Parents
Part of growing up is realizing that your parents are only human, that they will, because they are human, let you down. They let you down and you go on and in so doing, you grow up. You grow up even more when you forgive them for it.
Then you become a parent and you are — more to the point, I am terrified that I will, that I already all the time, let my children down. Inevitably, inescapably. I too am only human. But oh I want so desperately not to let them down. I want so desperately to be what they need me to be and for their hearts not to hurt because of me. But they will hurt and I will fail, no matter what. I know that doesn’t make me A Bad Mother, any more than my own mother or hers or my friend’s mother — just that we are all only and always — only human.
Maybe forgiving myself for failing my own children is the next piece of growing up that I have to do. But I’m not quite ready.
