Inspiration comes from many places. Today mine comes from Kiara's blog. That stanza is one of many in her latest poem.
I've been so inundated with work lately that I've hardly spared a breath, nor had a breath to spare, to pause and write for my blog. But I still browse around the bloggers world. Subsequently I landed on Kiara's poem, and that one stanza is what I was all set to quote in the comment box in response to her post. I stopped myself as I found my thoughts widening and growing, as does a vine, and as it grasped a topic that I have frequently found my thoughts landing on, I thought this isn't comment material - for if it remained as such it would either become a overflowing essay or a restrained blurb which wouldn't go much into the full essence of the thought.
Although the poet might have written her poem with a different purpose and intent, I found myself taken by that stanza for the very reason that it reminded me of the transition between child and parent.
As we go through life, as a child, we most often encounter those moments wherein we contest the dictate of our parent(s). They tell us to do something, we most often have an urge to do otherwise. If they say go right, we want to go left, simply because we want to do what we want, not what someone else is telling us.
And as we continue growing, we might find ourselves thinking "I'll never be that way with my kids", "I'm going to be a better friend to my kids", "I'll let my kids do what it is they want", "I won't boss them around and force them to follow what I want". We resolve that because we know what it is like to be a child and what is is that we opposed and why, that we will be the better parent.
I wonder, though, how often we realize only when we are a parent, that it isn't as easy as it may have seemed. Perhaps, we may have made mistakes as a child - run with the wrong crowd, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, following our own stubborn will to do as we please, only to regret the fact we did it.
Perhaps we let ourselves fall in love with the wrong person, only to break our heart. Perhaps we followed our will to do whatever we wanted in school, and ended up in a dead-end job. Or, put our money in the wrong investments, trusted the wrong people, didn't look both ways before crossing the street, nor looked before leaping.
Maybe when we become parents, that instinct to protect our child will overrule the resolves we may have made previously. We don't want our children to make the same mistakes we made. We want to give them a smoother path, a better life. Yet this instinct to protect comes to swords with the child's will to live as they please.
Maybe one day they will assert, "It's not fair! You got to do it when you were younger!" Maybe that's the whole cycle. We learn from our mistakes.
I have always averred that if and when I am a mother, I'll be my kids' best friend. And I must admit, I am pretty awesome with kids. But then, who knows what instincts may pop up when it's one of your own. It is an overwhelming thought; and I think in this case it might be better not to think too much but to go with the flow.
Yeaaah. Might already be too late on that point. ¬_¬
(Thank you Kiara!)
