My dad bought me a bus ticket from Everett, Washington, to Springfield, Missouri. While other high school graduates enjoyed a personal, loving, familial send-off, complete with an on-site trip to Wal-Mart to furnish their college digs, my parents put me on a bus, alone, to journey three days and three nights. And so I went to college.
I learned early on to expect to nothing from life, so this seemed simply the step I had to take to get away from home and to college. It never occurred to me that other parents in other families might escort their children across the country to college. But as I think of it today, more than twenty years later, I do find myself a little bitter. I wonder what my dad was thinking as he watched me climb up the stairs of the bus. I know he cried as I disappeared from sight, but why the bus? Why not a plane? Why did he send me off alone?
Did you know that Greyhound buses stop frequently in the darkest hours of the night in the most obscure towns along the way and demand their passengers disembark for mysterious reasons? (Purportedly to clean the bus, but I have my lingering doubts.) I spent three days and three nights worrying about strange people who might talk to me and who might cause me serious physical harm and who might scare the living daylights out of me. Or kill me.
When I arrived, I had what amounted to a bedsore from sitting so long in one position.
I thought of that sojourn today while fishing around inside the pond that is my brain for an adequate description for how I feel at the moment. My life at the moment feels like a cross-country bus trip with an unknown destination and nothing to do but listen to the noisy hum of my fellow passengers and wonder at people who actually use toilets on buses and stare out the windows at porchlights outside homes I’ll never step inside. I wonder if I’ll arrive at my destination. I wonder what my destination is. I wonder if I got on the wrong bus.
I have absolutely no cause for dismay or alarm or ungratefulness. I wonder if I’m having your traditional mid-life crisis where you look around and say, “Hey, where am I? I think I’m going the wrong way!” and “STOP THE BUS! I MISSED MY STOP!” I have a fearsome and irrational terror that I am a horrible mother, that I am ruining the children God gave me. I especially fret over the adopted children I have because it seems the stakes are higher. After all, their birthmother chose us because she thought we’d do a better job than she could do in her circumstances. Am I? Am I doing all right? (Did my dad worry about my future the way I worry about my children’s futures? And yes, I know . . . worry is not from God . . . God will provide . . . trust Him . . . I know.)
I think I need a progress report or some customer feedback. If all you are is a mother and your children don’t turn out, does that make you a miserable failure? Am I more than a mother? If so, where is the proof? What do I have to show for my life, other than a basketful of clean socks with no mates?
Why can’t I stop crying?
I ought not encourage myself when I’m in this dark mood, but I’m the kind of person who can’t stop pressing on a bruise. I think it’s interesting to examine all my thoughts, even the crazed ones, the ones that I would deny if you asked me about them later. As I mentioned on my other blog, emotions come and go, floating in and out like the tide. And while I am up to my neck in the cold waters of despair and wasteful sadness, I know the waters will recede and I’ll find myself fine and dandy, thought damp and covered with seaweed.
And this concludes today’s pointless pity party. Honestly, I’m fine and I have no idea why I’m swallowed whole by gloom this week. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. (Well, did I mention my computer’s motherboard is dead and that I really do have to spend money on a new computer? That’s not fine, but that’s not life-threatening, right?)
I am fine. Do not be alarmed. Fine, I tell you!
Actual Unretouched Photo 
Hang in there. This is your journey and sometimes we’re just not in total control of how we get there.
I notice something about your writing. You mention your dad a lot. What about your Mom? If that is too personal a question, I apologize.
Take care of yourself!
d
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As I discovered several weeks ago, sometimes just talking – or writing – something out can help us.
I agree with your hypothesis on your other blog, that you’re feeling the same emotions but in a different way because you aren’t using the old coping mechanism of eating. Because you don’t have a new coping mechanism to fall back on, you’re having to deal with those feelings in a very raw way. Working without a net, so to speak.
You’re still in my prayers.
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😦
Feel better soon!
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Firstly, you are such an amazing mother. Please know that I look to you and your stories as a source of comfort for me in my “journey” along thing motherhood road.
Secondly, Springfield? Do you happen to know a man named Lynn Flick? He is my mother’s cousin. (My second? cousin) And he worked for a Christian college (I believe) in Springfield for several years if not at least a decade. I just couldn’t help but at least ASK.
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I know I’m missing the point here, but I was also sent on the Greyhound to college–three times. The last time, I got off the bus sobbing because it was so stressful and awful. I think my parents thought something far worse happened to me on the bus, something they never actually asked about.
So the next time I went off to school, they were much kinder, my dad arranged for me to ride seven hours in a car with one of the salesmen at his office who I’d never met. He dropped me off in Madison, Wisconsin and I only then had to take Greyhound to Milwaukee.
Nice.
What might even be worse is that I never thought it was anything out of the ordinary until recently a friend was yelling at me for feeling guilty about my relationship with my mom when I clearly had made up for any transgressions with all that Greyhound penance.
More to the point, before I got married and even more recently, had a baby, I always revelled in the feeling that came with metaphorically being on a bus with no destination, just enjoying the ride. Only now have I started interpreting that feeling as something scary and a bit too out of control for my comfort level.
And finally, every single person I have ever heard even slightly wondering if they are “miserable failures” as mothers are, without exception, the complete opposite.
