Roots and seeds

I've said before that I think fear is at the root of most of our problems: hatred, anger, intolerance, and my fat ass. You know, all the major stuff.

I've been working a lot on overcoming fear. By which I mean, recognizing it and dealing with it. A huge part of this has been learning to let go of the fears I have for my kids, especially for the Boy. The more I let go, the easier it gets.

So this week, we took him out of therapy. And, me being what I am, I keep worrying that decision, turning it over in my brain like a piece of glass in a river, only instead of getting smoother, the damned thing just gets sharper and splinter-ier. If I don't knock it off, pretty soon I'm going to jump head first in the river trying to dig it out, and get water all up my nose. Not to mention that drowning thing.

Here's the thing, though: What am I so afraid of? I'm afraid of a ghost. I'm afraid of what might happen if he doesn't get "early intervention". I'm afraid that one day he'll be an unhappy and unstable adult and he'll blame me. I'm afraid of losing him. But all this fear is rooted in events and behaviors that began 3 years ago, during a horribly tumultuous time for all of us. And frankly, I think they blossomed in my own depression and anxiety from that time and the year that followed. They've been watered by diagnoses and opinions and judgment, real or imagined. And they've become a veritable tangle of thorns.

I know he has challenges. He needs to learn how to deal with frustration, and disappointment, and yes, fear. He needs to learn how to get along with others without walling off or blowing up. He needs to learn how to let go of things. But isn't that what life is supposed to be about: learning how to be a human being? I keep going around and around this, but it keeps coming down to the fact that I don't think it's a disability to be born without knowing how to be perfect. I look at my strengths, the things that have gotten me through the past 3 years, that kept me from going completely insane as a kid, and at the center of each one I see a seed, and that seed is a weak spot. A weak spot that I learned to live with, to cherish, even. Who am I to take those seeds away from my child? How can he grow to be a man if all I show him are the weaknesses, and never teach him how to tend them until they become strengths?