New Years Day 2011
Ok, the New Year has officially started, and I have a long list of goals swimming around in my head. Most are writing based, and career and personal goals, and lots are financial. Those I am determined to accomplish in the first few focused weeks of this year.
But there are family based ones, as well, and those seem to be based mostly on guilt. I hate guilt.
Not that anyone actually “likes” guilt, or thrives on it, I’m sure. But it overwhelms me when I let myself think about my kids. And what a useless and draining emotion it is. It truly adds nothing to my life, nothing useful to my children’s lives, yet there it is. With me when I close my eyes at night, with me when I’m in the shower, with me when I sit at my desk and write. Shooing them away so I can concentrate for 15 minutes, and listening to their pleas for attention in the background.
Being the parent to a child with a physical disability seems to only add to my guilt. Am I doing enough for her, and I facilitating enough for her, making sure she participates in everything her brother and sister are doing? And am I doing enough for them?
The answer is always a resounding “NO.” Although everyone around me is always marveling at what I get my little girl involved in, and how many fun things she gets to do. I always think that they just don’t see the day to day, the times when she is not doing everything every other kid is. She plays so well sometimes quietly, that I let myself enjoy the peace. The not carrying her or helping her walk or dance. But then I see it in her eyes, watching her brother and sister flipping around jumping on a bed or dancing crazy to their new music, and she wants me to help her. But there is laundry and dishes, and everything in the way.
Oh well, maybe that is the resolution of the hour. Not feeling guilt, and giving each of them a little bit of time. A little attention to what they want to do, be it the computer game, the dancing, the reading, and then move on. The laundry should not ever cause guilt, it is not a growing, developing mind or self-esteem of a child. Let it wait, I will tell myself. If you only have so much focus, use it for what is truly important. Forming a life, growing a child.
Ok, here is to 2011 and a new focus. Short, sweet and centered.
