This Is Me
This is me and me is a holy mess today. My oldest son is graduating this evening and it's brought up more emotions than I know how to handle. I'm so proud of him for the work and effort he's put in to get to this point. When he received his cerebral palsy diagnosis, we were warned that he may never get higher than a certificate. He worked hard though and he did it.
Then, there are all of the negative feelings swirling around....
- His stepmother has worked hard at leaving me out of everything major especially since he got to high school. I missed 4 years of homecoming dances and a year of prom because she wouldn't give me the details. Even his graduation...she told me when and where his open house would be. She left me out of all the planning, the making of the photo boards...everything. She sent me an invitation to my own son's open house. I only have the digital copies of his senior pictures because I stole them from the internet...
- ...and as if that's not enough, she shows up to things like banquets and basks in the glow of the praise of how great a kid she is. She takes credit as if she's been his mother for 18 years, as if she's the one who drove 30 minutes each way each and every day to help him with homework, as if she developed serious "bleacher butt" from every sporting event over the past four years.
- Other parents give her that credit as both her an my ex-husband pretend as if I don't exist, which leaves me feeling like an outsider within the school community.
- I'm alone. I sat for 2.5 hours at honor's night. Everywhere around me, families sat cheering on their seniors. Not me. I sat there all by myself, nobody to turn to say, "Hey, look what he did! He just got a scholarship!" Nobody to snap pictures or to squeeze my hand. No family to share this with. No partner. Just me. Alone.
- I decided to clear out my phone today so I could take video and I came across photos of the man that I desperately love but will probably never have any kind of future with and since I'm so vulnerable, it was like an arrow through the heart, taking my breath away.
....and this is perhaps the "silliest" ....Graduation is a special event, one you don't show up to in jeans and a t-shirt and yet, the only dress clothes that I own is a black dress, that I bought for a special night out that I was to have with the above mentioned man. It's never been worn and I can't bring myself to wear it now. Yet, I know that the stepmom will show up dressed to the nines and looking amazing because she always does. She's everything that I'm not and today I'm feeling that.
Still, I'll go and I'll clap and I'll cheer because this is my baby and I wouldn't miss it for anything. He's my miracle baby and I am so insanely proud of him. I always will be, no matter where he goes in this world.
So why this title? I'm watching The Greatest Showman and this song never fails to bring me to tears as I struggle with who I am. Somehow, today, as I struggle with all of my emotions and with knowing that somehow, perhaps despite of who I am, I have raised one amazing young man, it just seemed to fit.