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October 1 - December 30, 2016
“The myth of potential makes mourning and complaining feel like the realest things we ever do.” Even if our dreams were never realizable, even if they were false from the start, we regret not pursuing them. “We can’t imagine our lives,” writes Phillips, “without the unlived lives they contain.”
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“All parents at some time feel overwhelmed by their children; feel that their children ask more of them than they can provide,” writes Phillips in another essay. “One of the most difficult things about being a parent is that you have to bear the fact that you have to frustrate your child.”
Like many women, Angie feels resentment because her husband is not doing enough. But she also believes that she is not doing enough, and can never do enough, and that she should be doing everything all the time.
“Joy and woe are woven fine.” You can’t have joy without the prospect of mourning, and to some people this makes joy a difficult feeling to bear. Especially in parenthood, where loss is inevitable, built into the very paradox of raising children; we pour love into them so that they’ll one day grow strong enough to leave us. Even when our children are still young and defenseless, we feel intimations of their departure. We find ourselves staring at them with nostalgia, wistful for the person they’re about to no longer be.
