September 24, 2009

There are three people in my life that I love; husband, daughter, son. Yet I don't always show it. My husband comes home from work and I'm not quite ready to stop what I'm doing to greet him. I know he craves some small attention; a kiss, a brief caress, eye contact. It seems so simple when I write it and yet............... Some stubborn part of me can't, won'.

My daughter is as prickly as I am. She too needs attention but it is not easy to figure out when. She also desperately needs non-attention. To be left alone kindly. She has a strong sense of personal space and cannot stand to have it violated. This has been true since middle school when her science teacher leaned over her at her desk and she had to repress a violent desire to snarl "get away from me". When she cooks she bars me from the kitchen. When she watches TV I may sit in the same room "by invitation only."

My son is even more complicated. For the first 5 years of his life he couldn't bear to be separated from me, for the next 5 years he didn't want to leave home, yet beginning around age 12 he couldn't bear the sound of my voice and preferred any of his friend's homes to his own. Now he is away at college and virtually incommunicado.

The ones we love. Why is it so difficult to show it?