I have to explain my last post a little more. Nothing is set in stone, but basically the family we moved back to Connecticut to be around will likely be moving to Miami within a year or two. I’m having a really difficult time trying to articulate my feelings about this; while they’re family, they’re not really our immediate family, so I’m fully aware that they can do whatever they want. I really didn’t expect myself to have such a hard time dealing with this, but it’s hard not feeling a little resentful and left in the dust.
But being this sad about it has forced me to get real with myself. The idea of staying here for another eighteen years to raise our daughter has always been daunting for us. The help we got from my family the first year and a half of our daughter’s life has been clutch, and ultimately, BF and I have done our own parenting thing. But we’ve also compromised at least a few principles we had about raising her because we felt we didn’t have a right to complain. We were (and still are) appreciative of their help, but at the same time, we’re trapped by it. It wasn’t even really our idea to stay here for another eighteen years, but our elders insisted that stability was “the right thing to do” for her. This, after all, was a nice, secure suburb, and since I grew up here with the same people who were still around, it worked — we didn’t have to try anything new or figure the parenting thing out for ourselves. But shouldn’t we? Isn’t that, after all, the reason why BF and I decided to have Hugga — because we had our own amazing, inspired, wonderful ideas of how we’d give her the best of us?
In the process of getting settled here, BF and I have fallen into the exact trap I thought mere awareness would save us from. We’ve become complacent — we keep a low profile at our jobs, live for the weekend, and spend our free time sitting around, bored as shit, sometimes with people who are equally as bored as we are. I swore we would be so different from my cousins, that we would still have drive and still create, but the only difference is that we don’t have babysitting to enable us to go clubbing and get drunk every other weekend. We’re just… bored. My friends who are real writers don’t want to talk to me anymore because I don’t have the motivation to follow through with any project. BF struggles to stay inspired and make new beats. And we can’t even take Hugga anywhere on the weekends because there’s never anything to do.
I’d been so afraid and felt so guilty about moving my daughter away from my family that I just allowed myself to get used to the idea of staying here. I even started getting used to the idea that I’d probably never amount to anything I’d hoped for before her. But watching my family get excited and make plans without a second thought about leaving us kind of changes the focus a little. And with the idea of moving back to LA already planted in our heads…
Since moving back, I’ve been paralyzed by my fear that our best parenting efforts might still not be enough to save our child from being royally screwed up. I love my family, but I’ve never been the type to succumb to my fears. BF and I are capable people with decent instincts, and I think little by little, I’ll gain more confidence in that fact. Again, I don’t say any of this out of an ungratefulness for everything my family has done for us, but it’s important for us to find our footing as a family — the three of us. For now, we wait and enjoy our time here, but it’s only a matter of time before we’ll want to break out on our own.
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amen sister! this is just the kind of motivation the both of you needed…a little kick in the ass. a piece of your heart will always be in cali and parts of it will now be in both CT and Miami. but you’re right – its just the three of you and you have to figure out what is best for you three, that is most important.