After such a happy weekend, I ought to feel happy, but I’m not.\u00a0 My feelings swirl outward and become thoughts — about Nat.\u00a0 I feel that same 20-year guilt, still there, still unnamed, though I write and talk about it a lot.\u00a0 I am still not satisfied with the shape my words have given this feeling, and this dissatisfaction drives me to write yet again.\u00a0 My latest “cri de coeur,” a friend calls my blogging.\u00a0 Yes, it is exactly that.\u00a0 It is my heart asking in its own mute way, “WTF?”<\/p>\n
I try to start outwards, looking at him, trying to match the inner feeling with what I’m seeing.\u00a0 He’s laughing, he’s giddy with his own thoughts; but what are they?\u00a0 I look at him and I see that Nat is so very alone, not engaged with anyone or anything.\u00a0 I think in that same pattern, after all these years.\u00a0 I think that I should take him on a walk.\u00a0 I imagine the walk, down High Street, the long wait at the intersection, clammy skin, annoying cars.\u00a0 I don’t want to get hot.\u00a0 So I don’t do it.\u00a0 I don’t say, “Nat, want to go to Starbux?”\u00a0 I know he’ll want to, but I don’t say it. I don’t want to.\u00a0 I’m trapped in my guilt and my inertia.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile he moves from seat to seat, smiling, chatting, and we are all so used to it, but when you really think about it, it seems bad.\u00a0 The old messages are still there:\u00a0 the teacher who said that “anything he will do in life will only be because you have pushed him to do it.”\u00a0 Something like that.\u00a0 But no one pressures me like that anymore.\u00a0 No one tells me what I should do with Nat.\u00a0 Everyone assumes that I do it already or that there is nothing left to tell, that I am almost done.\u00a0 Find him a good adult living situation, and you’re done.<\/p>\n
I’ll never be done, probably because I don’t want to be.\u00a0 Probably because of this same vague dissatisfaction, guilt, heartache, whatever.\u00a0 Sometimes I feel like I waited for Nat my whole life, and when I finally had him, I didn’t know what to do with him.\u00a0 Eventually I learned that I did know, and that there was nothing bad.\u00a0 But days like this, the doubts spring up again, and it feels like an indistinct Something Bad has invaded again, like a sudden bad smell.\u00a0 And suddenly, it’s not enough, I haven’t done enough.\u00a0 And yet, here I sit.<\/p>\n
The feeling sits there, entering through my eyes as I notice him making his circuit.\u00a0 Maybe if it were Joyful House Stompies I would not feel this.\u00a0 But what I’m seeing and hearing is Run-of-the-Mill-Talkies.\u00a0 A lot of circling near the front door.\u00a0 I’m noticing that he’s by the front door, as if ready to leave. He really wants to go to Starbux.<\/p>\n
And now I know what I am going to do, and the noxious guilt starts to lift like morning mist.\u00a0 You know, come to think of it, it’s not really that<\/em> hot outside.\u00a0 Maybe I’ll take just a little walk with Nat, see where we end up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After such a happy weekend, I ought to feel happy, but I’m not.\u00a0 My feelings swirl outward and become thoughts — about Nat.\u00a0 I feel that same 20-year guilt, still there, still unnamed, though I write and talk about it a lot.\u00a0 I am still not satisfied with the shape my words have given this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-qA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}