all the years of grief and pain

from parents who needed so much
and gave so little.

The sad eyes, pleading, wanting, needing, asking the unasked; the beseeching looks, of pain, of longing

seeking things you were *far* too young to understand, let alone deal with - yet, they plagued you. You *knew* they were in pain, were lonely, were troubled, yet

they spoke not a word of it.

Just the looks - the unending, heart-rending, painful looks

of people who might as well have had their lips

PADLOCKED

for all the *actual*, *real* 'conversation' that ever escaped them.

***
It was too much for a small child to bear - her heart broke daily, with the unbearable burden of

her parents' grief.

Chances lost; hopes dashed; destinies unfulfilled.

They did what so many such parents do:

Take it out on the kids.

In needs unmet;
in cries, unanswered; in feelings denied, hopes dashed, and - hey, this sounds like, 'round and round the mulberry bush.' Or, possibly, 'Same as it ever was...'

***
Grasshopper:

You are *not* responsible for them.

It is not your *job*.

They are your *parents*, not your children - their failure to grow up and get what they need(ed?) is neither your *fault*

nor your responsibility.

I will say this

over and over again

'til it sinks in.

***
It's like I can feel their

tree roots

in my GUTS - tangled,

their
childish behavior,
unreasonable expectations, demands
clinging

like small children themselves -
*my* needs going
unheard, unheeded.

***
The charmer, the beguiler, with the winning smile - all saw him as 'the good boy', who made up for

not being able to charm his *own* mother (second best - his older brother got to be the 'golden' one) -

he took it out on *me* - when I refused to be charmed, seduced taken in, he became angry and resentful, all the childish hurts pouring out of him

onto ME.

And let me say, it was never *overtly* sexual, though there were moments of - oogyness?

and he never hit me.

Physically.

But emotionally?

He might has well have pulverized me with a sledgehammer, for all that was left of me after one of his -

well, I'm not going there.

I'm rooting him out, digging out, like weeds in the garden, every last
tendril
and curl


from my soul.

***
Being emotionally betrayed, let down and abandoned, over and over, by your parents -


well, that's all there is to *say*, really.

They *had* their chance,
and they *blew* it.

***
It's not that parents shouldn't grieve,
or long
or regret;

it's that they 'should'

have other resources than their own children

to lean on.

Sigh.

'If wishes were fishes' -

and so on. 'The sins of the father are visited, yea, unto the ...' however the saying (biblical quote?) goes.

In this ever-more-fragmented and socially isolating world we live in, where *none* of us have the 'support' we need - well, people do what they DO, not living by some abstract notion of 'right' or 'wrong'. We're like little plants, that way: We reach out our little roots to any source of

water
and nutrients (aka 'love')

that we can find.

***
Such 'parents' have no *idea* the damage they do - soul-sucking leeches, the lot of them.

They take; they crowd; they *resent* your moment in the limelight, your successes.

They *hate* that you get to take center stage - their own unmet needs are *so* painful.

*So* many people lie unfullfilled lives, incomplete, unfinished - like seeds falling on barren ground, they sprout, but lack the - support? the sustenance? to grow properly, to become

complete.

We all seek sustenance
wherever we can *find* it.

The trick is to remain

un-contemptuous
of those whose fate
has left them HUNGRY
for more.

The first rule for parents should be something like the Hippocratic oath (that sworn by doctors in old times to uphold ethical standards in their practice of medicine): 'First: Do no harm.'

***
The charming boy, who never grows up - who uses his winning smile to captivate, and seduce -

should we pity him? or be wary, as of the hypnotic eye of the cobra?

I'd say: Listen to Alice Walker. She said, something like (paraphrasing),

"My heart is like a suitcase that's been dropped so many times that now it just stays open."

It's not zen, nor is it some touchy-feely, NewAge (rhymes with 'sewage') bullshit - it's just, quite simply, a matter of having *lvied* long enough, of having been through enough 'cycles'

to see that they are, in fact, just *cycles*. Nothing more, nothing less.

'This too shall pass.' (Ozymandias, King of Kings?)
'In a hundred years? All new people.' (Anne Lamott?)

Taking the 'long view' takes *time*. And practice. And *experience*.

Accept no substitutes.

Also, read lots of Terry Pratchett - I find it to be an excellent antidote :-)