Saying Goodbye, Again...

My son leaves for basic training today. I feel like since he was about 11, all I have done is say good bye to him.  He has always been leaving for one place or another.  Now almost 20, he is off to join the military, like his dad, grandfather and great grandfather (his great grandfather wasn’t career military but he still served).

I have such mixed emotions about the military.  It has pretty much always been in my life in one form or another. I was born into it and it has shaped and honed my life in so very many ways.  I thought about joining myself at one time but that was just because I was extremely hungover, depressed and desperately wanting out of a life that was only feeling really shitty BECAUSE I was a fucking mess. The life was good, I was not.  So glad that I didn’t enlist that day.  I do not think I would have been a good military member.  I do not like being told what to do or how and when to do it.

My son doesn’t either but he does seem to excel in routinized settings.  He does well where he knows what is expected of him and with the routine imposed upon him because he has no other choice.  I pray that he finds himself here.  That the Navy is the place that he launches himself into his future and that future is bright and promising.  He is so smart and capable.  Like most of us, his largest and most glaring problem is that he gets in his own way, a lot.

In general, I enjoy having adult children.  I like seeing who they turn into, what they accomplish and where they go in this life.  I also enjoyed being a parent when they were smaller too.  I even enjoyed the adolescent years when things were calm and peaceful which was unpredictable and sporadic.  I have enjoyed being a mom thus far in our journey.  Often times feeling so incredibly not suited for the job, but showing up anyway.  I think that that is the whole job of mothering.  It is kind of like showing up for a new job with a whole kit of tools, which upon further examination prove to be all wrong for what is asked of you.  It is like you have a wrench, hammer, screwdriver and are feeling pretty good about yourself and your capabilities but then you realize the job is going to require you to have the skills and the tools to do brain surgery.  And it just gets worse from there.

I guess that is how motherhood has felt to me.  Like I get the points for showing up, but I am somewhat inept at every arrival.  I am forever bringing the wrong skills, tools, comments, equipment and sentiments.  I mean, we muddle through but it always feels like if I just would have known “x” then I could have done a better job.

But in the end, with parenting and with life, we are just thrown in there and do the best we can.  I never knew how much my own unresolved trauma and issues would affect me as a parent.  I just didn’t know.  And if I had, I am pretty sure I would have never become a parent at all.  I just didn’t know how much of my stuff would become their stuff.  How they would need things from me that I wanted to give, absolutely, but just didn’t have it to give.  And I had no idea that I would feel this way pretty much every single day of their lives.

Today is no different.  I am waiting to see if I will be allowed to see him sworn in.  I will not be able to touch him, hold him, hug him or even talk to him.  The United States Navy now stands as a barrier to my first born and me.  He is now theirs and I am not the most powerful force in his life any longer.  That is a bit hard to take. Last night when we got to check in, we walked into this room and I was addressed in a direct and unfeeling manner:  

“You mom?” a man that was barely old enough to be called that barked at me.

“Um yes...” I stammered

“He needs to sit down there and you can’t be in here, wait outside.” He commanded.

“Ok” I said feebly.

I am sure there was some bullshit national security reason for it but what I experienced was a sudden and drastic ripping of my status as his mom.  I am not in charge anymore, perhaps I never really was.  But regardless of whether I overstepped myself last night or ever, I was quickly and summarily put in my place, which was not sitting next to my kid while he waited to be processed into the fucking military!

And just like that I was standing on the outside of his life.  And the United States Navy asserted their place between he and me.

We spent a nice evening together.  Neither of us feeling like talking about what was happening and how we felt about it. I checked in with him about his anxiety but he said he was good and he wasn’t worried.  I kept to myself how worried and scared I was and am for what comes next and what happens and when I will see him again.  How much he is going to change in such a short period of time.  How much he is going to be forced to grow up.  I sat silently, not saying much because I was afraid to allow my thoughts to form into spoken words.  This is not my deal.  As so often in the life of a parent, we are there for our kids and then we process how we feel about the whole endeavor later out of their range, earshot and view.

Right now I feel emotional.  I feel like he is being ripped away from me and it feels hard, scary and exhausting.  I have said goodby to this kid so many times in our journey together this far.  So many times.  And each time it feels, in the moment, like I am not going to survive this ask.  I am not going to make it through this next trial.  My own feelings so overwhelming, conflicted and intense.  It is so hard to let go...and I feel like I have been asked to do this way too much as his mother.  I know it isn’t my job to question why, it it just my job to accept.  And I will tell you that acceptance has come hard for me, for us.

I pray that he is safe and finds his way in his life.  I pray that he is given a bright future.  I pray that he has friends and people he can count upon.  I pray that he finds something he loves to do and is good at.  I pray the hazing and initiation rites are not too severe and caustic.  I pray that he calls and texts whenever he can.  I pray that he is stepping out of my shadow and into the light of his own life.  I pray I do not have to say goodbye to him again...not like this.

I hope the Navy can give him all the things I couldn’t.  I hope he finds happiness and purpose and a community to belong to.  I hope I get to see him today and hug him one last time.  

Motherhood is not easy.  In fact, it is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Never have I been asked to do something for so long and to feel like I fail at it so miserably, repeatedly. Today, I pray that my lack luster efforts are enough to send this boy off to become a man of substance, discernment with the capacity for the deep affection and love of others. I pray that in his enlistment to service he finds that it is in serving others that we find our very best service and selves.  I know that is what motherhood has been to me...endless service, poor as it has been at times, that has altered and rearranged me from a very selfish person to someone who thinks of them, my kids, with every breath I take.

I pray that the love I gave, the things I taught and the person I have been to him is enough to carry him through this next journey. I pray that this goodbye is the one that launches him smack dab into the middle of his life. And that that life is the best life for him.  

And me, I am doing what I have done many times before, trusting that God and now the United States Navy holds my son accountable and safe for all his days while I cry tears of confusion, loss, grief and love one more time.

Again...still.