Plants and Animals

I am sitting  in the waiting room as some sweet doctor roots around in my child's brain to try and see why things are so hard for her sometimes. It makes me feel strange. I always thought I'd given her enough love and safety that her wires would not have been crossed this way. I did not withhold. I did not repress. I did not helicopter. I set reasonable lines in the sand. But it happened anyway. 

I talk to my clients about children. How to parent. What does it mean? For most, they see their children, unformed lumps of clay, ready to be moulded into productions of success. 

I say to them, you need to see their person. A child is a seed you plant. You can water and fertilize it. Put stakes in to hold it straight , or chicken wire to keep the foxes out. But the plant will grow how it will grow. We cannot determine the size of the leaves or the number of flowers. We have to take steps back and see what the plant wants to be. Let it reach for the sun in the direction it is drawn to, and revel in its own choice of bloom. 

I know I am a good parent. The other day, after sharing something inappropriate, as is my bad habit, I asked her. How do you feel when I don't filter ? Have I crossed a line from parent to friend? Will you end up on a couch wishing that I had put more fences around you? 

She answered,

" I know you are my mum. I am not confused. I admire you and want to be like you."

I tried not to cry. Of course I am bad at that. The tiny droplet of water pooling in the corner of my lid, I quietly push it aside, and say,

"That makes me feel so nice, kiddo."

But sitting here waiting in this flourescent lit chair, I doubt. I doubt that I did it right. Or that I didn't push. That she was clay and I was wrong. That firmer hands should have moulded her on the wheel. That  I should have fired her in the kiln to keep her strong. 

She is so beautiful, this child of mine. The most right of the choices I ever made. We drove over singing Violent Femmes at the top of our voices sharing angst laughing. I introduced this album to her a couple of days ago. 

"This is your new favourite band but you just don't know it yet,"

As I cranked up the volume...

Just last night 

I was reminded of

Just how bad it had gotten

And just how sick

I had become ....

 

She wears my old McGill jacket like a blankie. Always on her. Her face is mine, or so everyone says, astonished when they see her. And there we are, head banging and scream singing in the car on our way to the shrink. 

She's growing. I know. Pots chip and break. Plants adapt, not rigid in their construction. I know she is loved and fed and watered. She is not topiary. I cannot snip and trim and control, obsessed with every branch at wrong angle.  But there are days. Like this day, sitting listening to noise machines and soft murmers from behind doors, where I wish that I was a better gardener. Where I wish I could make her a hothouse flower and not a wild rose, with perfect symmetry, trimmed and beautiful, thorns removed. 

In truth, I won't though. I love her too much not to see her leaves. Not to see her expand into herself. At the mercy of the elements. I love her too much to protect her from all things. Still...