Childhood Blues

I've had the 'first-week-of-school' blues these past couple of weeks. No, I'm not the one going to school, though you wouldn't know it by hearing me go on and on about the subject to anyone who happens to make the mistake in asking.

For the past three years or so, whenever my son has been getting ready to start a new year of school, I get VERY nostalgic. Just achy from the past, and for the past, for him when he was a baby and school wasn't even on the agenda, for myself having a hard childhood and looking so forward to school as a break from the tension of home.

The summer between my seventh and eighth year of life was one of the most difficult ones I've ever had to face. My mother fled from eight years of emotional and physical abuse during that summer, stealing my brother and I away in the night like a thief, with my father close on her heels, trying to run our car off the road (though his two children were in the back seat). I was asked to make a decision at that age-- the question arising whether I would like to live with mom or dad, my four-year-old brother crying a river in the seat next to me...

I look at my son and I can't even imagine how painful that would be for him. So traumatic. He hates it enough now when my husband and I have heated arguments. If the crap hit the fan around here like it used to when I was a kid, he'd have a breakdown.

And then I think to myself...did I have a breakdown? And if I did, would I recall it? Or just block it out? Or had all the years of tension leading up to that moment served as some sort of morbid practice?

As I think back on it, I probably wasn't given the opportunity to have a breakdown. I had to keep my wits about me, had to make sure that my brother and I were going to make it from day to day. Mom was broke when she fled, and she had also fled with men who didn't always have our best interests in mind.

I'm so thankful that I'm able to give D a better life than that. I'm grateful to my mother for sticking it out and taking us with her and risking her neck to bring us along and keep us as safe as she could. But I'm also thankful that I've chosen a better man, and that time has found it to be a sound choice.

I can't wait to see how far this difference in my son's life will take him in his life as an adult.

He's so completely wonderful to be around, and more importantly, seems so very happy.

(I tried to tell you, serious blues here.)