My Life Didn’t Stop

There was one thing I left out of yesterday’s post.

For years, almost every decision I made somehow came back to my son. Where was he? Was he okay? What did he need? What could I do next? There was always something. Another phone call. Another plan. Another problem to solve.

And somewhere along the way, I had stopped asking myself a much simpler question.

What about my life?

I don’t mean that selfishly. I love my son. That hasn’t changed. I want him to recover, to find his footing, to build a life he can be proud of. But I had spent so long trying to help him build his life that I had neglected my own. My work. My finances. My marriage. My health.

I kept telling myself I would get back to those things when everything settled down. But addiction doesn’t come with a timetable. And recovery doesn’t either.

Yesterday, during our time together, I told my son something I might not have been able to say a year ago.

“It’s your life to live. I’ve got mine to live now.”

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t withdrawing my love. I was finally recognizing that we were two people with two different lives. He has work to do that I cannot do for him. And I have work to do that he cannot do for me.

That distinction sounds so simple. It took me years to understand it.

I’ve finished writing Stay with the Moment. Now I’m building the website and preparing to put the book into the world. I have financial responsibilities to address. Work to find. A marriage to care for. A body and mind that need my attention. And I have ideas and dreams that have been waiting while I devoted so much of myself to one problem I couldn’t solve.

For the first time in a long time, I feel something beyond fear about the future.

I feel excited.

I don’t know how everything will turn out. My son’s recovery remains his responsibility. My future remains uncertain. There are difficult decisions ahead. But I can make those decisions. I can work on my own life without waiting for his to become what I hope it will be. I can love him and still look forward to tomorrow.

That’s something I hadn’t allowed myself to do for a very long time.

I spent years believing that being a good father meant putting everything else aside. Now I’m learning that being his father doesn’t require me to disappear.

He has his life to live.

And I still have mine.