Tunnel Vision

 

Parenting is a dark tunnel. They don’t tell you that the moment your baby is born. And even if they did there would be no way to believe it. The glow of amazement is too saturating; no darkness can permeate that moment right after your beautiful baby is born.

But adolescence is another story. A teenager’s job is to travel away, to move outward, following the umbilical cord of life away from one’s mother and towards the great wide open plains of life.

I parent in a way that I wasn’t parented, which means that I over-parent. Throughout my parenting life, I have been over-involved, over-engaged, and over-invested. I love being a mother. It’s one of my greatest accomplishments and constant delights. I never get tired of my daughter Lucia, even when she is impatient and irritated with me, even when she throws her clothes on the floor and leaves her bathmat in a wet, mildewy pile. I’m like a loyal golden retriever, always at the ready for some action. I pant for joy when I see her and lick at her heels for attention when she passes by. 

For many years this worked. My loyal, abiding presence was welcomed by Lucia when she was a baby and a toddler, and even a pre-teen. But now that she’s seventeen it’s an impossible equation — loyal dog and jet-setting traveler. 

Lucia is normal — school, work, friends, shopping, sporting events, parties. She’s living her life to its fullest, and that’s her job. And I am still here, lying in my dog bed, tennis ball in my mouth, ready to play. 

I know what I am experiencing is a universal experience for parents of teenagers. There is a natural grieving as parents watch their children leave the nest. The healthy thing for our children to do is fly away. 

I am working my muscles of patience and faith, trusting that this phase will evolve and Lucia will come back. Intellectually I know this truth, but emotionally it’s hard to be a lonely old dog. And scary. The unknown of Lucia’s life as she forges her own path is terrifying for me. There are days when I am filled with worry so fierce I have to close my eyes and count my breaths until the grip in my chest dissipates.

What came to me a few weeks ago as I meditated one morning was the image of a young girl at the end of a dark tunnel. The tunnel was like a coal mine, dark with a dead end. The girl was me as a nine-year-old. She (I) was far away, maybe 200 yards into the tunnel. I could see her and I wanted her to come closer so that I could take care of her, comfort her.

Since that morning, when I meditate, the same image appears to me. As I’ve tried to make sense of this vision, I realize that the girl in the tunnel is me, but it is also Lucia. Lucia is far away and I want to draw her nearer to adult me, to the light at the opening of the tunnel. I want her to come closer. I want to know Lucia, to understand and comfort her. 

But I am also the little girl. The feelings of fear, darkness, the unknown, are mine, not Lucia’s. My irrational parenting fear is that Lucia is lost at the end of the tunnel because I do not know her, do not feel her, or understand her right now. But I’m wrong. Lucia’s not in that tunnel. She’s in the light, her own light. 

Lucia is fine. She is finding her own glow of amazement out in the world. And that’s what she should be doing. She’s not lost. She’s glowing. She’s living her life without a drooling dog nudging her shins to throw the ball. It’s what I want for her. 

The truth is my fear is not about her, it’s about me. It’s the fear of the loss of my daughter. It’s the fear of change in my role as a mother. The dark tunnel is real. But it’s my tunnel, not Lucia’s.

When I meditate now I try to envision an open tunnel, one with sunshine and light on the other side, a tunnel that leads somewhere exciting and wonderful, glowing golden fields leading to rivers and mountains and towns and cities. I imagine Lucia running towards the light, out of the other side of the tunnel. My heart smiles as I imagine her running free, finding great adventures and happiness on the other side of the tunnel.