This one’s for Q
(Written last night)
Tomorrow my oldest son Quinton starts the 1st grade. When I say he is an amazing kid- I mean it. He is beyond sweet, he is loving, and to say he is the best big brother is a vast understatement. Right now I am crying. Not even because my first baby isn’t a baby, but a first grader- but because he deserves the best and I haven’t given him that.
Life has not been simple for me- for us, I should say- but that is an excuse and not a good one. I promise you, I am not looking for sympathy- only to release some of the weight guilt bears and writing has always been my sanctuary.
When I look at Quinton I see an unbelievably handsome boy. I see my football and baseball star. I see endless potential. I see a silly but shy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed blessing. I see what a gift he is. But I also see a boy who’s far surpassed the age I thought he would be when I finally got my shit together. I see a boy who has seen too much. I see my sweet, sweet, boy who life nor myself have always been sweet to in return. And it makes me want to go back so bad that I can feel it in my bones.
I want to go back to the start and focus so much on him that the things that threw me off track never made it onto our path in the first place. I want to go back and put him first. I want to go back and choose being a mom. Not an irresponsible teenager. Not the newly 20-something girl that thought life should still be a party. Not the girl who didn’t plan nor think about the future. Not the girl who allowed people and circumstances to hurt me so much that I let my own pain manifest into my sons. I want to go back and let Boston’s death shake me and life as I knew it awake, instead of stopping it in it’s tracks. I want to go back and see Quinton’s face instead of only longing for his baby brother’s. I want to go back and feel Q’s presence, not just the absence of my Bosty’s. I want to go back and pour myself into him, instead of pouring my soul so far down the drain that I almost didn’t get it back.
I remember the time- before I allowed life to knock me down and keep me there- when Q was just a baby. I guess I was a baby then too, at 19, but I remember promising my parents, myself, the world really, that I would always give him the best. Especially MY best. I mean, after all- I was a mom now, I thought it was just a given. In fact, I’ve made that promise many, many times in his almost 7 years on this earth, and it devastates me to say that most of those times that promise was empty. I wanted the best for him, that WAS a given, but wanting and providing is as different as day and night. I hope any of you reading this can spare the sympathy and not pity me- because I can honestly say that I have never been healthier, happier, or more prepared and ready to give this amazing boy the absolute best in life than I am now.
However, I do ask for empathy. I desire nothing more on this beautiful Earth than that. I truly believe to be understood is the deepest form of intimacy, and for me that’s what this post is- vulnerable and intimate. Because it’s easy to want to go back. It was easy to live under the false premise that in the long run my mistakes wouldn’t be a big deal. It use to be so easy to think that someday things would just work themselves out and I would magically be a better me and the mother Quinton deserves.
But it is not easy to want to move forward as much as I long to go back. It’s not easy to admit that my mistakes have been painfully larger than I let myself believe possible. It is not easy to admit how much I needed to change in order to change the fact that I have not always been the best mom that I could have and wish I would have been. It is not easy to have to grieve my 3-4 year old Quinton due to being so consumed by the death of his baby brother that I don’t recall anything about that time besides how much it hurt to even breathe. It is not easy to continue dissecting my own demons in order to heal. Healing has required me to be unapologetically vulnerable with not only myself, but also with others, and that is anything but easy.
I know it’s called healing, but for me much of it has felt like a war. A relentless internal battle to find the will to keep fighting no matter how many times I die inside in the process. Too many times to count I’ve thought “I’m really doing better. It’s all worth it because this time I’m really feeling better than I ever have before” only to turn around and lose myself in even deeper holes in between even steeper mountains. Learning how to live with half of my soul always out of reach has been at times unbearable, at times the loneliest feeling I’ve ever known, and all of the time so damn hard.
Big moments in our lives- like the first day of first grade, or when Paxton does something new- make me feel so much love for my sons that it literally does feel like my heart may come out of my chest- and in those moments I am reminded that I use to get that same overwhelming heart exploding feeling about Boston too, and it’s hard not to burst into tears.
So, not only is this my raw first day of 1st grade sappy mom post declaring how good it feels to say that today I know I’m being the best mom I can be- this is also my heartfelt cry to all the mom’s out there suffering through the anguish of should-be “firsts” that we don’t ever get to see happen. You are not alone.
