -- devote themselves to the well-being of their children even if the children are adults and we have no say in the decisions they're making for themselves?

I don't think so. I don't think the parenting books think that's a good idea either.

Give 'em both one last check and move to outer Mongolia, leaving no forwarding address?

Tempting. Really tempting. Well, maybe not the outer Mongolia part, but certainly the no fowarding address part.

I don't think I'm a cold, unfeeling, uncaring person. Most of my life I've had the opposite problem -- getting too involved in the problems of others (and ignoring the ones of my own, which have a nasty way of eventually demanding attention). I've often trusted too easily, taking people at their word, and have been disappointed time and time again. I don't like to think of people being sick or sad or hungry or depressed or homeless or abused, and I try to help where and when I can.

But I don't know where this ends. I don't know where the boundary is between too much and not enough. I don't know how to say no or enough without it causing high drama and more trauma for all of us. Like most men, my honey is better at separating emotion from action, but he's not a happy camper either. Bad daddy?

(At least we're suited for each other, I guess -- bad mama and bad daddy. )

This is not what I'd pictured all those years ago. This is not how it was in my family nor in his, and not what our children grew up watching.

I'm still working to accept my children as they are, warts and all, and I love them dearly. But I'm not sure that means that I sacrifice who I am, what my dreams and goals and desires are, what we've worked for all these years, to meet their needs and wants now.

Wonder if Mongolia has an ocean? (heading for the atlas...)