I've said I don't make resolutions. Goals are no longer worth setting. The future is too uncertain to look towards it. It is too presumptuous to plan for something that I may never see.
Over the past few days, this view has slowly shifted. Albeit just a little.
A couple of nights back, Gavin had another crying fit over a man he will never know. He said he wanted his daddy to come and stay at his house. He said he missed his dad. And he cried. Sobbed.
And his mom cried too. For him. Me. Kurt. All of us.
With a little man sitting on my lap asking such an innocent, completely fair request, I told him how I missed his daddy too. How daddy couldn't come and stay. How he could talk to his daddy whenever he wanted, and how his daddy would always be in his heart. How his daddy loved him so much.
And I told him about his mommy. How he had his mommy. How his mommy would keep him safe. How his mommy would answer any questions he had about daddy. How his mommy loved daddy just as much as she loved Gavin. And how his mommy would try very hard to be there for him whenever he needed.
He wouldn't let me leave his room before he drifted off to sleep. He said he needed his mommy right there. His last words before falling into slumber were "Mommy, I will never let you go away."
Gavin is afraid of losing me. Afraid of me leaving, just like the dad he doesn't know. That becomes more apparent every passing day. It shows in the way he clings to me in the morning. The way he does not want to join the other children and play unless mommy is at his side. The way he needs to know where mommy is in the house every second. Some may call it normal separation anxiety. A natural stage through which every preschooler must pass. And in some ways it is. But I also believe that there is something else, something more.
Parents leave, disappear. Not just for a few hours, but forever. They become only pictures on the wall. It happened to his daddy. And he worries it will happen to his mom too.
It almost did. On many levels. Many times over. But as time has passed, as I look into my son's eyes, I have come to understand something. And that realization grows stronger each day. I have to stay. To arrive - because on some levels I left long ago.
I always said that taking care of my son would take care of me. And it has. That I need Gavin more than he needs me. And I do. But he needs me too. As much as I need him. I wouldn't let myself see that for a long, long tim. But the relationship between us becomes more and more symbiotic as every day passes.
And that forces me to look at myself in the mirror. Am I doing all I can to ensure that I am here for Gavin? A woman must put their wants on the backburner the moment they become a mother. As much as I want to disappear, float into oblivion and join Kurt, I know I need to stay. To be here. For Gavin.
And so that is my new plan. My new goal. My only goal. For the time being evrything I do from this moment hence, every step I take along this road, every movement I make towards any form of betterment I do for him. It really doesn't matter the motivation, after all, so long as it exerts a forward momentum.
And who knows. Maybe somewhere along this path, I will find a reason to be here for myself as well.... And if not, that's okay too.
He is reason enough.
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