Owning My In-Between
Looking at some of the feelings I have about parenting that sometimes feel hard to explain.
I've been having these dreams lately where I miss my kid in various ways, deeply and instinctively.
In last night's, Ben was graduating. In parts, I was helping him get ready. In parts, I was giving away clothes from his very early years, many feminine presenting, all well past fitting.
There was an emotional tension I could feel acutely, even in waking.
The honest nostalgia for his youth, of being able to carry him, literally, his weight in my arms and against my body. The tension of letting go, over and over, not just of what was, whatever was, but in age, too. The letting go that independence has always and will always demand.
But also, ...
The tension of knowing that in advocacy, most specifically parental advocacy for trans kids, there is shame attached to grieving. More precisely: The shame around the idea that you'd ever grieve an embodied and very much alive child. And with that specific sentiment, that shame, I can wholeheartedly agree.
But shame also subsumes and swallows the tension I experience here, in this dream and in this life. There is no room to miss what was, again, whatever was, without labeling that longing shameful. Even "longing" is not precise enough.
So, I come to realize time and time again that there is no word for my experience. And all the words I have are fraught and charged with the potential to batter those humans, my own included, I most want to protect and lift up.
My mind makes up the difference, I suppose. Giving me imagined opportunities to say goodbye, hello, goodbye, hello, to every old and new part of my kid as their own growth continues to outpace my heart.