The truth is, my son is wonderful.
It's true our lives are good.
It's true I am lucky and blessed in so many ways.
It is true he is precious and unique, loved and created.
It's true he fills our home with love and has taught us all how to be better humans.
It is true that he is more healed than many people who attend church.
It's true the world is a better place because he is here but it also true that my heart breaks...
It hurts, that the truth is, he can't see my face.
It hurts he can't play with his brothers.
It hurts he can't run around the garden.
It hurts he doesn't get to taste his birthday cake.
It hurts he won't come home from school and tell me about his day.
It hurts I can't be sure he isn't in pain.
It hurts that caring takes such physical and emotional toll.
It hurts he can't tell me his most basic feelings, fears and hopes.
It hurts, that the truth is, he didn't do his SATs this week.
Crazy, isn't it?
I'm the parent crying in the kitchen because her son didn't do exams at school.
The possibility is so far from reality, it is laughable.
Unimaginable.
Incomprehensible.
All week, a cloud of emotion has hung thick in the air, silent, ignored, safely shut away. Yet as I type, my vision is skewed with tears. This beautiful, brutal, conflicting life is so full and good but yet so raw, painful and sapping of energy.
I'm weak today.
I let the comparisons take over.
I gave up the ghost, and finally let my outside reflect my inside - it wasn't pretty (and included lots of snot).
Today, I have been true to the feelings I have ignored all week.
Time wound the handle, cranking up the tension until springs were coiled and could take no more.
Then this afternoon the Jack in the box jumped free. My vibrant, old friend spewing emotions and feelings normally contained and tucked away. Out they jumped, expected but still shocking.
Because the truth is, life is not either or.
My son is not either hard to care for or wonderful.
He isn't either created by God or broken and needs fixed.
Life isn't easy and good or bad and difficult.
I wish I lived in the black or white.
I wish I was confident in the stark contradiction of the 'either ors'.
But so often, and especially today, I'm smothered in the weary, grey cloak of reality.
I live in the world of and & and.
It's hard and it's sad and he's wonderful and I'm happy and I cherish and I love and I weep and I hurt and I wish.
I wish it was different.
I wish I could always be strong.
I wish I could only see the good.
I wish I could avoid the pain of comparisons.
So, today I sit with my puffy eyes and broken heart trusting that tomorrow will be another day; that the rays of sun will break through the clouds of grey and warm my tear stained face...
We all have our Ands: conflicting Truths
For more of my good and bad Truths you can read my memoir, The Skies I'm Under. Life isn't black and white.