The ones who never make such questions and brag the most are the ones who are very proud of their 18-year-old daughters for not wasting her time in college since she didn’t know what she wanted to major in, and instead working two jobs in order to eventually buy a townhouse with her boyfriend. It’s always a townhouse, for some reason. If any of your children ever look into townhouses, especially in this buyer’s market, then you can start to seriously reflect.
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(Holy! Long commnent. I nursed my daughter twice, coming back to it both times.)
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In one of my guilt trip moments, my mom said it’s the good moms who feel guilty…
Hugs. (even tho you’re fine)
Mary
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I hope the crying stops soon, because nobody likes a chapped nose on top of thinking they are a crappy mother.
Which you aren’t, of course.
But some days are just like that, aren’t they? Then, the kids go and do something that makes us swell with pride, and we know that for the most part, we’re doing ok.
((Mel))
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Oh, honey…it’s ok, really it is. Life overwhelms us all at one time or another. I think you’re in the middle of a tsunami, but trust me, I was there around your age, too. Midlife crisis? No, just midlife. It’s fraught with anxiety and pity parties. But, like all else in Life…it, too, shall pass. I had a great-aunt who had such a hard time thru her 40s she ended up having electro-shock therapy to snap her out of it…this was back in the “Dark Ages” of the 1960s tho. Have you had a good OB/GYN check-up lately?? The doctor can check all your hormone levels and may be able to shed some light on how you’re feeling, too. I’ll be praying for you…I know it’s a sad, scary time of Life. You feel like a crazy stranger in your own skin.
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Seems to be a fairly common parental woe, or at least one that I share with you. I fear for the future of the world and the temptations that will head my daughter’s way, and fret about how I can best prepare her for it all. I don’t want to be like my dad. I don’t want to give her a bad childhood, but are my decisions ensuring one?
Just know you aren’t alone in these worries, though whether or not that is comforting is quite another story.
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I think we all worry about whether or not we are being good parents, especially on those days when nothing gets done. I’m thinking about you, and I’m going to blame the weather for you. Have a good weekend!!
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In moments like these, I understand why some mothers drink.
I’ve enough vices without that.
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Oops. Forgot to add…
This too shall pass.
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Some might tell you you are depressed and need medicine. My sister told me that when I went through this at the age of 40. (I ignored her, because she lives on pills and I don’t touch them…an aspirin every now and then is all I’m willing to eat)
Nearly 8 years later I see that it is cyclical. It still goes on, but now I see it as what it is…. a natural change in hormones. I gained a lot of weight during the beginning of this time. I lost a lot of hair. Age spots started to show up on my face. And both of my parents got Parkinsons and died between my years of the ages of 35 and 45.
I dived into a spiritually contemplative season at this time too. It was tediously lengthy. I bored people to death with the thoughts I mulled over.(However, you manage to make it interesting Mel, and I am not at all bored reading your experience. I simply want to pull you over and hug you) Blogs did not exist yet…so letters, long ones, and later emails exhibited to my dear friends and relations my searching trails of miserable thought.
Basically Mel, I think this is hormonal and also natural, and nothing to be feared. God does not expect you to pull yourself out of it. It’s my belief that He in fact places us in it. It doesn’t feel good. We think we are failures. Hey, you know what? In the light of His Holy Perfection we actually are failures. That’s what GRACE is all about. In His eyes you are lovely and acceptable. …the slavery to perfecting yourself that you may find whispered in your ear is not coming from His direction.
I’m praying for you.
PS
I live in a townhouse, am married to an attorney and am approaching 50 with three wonderful teen aged daughters. Town houses are not all bad.
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I have enjoyed reading your blog.
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I just surfed my way in from somewhere… (you know, click on a friends blog who has another ‘new’ blog listed, who has different blogs listed on their site… and well? There you go!
And here I am. Feeling very very much like you and nodding at the similarities. Hang in there… you’ll be back on track soon!
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I hate days like you are having. We all have them and I don’t know why, but I do know that it will get better. This is the very reason I started my blog. I needed a place to reflect, vent, or just get things out. I’m glad you wrote all that down today. And I hope it helped, even if just a little bit. I’ve been reading your blog and you sound like you are a WONDERFUl mother. I know I have days when I question what I’m doing. I don’t want to screw my kids up. I love them so much. I hope things look better for you tomorrow. If not, come back to vent. We will be here pulling for you and letting you know that we think you’re a great person and doing a wonderful job (your own little cheering section…hey, everyone needs one at one time or another).
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“It never occurred to me that other parents in other families might escort their children across the country to college.”
It is likely that this didn’t really occur to your parents either…although they were in the more likely position to consider it. This is the exact thought that has helped me forgive my parents for most slights that I can think of. I don’t think they thought about things, knew them, or thought that they could do differently.
I know you are, and will be fine…especially since now you have written another entry….:) Still…(((Mel)))
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Miserable failures don’t worry about being miserable failures.
Sorry for delay – my net’s been down among other things.
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from the sound of it (and your blog seems very truthful) you are doing a wonderful job. Your children wil lbe thankful. Sometimes it takes a few years. 🙂
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I’m right there with ya. Hang in there.
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