AndMore…Instinct

Tonight she’ll doze in the chair until Charles comes in. When he does her heart will practically burst with a hot flood of relief. She won’t yell at him. She won’t even be angry—she will only feel incredible, soggily mind-boggling love. Sometimes she wonders if she’s become addicted to extremes of pain and pleasure—… ~The Wedding Writer by Susan Schneider

The above is not about a lover, husband or friend.  It is a mother worrying about her son.

Her husband thinks he is fine and just going through a phase, coming into his own (becoming a man).  She is the only one that knows something is terribly wrong (and there is), that her sons quietness screams of trouble, his moodiness of altered state, of his leaving the house and not knowing when he will return; a form of running…hiding.  She suffers it alone.  Dubbed a smotherer.  A nag.  A worry wart.

The book itself is of another woman, an editor going through life’s trials, but this woman is the one I both understood and related to well.

I can always tell when my son is troubled.  The silence others see as keeping to himself, I know it to be his struggling with a decision.

The absence others see as his just doing his thing, I know it to be a form of hiding, running.

The quick decision he makes others see as his ‘finally’ making up his mind, I know it to be a following of another’s view.

It didn’t stop when he became a teenager.

It didn’t stop when he moved out.

It didn’t stop when he pushed me away.

It hasn’t stopped even now when he is soon turning 21.

I still if not physically – emotionally -- ‘doze in a chair until he comes around. My heart bursts with relief when I feel all is well. I don’t yell at him. I don’t even get angry. I just feel mind-boggling love. I too wonder if I have become addicted to extremes of pain and pleasure…’ I am a mother and with it came instincts.  That gift and curse that all with opinions don’t have concerning my son or me.  I am a mother and I love unconditionally; it is my instinct.