Thursday 7 September 2017

Falling

I like to think of parenting traumatised children like falling down a very long flight of stairs, its a peculiar mix of bone crunching body slams, followed by moments of giddy weightless joy mixed with the anticipation of the next bone crunching impact.

When I finally reach the bottom of the stairs, the 'end' as you might say, will I land like a cat with perfect poise and balance on my feet, or face plant into the harsh concrete floor.

Only time will tell.


I'm not fatalistic, never the less there's a freedom and space in accepting your fate. Fate does make it sound all very doom ridden and miserable but I guess its an acceptance that what will be will be. There will be good days and there will be bad days and there will be lots of days in-between. So be it, that's the place I try to operate from.

We did ok over the summer, the GoodMrsC put many hours in, I got my ducks in a row to reduce my time away and I took some annual leave. We built a routine and ground it out. As noted in last weeks blog we stumbled in the last few days but we picked ourselves up. I say stumble but looking back it seems odd that what in other circumstances or if it occurred in other families it would be considered exceptional or extreme. It could be described in all kinds of terms but certainly not normal. Anyway, we've accepted our fate, we accepted that a long time ago.

Oh, and I'm going to be a grandfather.

I'm slightly taken aback that as the father of five daughters I was so naive to not prepare myself emotionally or psychologically for this turn of events. Right now I'm wondering if it's like getting to the bottom of one flight of stairs only to discover there's another flight been built at the bottom.

Clearly, I've got a lot thinking to do over this latest development.












5 comments:

  1. Congratulations Al and family. John and Alison (adoptive parents of a fine + feisty four year old girl) xx

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  2. Oh, gosh! That's a bit of a bomb shell. Know exactly what you mean about the stairs. Seems like being an escalator, always falling. Always understating the "stumble" ��

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