i've been struggling with mixed emotions for awhile and decided i needed to find a place to let them out. i'm 43 years old, have been married for 23 years, and have two children. but they aren't children anymore. my oldest is 20 and the other is 15. so much is changing. they haven't needed me for awhile now, not in the day-to-day sense that kids need their mom when they're young. but we've always been close, and it's hard when that begins to change. i think with my oldest, she is maturing into a woman to the point where the things that happen in her life are hers now, and she doesn't feel compelled to share them with me. it's not that i think this is wrong, it's just not what i'm used to. i'm used to us sharing so much, of there being more touchy-feely in our relationship, and lately i just don't feel like i'm all that important. she can be so dismissive to me at times; mostly when it's the whole family together. when it's just the two of us, it's not really an issue. however, when we're all together it's like "who cares what you think" or just the feeling that everything i say is now irrelevant or without merit. it makes me angry, it makes me sad, it just hurts. she seems so distant.
my son, he's going through a lot right now. he's so talented, so smart, so handsome, so full of love and is quite funny. i want so much for him to find his passion and happiness in life, and i worry that he's going to miss out on life by staying in his room, watching tv, browsing sometimes pointless things on the internet for hours. how can i help him to seize the day?
raising these kids has been my life's work, and of course continues to be until they completely leave home. i guess i'm just in another challenging period, which new and different things i need to learn how to cope with. it's so hard when you've put everything you have into them and one day, things change. it's like a loss in some ways, a loss of the relationship you had. i guess this happens, at least potentially, in all relationships. we change, grow, and thus our relationships change. hopefully they grow with the change.
that's all for now.
