DreamScapes
The dream hurt. I was at Will’s house and my son’s room was beautifully decorated and he had all the “things” I ever wanted to give him. Professionally painted wallsand trim, decorator-type bedspread and pillows, matching bedset, plush carpet – it was an oasis of his personality, soft inviting comfortable. And Will provided it for him, not me.
I stood there with a notebook in my hand, ready to write the emotions, willing to write the story, but lost for the words required to express the sense of utter failure I felt deep within my gut.
I pulled a book off his shelf, overladen with reading material, and opened it. On every page was a map showing where “Iodine” lived. I knew it should say “Iroquois”, but it didn’t. It said Iodine. In the margins were pictures of military vehicles, land and air, labeled neatly with a blurb about each one in tiny print. I felt like my tears should be wetting the pages, but the tears didn’t come until I woke.
Helplessness. Defeat. Failure. Doubt. Fear.
Fortunately, I was able to share the dream and as I listened to myself talk, I realized that “things” and “appearances” lie.
I know that one of my greatest faults is in thinking that I can buy my boys something to make up for the pain I think they feel. I was able to do it all the time when I was married to Will. Most of the time I was married, I didn’t know what pain I was trying to make up for by purchasing the latest game console or pair of shoes.
Now, in hindsight, I realize I tried to make up for the deficit I perceived in myself. Yes, I knew my boys were in pain, but they maybe didn’t know it. They knew one thing all their lives…the way things were…they were young and didn’t consider that other people may live differently. They didn’t know they were being deprived.
I subconsciously knew it before the word “abuse” entered my mind, but I consciously came to terms with it after discovering the truth. I knew their lives were lacking a mother who could give her all to them. I felt deprived of love and acceptance and projected those feelings onto them. I thought that I couldn’t fully love them because the one man in the world who I wanted to love me could not. There was something wrong with me, and if purchasing them the latest toy could delay them finding out that I was a fraud, then that was a game I was willing to play.
Now I cannot play anymore…I must be real. I must be myself because I have no green paper-bill bandaid to fill any void. I am literally stripped of my coping mechanism, laid bare for better or worse to those boys. I am what I am, and I fear that who I am isn’t enough.
In the dream, faced with the room Will decorated and the toys he bought for them, I came face to face with the realization that it is time to put up or shut up. No longer can I compare what I do as a mother to what he does as a father. No longer can I make up for any perceived deficits in either Will’s or my character by changing who I am or what I do to mend their possibly aching heart. I cannot be the malleable wood-filler that magically fills the gaps in my boys’ broken hearts.
My perception of what may go on behind their dad’s closed doors haunts me. I truly hope he is the father he projects himself to be to the outside world, and the outside world now includes me. I see him nagging about homework and chores, keeping tabs on the boys’ friends, taking them to doctor appointments, and sharing horseplay and jokes with them. I see him being the father I knew he could be, and I hope I am right because I really want that for Marc and Eddie. But I fear that my perception is limited.
I fear that they are now experiencing what I experienced with their father, and honestly, I am torn about it. On the one hand, I don’t want them to go through the painful voyage of realization I experienced. I want to coccoon them, protect them from finding out the truth I discovered. I pray that I am truly the only person in the world whom Will desires to be “just like him”, that I am the only person in the world expected to live on a pedastal and to be punished when I fall off of it.
On the other hand, I want them to see the games Will plays and the subconscious lies I feel Will tells himself. I feel that if the boys could see the manipulation and control, then they could learn to detach themselves from it. Never in a million years would I want them to NOT LOVE their father, and I know they COULD NEVER stop loving him. I don’t want them to hate him or to not want to be with him. But I want them to be able to protect themselves.
I want them to be able to say to themselves and believe in their heart that there is nothing “wrong” with them, despite the tornado tearing through their heart and mind most likely created by Will’s inability to allow individualism on any count. In hindsight, when I wasn’t mirroring Will, then I was wrong. And I have a strong suspicion that the boys are experiencing that same tornado without the inadequate storm shelter I tried to provide.
I want them to love both Will and me without limitation. I want them to be able to see each of us for all of our goodness and all of our flaws, and then choose what they want to carry with them into their own lives. I don’t want them to make subconscious choices, I want them to make conscious choices.
And yet I have no control over their choices. My hands and words are tied. I cannot tell them what I know, I cannot share with them the strategies they can use to protect themselves, I cannot say or do anything to help them without sounding like I hate their father or want them to hate Will. Or at least, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
I’ll search my dream for an answer. But I already think I know it. I must continue to detach from Will. I must continue to accept the love and protection of the angels (living and ethereal) in my life. I must continue to shed my fears, to discover who I am, and to love my boys unconditionally even when it hurts so deep inside that I think I will literally explode into pieces.
I must rip off the bandaids, even when the sticky parts pull my flesh from bone.

