Disappointment

Tonight I sit here saddened. Sad that again I have disappointed and let someone down. It almost seems like a common recurrence these days, but I let down the most important person in my life, my son.

It wasn't anything intentional. Maybe I just thought that his quickly approaching twelve, maybe it was time for me to have some of my own time. To allow him to have his own time too. I don't want to be his best friend and playmate forever, but I suppose in my own way, I was separating from him without his consent.

I tucked my son in tonight, hours past his regular bedtime due to the holiday recess and I noticed he was upset. Like me, he has that emotional streak of inability to keep his emotions off his face and sleeve. He of course is more vulnerable due to innocence and lack of guardedness and deepened scars of pain and disappointment that I carry forth.

I hung up the phone immediately and asked him what was wrong. I received his typical "nothing" answer as he quickly burst into long gasping, drawn out sobs. He was able to muster that when he is with me I am "always on the phone!" This of course is not true, but in his mind it is. I tried to explain that I do my best to talk after he is in bed, but sometimes this doesn't happen.

What really matters is what he thinks and he feels. In his world, he's losing his mom, the one rock and salvation he has had for almost twelve years. The person that has put him first before everything. First before everyone. And he doesn't like it one bit.

I can't say that I blame him. Does he need to take the backseat in both homes? It isn't my time to be selfish. Not yet, I still have six more years, right?

My son means more to me than anything and like him, it saddens me to the core that I have disappointed him.