YOT 58 - Safe

Sometimes the things we are thankful for are things you may not have thought about until it was no longer there.  Tonight, I am feeling that.

Those sweet few nights when Larzipan gets in bed with me, for some strange reason a few months ago, he started telling me he felt safe there with me.  As a mom, that is such an unbelievable feeling; knowing your baby feels safe with you.  I respond the way I always do by confirming it to him and letting him know I won't let anything happen and he is always safe with me.  He sighs a relieved sigh and says, "yeah, I am safe".  I am so boundlessly envious of this.

This YOT 58 - I am thankful for all the times I felt safe and that there are more of those times than these.

The world today is not the same as it was before.  People will say it is, that the media just exploits the tragedies more, that bad things have always happened.  Yes, I know bad things have always happened.  There have always been bad guys versus good guys.  There have always been horrible, monumental tragedies.  I also agree that the media hypes things up and dwells on things and focuses all its attention on the distressing stories.

People will also say that you can't stop bad things from happening.  No one can predict when and where these times will happen.  If it is going to happen, it will happen.  It is now just part of life.

Those things are ALL true.  But, how the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?  Do they expect me to respond with, "Oh, thank you! I feel so much better now.  I feel *safe* because it is unavoidable".  Nope.  It does not make me feel any better.  I don't feel safe anywhere.  Don't even get me started on those that tell me it is their god's plan.  Ugh.

None of this means I will stop going places.  Life does go on.  We cannot stop living just because we are scared.  What it means, is that no matter where I go, the movies, the mall, Larzipan's school, I will not feel safe.  It means that the entire time I am there, I will be scanning a bit more, listening a bit more, planning an escape a bit more seriously.  It means that every single day I drop Larzipan off at school, I will hug and kiss him more and it means I will worry about him until I pick him up.

The saddest part of this is that my only hope, at this point, is just to go long enough to get complacent again.  My hope is that enough time will pass between tragedies that I will again feel safe, even if I am not completely actually safe.  I just want to feel it again.

Hopeless Rant

Tonight, lying in bed with Lars (again, yes, don't judge), I was so emotional.  He was fighting sleep, as usual, by singing his songs he is practicing for his school recital coming up.  Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Laughing at him and crying for Newtown, CT at the same time.  I feel this... something different, new.  It is something other than sadness, depression, sympathy (I feel those too).  It feels like a hole, this emptiness, this "something" that is missing.  It is not innocence, that has been gone a long time.  I am scared it is hope.  I am terrified I have lost hope.  I don't want that.  Hope is critical.  But, it has, at least in part, and temporarily, left me.  I don't know what to expect for Lars' future.

I have not given up.  I will always fight for him no matter what.  I am just scared for what the future holds and how far ahead it goes.  I have never been this scared for the future;  I have always been hopeful for a positive one.  Hopeful that people will get their shit together and stop this.  That hope has gone.

What has come is a great sense of helplessness.  A sense of not being able to keep Lars safe no matter what choices I make.  It is no longer up to us, as parents; it is out of our hands.  I am thankful he is too young to ask if he is safe.  If he asked me tonight, I would burst into tears and not know what to say.  How can I say, "No, baby, we are not safe anywhere.  We always have to be on guard, at the mall, at the movies, at school, in the parking lot.  We can never truly feel safe.".  No, I can't say that, can I?  I have to suck it up and say, "Yes, sweetheart.  You are safe.  This happens so rarely, it was just a bad man that chose to make a horrible bad decision.  YOU, though, you are so safe.  Mommy will not let anything bad happen to you.".  But how can I say that either?  It is not the same as lying about Santa Claus.  The moment he realizes I lied about that will not be as dramatic as the moment I hope never happens; the moment a gunman bursts into his classroom and starts shooting and he wonders where I am.  He would wonder why I am not protecting him like I promised.  I can't bear that thought.

Cassidy says it is temporary, she says, "Hope.  Hope comes and goes.  You may have lost it now but it will come back and it may be there still just hidden under your sadness and fear."  Please be right, Cassidy.  Please.