Excuse my absence, but as some already know, there has been an addition to my family :-)
Ken came back from a month with his children in North Carolina; bringing his son, who have chosen to live with us.
One can safely say that it is a period of transition for all members of my extended household as well as on the other side of the United States for everyone for whom Charlie has been a part of everyday life in a way that perhaps some were not entirely clear about until he was not there anymore
For me it was and is a mix of emotions and thoughts. From the inside perspective I am trying to find myself again in the middle of a shift from one day to another which has ripples aplenty on the emotional, practical, and psychosocial plane.
I am drained because my whole being is adapting to a sudden and unprepared for insertion into my practical and relational daily living, of a person whose personal history with me is complicated with lots of unknowns and tragedies never clarified; whose relationship to me is undefined as of yet; whose reminding me of the unmet needs and damages still left from my own experiences with people in parental roles (which I suppose I have in some form and degree) and of my past lack of, and present uncertainty about, my readiness as a co parent, spouse, and family member.
How am I doing and when will I get back to being a me I recognize?
How can I know?
There are no way to compare the process of one person to that of another, except in very limited and decontextualized ways. The lack of points of comparison means that not only are there no ways to judge progress in terms of speed, or often not even in terms of direction; any estimate of some sort of norm and template is at best mostly invalid and at worst a cause for expectations that hampers and hurts more than anything.
But finding the point to start, is just a part, or layer; there is also the reorientation and the resumption of navigation in a new landscape. Once I locate my center/myself, I have to reassess the relation and position of the benchmarks I orient by; my beliefs, my goals, the people I love and the roles they and I have to one another....
Sometimes this reveals holes, contradictions, false friends and beliefs that are no longer sustainable; and it can reaffirm truths, friends, and commitments.
I know I will come to a point at which the adaptation to one event has subsided enough to say that there is a before and after.
But if I take my inner fears and doubts out of the situation, on the observable plane, it is quite simple; a father and son has reunited at long last and across many voids they did not create; I have been given a second chance to be for someone I love what I thought I could not be; and a young man has as much of a slate clean of expectations based on the past that he can get, to find his form, place, and assume it.
He will of course have to ride with the winds of change and grow from the challenge of gradually discerning and differentiating from what he brings, what are his own visions, goals and meaning of past events and present experiences.
But that is the Great Work; the Magnum Opus; to claim ownership of what was given and make of it, shit and more noble metals alike, the stuff that fuels his personal evolution; towards his own unique, sense of what is authentically him.
Ken came back from a month with his children in North Carolina; bringing his son, who have chosen to live with us.
One can safely say that it is a period of transition for all members of my extended household as well as on the other side of the United States for everyone for whom Charlie has been a part of everyday life in a way that perhaps some were not entirely clear about until he was not there anymore
For me it was and is a mix of emotions and thoughts. From the inside perspective I am trying to find myself again in the middle of a shift from one day to another which has ripples aplenty on the emotional, practical, and psychosocial plane.
I am drained because my whole being is adapting to a sudden and unprepared for insertion into my practical and relational daily living, of a person whose personal history with me is complicated with lots of unknowns and tragedies never clarified; whose relationship to me is undefined as of yet; whose reminding me of the unmet needs and damages still left from my own experiences with people in parental roles (which I suppose I have in some form and degree) and of my past lack of, and present uncertainty about, my readiness as a co parent, spouse, and family member.
How am I doing and when will I get back to being a me I recognize?
How can I know?
There are no way to compare the process of one person to that of another, except in very limited and decontextualized ways. The lack of points of comparison means that not only are there no ways to judge progress in terms of speed, or often not even in terms of direction; any estimate of some sort of norm and template is at best mostly invalid and at worst a cause for expectations that hampers and hurts more than anything.
But finding the point to start, is just a part, or layer; there is also the reorientation and the resumption of navigation in a new landscape. Once I locate my center/myself, I have to reassess the relation and position of the benchmarks I orient by; my beliefs, my goals, the people I love and the roles they and I have to one another....
Sometimes this reveals holes, contradictions, false friends and beliefs that are no longer sustainable; and it can reaffirm truths, friends, and commitments.
I know I will come to a point at which the adaptation to one event has subsided enough to say that there is a before and after.
But if I take my inner fears and doubts out of the situation, on the observable plane, it is quite simple; a father and son has reunited at long last and across many voids they did not create; I have been given a second chance to be for someone I love what I thought I could not be; and a young man has as much of a slate clean of expectations based on the past that he can get, to find his form, place, and assume it.
He will of course have to ride with the winds of change and grow from the challenge of gradually discerning and differentiating from what he brings, what are his own visions, goals and meaning of past events and present experiences.
But that is the Great Work; the Magnum Opus; to claim ownership of what was given and make of it, shit and more noble metals alike, the stuff that fuels his personal evolution; towards his own unique, sense of what is authentically him.