One of my children is on the quiet side, she is very different than me.
Sometimes when we are driving to here or there, it can be a little unnerving.
I feel like I am on an uncomfortable first date. She sits quietly. Sometimes on her phone, and sometimes looking out the window.
Me? I am babbling and talking about everything under the sun.
Trying to make conversation. Trying to connect with her. My interactions with her evoke so many different feelings. I know she likes the quiet. Not sure why I can’t just be quiet.
There is such a distance between what I know I should do, and what I actually do.
I am trying. Really trying. I know that it is me trying so hard that is the biggest problem. I am incredibly proud of who she is. I love that she’s so dramatically different than me. The issue is that I don’t know always know what to do about that.
I feel horrible that I sometimes push her, and then she gets mad.
She will say “Ima - you’ve said that seven times,” or “you asked me that already.”
As my children get older they need me less. My feelings are mixed.
Happy to be getting my life back, to do my own thing. Sad to see them move on. Exhilarated to watch them become. A little gloomy about them leaving. Excited for their lives without me.
So many mixed emotions. I am trying to process these emotions and feelings and figure out what I’m supposed to do with them.
I stopped the car to let her off. She coldly got out, closed the door and did not say goodbye. Actually she said nothing and walked away.
I sat there annoyed, a little hurt. I sat and watched her walk away and thought about something one of my students told me about getting clean from drugs.
He told me that one of the reasons to use drugs was to numb all the feelings. “I got all these feels, didn’t really even know what they were.” He added, “Once I got lit (high) they changed, the feelings they went away. Dem feelings, they become something else.” Then he told us,
“When I went to therapy…” God bless Homeboy Industries that gives my beautiful students the opportunity for therapy and guidance. He continued, “The therapist told me that I will find answers in my feelings. I thought she was fucking stupid, but then I started to feel and listen to what I was feeling.” He added, “I hate my fucking baby mama, and that’s cause she is a bitch.” He laughs, “Now, I know I hate her. Those are my damn feelings. She ain’t nice. I fucking hate her. I don’t gotta fight with her. I just stay away from the bitch, and hate her without the fighting.”
Everyone laughed.
“Okay.” I say to him, not loving this narrative, but going with it.
“No, wait Ms. hear me out.” He said, “If you hear your feelings, they tell you stuff. I ain’t gonna lie - I hate my ex. Those are my feelings. I heard my feelings. I except them. Now I don’t get mad at her. I just hate her without getting mad. I used to think my feelings control me Ms. Now? I get me control from understanding how I feel.”
I remember thinking in that moment how profound that is.
I think of my kids and try to figure out how can I get myself control from understating how I feel.
I was sitting in my car and actually laughing out loud just thinking of that.
And my feelings were a little calmed. I need to find control from understanding how I feel.
Not let the feelings control me.
A woman in that class said, “I got no control – I got me so many feelings. They got them a world of their own. They come at me like crazy fucking bullets from an automatic machine gun. All I do is try to dodge dem bullets. I don’t understand how you get you control. That therapy shit don’t work for me. If I let my feelings loose, they come back to bite me in the ass, fucking hard!”
“Girl…” my feelings student said, “Your problem is that you are trying to dodge them. Let them feelings hit you. Let them touch you. Feel your feelings.”
I remember almost falling off my chair.
“Ms. You must have done a lot of therapy right?” I nod, laugh and say, “Oh yes, lots of therapy.”
“Didn’t they tell you to feel?” he added.
“Well actually,” I say. “Therapy is talking about the feelings, so you can understand them a little better and live with them at peace.”
The female student says, “That’s bullshit.”
“No,” I say “It’s a choice, and it’s super hard work.”
“See,” the feelings student said again “you control the feelings.”
They went back and forth. We got into a deep discussion about therapy.
The pros, the cons, and why therapy is vital for healing and recovery from the big stuff, and the little stuff.
I watched my kid from the car meet up with her friends.
She was cheery, chatty and smiley.
She looked like a totally different kid then the one who got out of the car without saying a word to me. I felt relieved that it is me not her.
I realize that in the car when we are together it is the space where she can have her feelings.
All her feelings, no filter no control – however she needs or wants.
Not a beautiful metaphor, but I guess I am a little like the garbage disposal of her feelings – I know from walking through the fire of her two sisters, that that is a little what parenting teens is about.
“You know Ms. I did drugs so I wouldn’t feel. Then when I was locked up, I pretended not to have feelings, so people would think I am strong and the shit. Now, I feel, I cry, and I am. That is fucking life and it’s a blessing.”
I drive away from where I dropped off my kid.
I think yet again of my students who somehow always teach me and make me so much better at all I do.
I stop at the light and I listen to my feelings and try to hear what they might be saying to me.
