I am watching a great movie that has a lot of interesting ideas in it, The Adjustment Bureau.
"All we have are the choices that we make." Matt Damon says that. I bet that one line is what drew him to the part.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the passage of time and the choices I made when I was younger. I guess we always wonder, Did I make the right choices?
The hardest part of being a parent is watching your child make choices that you see are not the right ones, and being helpless to change anything.
I couldn't stop my daughter from making bad choices. A friend called me yesterday to tell me her daughter is in a disastrous relationship with a man who is manipulative and controlling, and who doesn't want her to see her family.
As I listened to my friend almost crying on the phone, I had to harden my heart a bit not to cry too. I was at work. I know exactly how she feels.
I couldn't say anything comforting. A child over 18 is free to make choices, and you cannot force them to do anything. If you try, you risk alienating them forever.
I remember so well being 18 and thinking I am FREE.
Of course, I was also under the thumb of my dad, an incredibly controlling person. He tried very hard to ensure his kids would follow his program for them. It was not easy being his child. I realized soon after he died that if I said that to any of his relatives they would get mad at me. There's a school of thought that you shouldn't say anything about someone who has died but I don't ascribe to that. He was human. He made mistakes.
Michael keeps oversleeping in the morning, and I have to yell at him for half an hour to get him up. I am so tired of that drama.
I decided that tomorrow, I am going to wake him up at 6:30. He will have to get himself up, or not. He will have to live with the consequences of his choices.
I have never been the type of person who hit the Snooze button. I get up when I wake up. To lie in bed dozing just amps up the stress, trying to play catch up. It's not worth it. I hate being late anywhere but especially being late to work. (When you work in a small office, everyone knows it.)
I have friends raising teens and early twenty-somethings, like me, and we are all in the same boat. Wanting our kids to make better choices, wanting to smooth the way for them, and yet knowing, deep down, that they will have to stumble sometimes, even fail, or they will.not.learn.
It's a tough spot.
I need to lose a bunch of weight so I can do yoga.. or sit in the lotus position and meditate. Having faith helps a lot, but I still need to work on reducing my stress and letting go of things I cannot control.
photo by Lisa Amos [this was made in East Tennessee, a gorgeous area in the fall]
