Bricks are not intended to be light

With a teenager you never can get it right. But with a bipolar teen, the odds are even worse. Seeing all of the other teenagers growing up, I clutch at my heart like a handkerchief one wants to bawl into. She should be going to the prom, instead, there are volancoes inside her head. Some of her cousins are already driving, but her patience is as tenuous as a spider’s web, what if it tears? When I owned a car, the accidents we almost had, when her hands reached over to scratch me. When she would take hold of the steering wheel, clutching at it, as if to kill us both. So, for now, no Lord, not having a car is a blessing. Her mouth spills out words, urgently, unnecessary words, but very necessary to her. Throwing her words at me, her conversation is one long spiraling sentence that doesn’t end, there are no periods to her speech. She talks and talks, unable to stop herself, insinuating herself into every converstation I have on the telephone, and always accusing me of interrupting. Tip toeing through the mind field of her delicate emotions that feel violated for a single word spoken out of turn. No one else would be offended, except for Emma. The paranoia that climbs over her and out of her to rebuke and claw at me. I spoke out of turn or I just wanted my conversation back.
Daily, Oh daily Lord, the incessant chatter, the eruptions of my child, who hates me, whose chemistry rages and empties me. Oh, I don’t have the strength to hear even one loud word, then a thousand thunders come at me. Don’t let me get sucked into her pain, dear Jesus. Help me remember that she is suffering, her veins course with sorrow. The friendships she lacks, while children are growing up, becoming independent. She clutches her “Dopey”, wants to be tucked into bed, as a small child. I have aged, but she hasn’t. This thorn, this thorn, I have pulled at for years, praying You would heal her. I have fallen on You, shown the thorn that at times becomes infected. Is it my greed? Is it my sin? When my teenager has a child’s heart, and a woman’s mouth. The hook has fallen on my lip, once more. Piercing my ego. My vanity. Then You take hold of me, of the bruises, I must endure. Then, I look at a slumbering face, so innocent, serene. Oh, but she needs me so, and she hangs onto my purse whenever we walk. How selfish I am, when I said, that she is a leech on my body. How cruel that was. But she throws her accusations at me for simple things for innocent words spoken out of carelessness. I spoke of a child who was duct tapped around his head at a day care I had seen on a news show. Well, I didn’t stop to think it would affect her, how this terrible thing would traumatize already fragile feelings dancing on the edges of cliffs. But we have carried on since she was a child at my ankles with a bottle in her hand. Her ragged emotions tore at me, we crashed as waves, but not as softly. Dear God, forgive me, when I feel what a burden! When her cries are the deep moans of a soul who straggles between life and death. I only think of myself, when she takes the dagger of her words to stab at me, “moron”, “stupid.” “idiot” and other words join in the diatribe. But, she is the child from my body, that I have loved through all of the hurricanes, and storms. The one You blessed me with. But, sometimes I can barely tolerate her. The anger that is slung at me. Quiet her dear Father. The child I give to you nightly, in the hours that make no sense, the quiet hours, when the world is a tomb. Scratching the floor, the pain confounds me, her deep suffering confounds me. Is this child ever going to marry? Have a family of her own? Her heart is a time bomb ticking away, ticking until it grows too loud for her to ignore. She feels safe with me, I should be the soft place for her. Even if her body is heavy as bricks. Bricks are not intended to be light, I must let You lift me out of the brick pile, pick up the ashes of my tears. How impolite i have become Lord. To not let the bricks fall upon me, how indelicate i have become when i take the bricks to throw back at her. Forgive me.