The Thanksgiving Blues

    Today as I kayaked on Lake Natoma where I met my ex-fiance tears were in my eyes, not for him, but for being without my children on Thanksgiving.  Perhaps that's why my ex broke up with me last year at this time.  My motherly instincts to have my children with me, when I'm thankful for all the G_d has given to me, always makes me sad when I'm without my precious children every year on Thanksgiving.
    Yet G_d gave me glassy water with a massive storm overhead, a storm heading to the Sierra Mountains to drop the snow which I prayed for to keep me busy skiing while I was alone.  G_d gave me a lake all to myself with the most beautiful reds popping out of deep greens.  G_d gives me so much when I cry to Him on the water....and just when I cry to Him.  I constantly blessed all the beauty and miracles that he gave to me as I paddled onward toward the mountains and back, and the glassy water and beauty lasted without a drop of rain upon me.
    Though the blues hit me later in the morning, earlier this morning I was too sleepy for the blues to hit me as I dropped my son off at the airport.  He's such a good man and lives with me again, so he can go back to college.  I spent all my college money on his sister while he was finding himself and developing his rock n roll band, Air Surgeon.  He's never stopped loving me over that.  His sister is much different.
    After his sister's college graduation and wedding, she wrote and told me to only write her if it had to do with money or a severe medical emergency.  My dad's stroke was not severe enough, and she wrote, "Your breaking the rules."
     When I told my son this for the first time yesterday, he said, "What a spoiled, bratty, princess!"  That's what most of her psychologists have told her in professional terms over the years, too.  I still have hope that one day whatever I did or didn't do is forgiven.  She's my daughter, and I love her.
     I know that, because I was severely physically and emotionally abused by my middle brother and sister as I grew up with undiagnosed Aspergers that no amount of work will obliterate the insensitivity that I have toward abusive behavior.  With all my training as a teacher, I know more and more what abusive behavior is.  I know what made me feel bad and never did it to my children.  I know that I moved my children far away from my siblings to keep them safe, but what did I unknowingly bring with me that hurt my daughter?
     She's explained it to me: I didn't listen to her enough.  I had Aspergers.  I wasn't strong enough during my surgical menopause, and she felt like a parent to me.  I fed her huge Paku fish, that looked like a piranha, to the cat when that fish ate all the other fish in the aquarium.  For some reason she felt like I always thought she was fat, though I purposefully stopped myself from doing that to her, since my mother did it to me.  At least I did better than most abused children do as parents, but that's not going to make my relationship with my daughter any better now.
    After finishing my mandatory reporters training for teachers last week, I remarked to my son, "They added something new into it this year.  They added, 'Interview the parents that are abusing their children, because they probably will tell you how they're abusing their children without even knowing it.  In their minds what they do is not abuse.  It's just what the family does.'"
    "Did I do something bad that I was unaware of to my children?"  I asked my son.  At least my son didn't think so, but what if my abuse was now his normal?  What an endless cycle of training and retraining myself to recognize abusive behavior.  What an endless cycle of removing myself from my siblings' and exhusband's abuse only to be abused by my daughter's rules of interaction.
     Anyway, I'm alone, so no one is abusing me on Thanksgiving, but I wish that I wasn't alone.  I wish that someday I'll find a life partner that will look into my eyes on Thanksgiving and make me focus on him and not on missing my children or the pain from my past, just as G_d keeps me focused on the beautiful glassy water and reds of the trees as I kayak toward the mountains and back beneath the storm clouds of life.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!