This blog is for you my son. It’s an accounting of my lessons derived from trial & error at building a solid, but simple, life. Take from it what you may and then improve upon it for yourself and one day your own family. Just remember that as humans we tend to overcomplicate things. This happens more than not because we’re allowing our brain to do all of the work when action needs to come from the heart. In order to hear God’s words to us, we must pare down to fully live.
Dear Dylan,
Before you were born, or even thought of, I knew that I wanted to be a parent. Yet, fear was blocking me – prohibiting me even from following my hearts desire. There was also the fact that most men entering my life were blocked themselves in one way or another, and I already loved you too much to settle for less of a partner than we deserved. Ultimately, anything that I did, such as not settling, was done out of my deep love for myself which became my love for you. See, the great thing about love is that there is an endless supply of it my son. The more that you give, the more that you get back and it goes on an on, but it all begins with self-love. Without it, love can’t get through. It’s blocked by hate, by judgement, by jealousy, by doubt. All of which is self-taught, but can therefore be un-taught. If you get nothing out of my writing to you, than at least grasp that concept, because when you have love you have everything.
It was that love that I have for myself, and the love that your father has for himself, that attracted us together in the first place. Both your father and I have overcome great personal struggles, self inflicted and otherwise. The result being that we love ourselves and know ourselves very well, both separately and as partners. We both know what we like, don’t like and what we would like to explore someday. We both know what each of us will tolerate, and what our boundaries for the time being are. He and I both know what each of us continue to struggle with internally and still seek to rectify with self-examination. It is because he and I know all of this about ourselves, that we are able to know one another. Sharing in life lessons and struggles strengthens a partnership. It lays a strong foundation for many stories to be built upon. A skyscraper can not be stable when built upon a rocky and cracked foundation. And just as concrete can crack, so will a partnership at one time or another. Living and breathing among another personality creates the odds that at one time or another, you won’t see eye to eye. It’s when conflict does arise and it is met with equal energy, integrity, and openness by both partners that seek a positive resolution will you know for sure that you are in the right partnership. Two people against a challenge is better than one person my son. When it comes to your life long partner, remember that besides love, crafting a life together takes time, challenges, laughter, and both people being honest with one another. God already has your perfect partner for you, and he will send that person when the time is right. Everything is on HIS time, not yours. Having faith in God in all things is as fundamental as having love for yourself. This is why I can in full honesty, as God as my witness, make these promises to you;
I promise to be a wonderful, life long, loving, supportive, honest, compassionate partner to your father. And I promise to be a positive, collaborative, active participant in weaving together the fabrics of our families, so you continue to have loving and positive role-models all through out your life that live love, acceptance, and emotional intelligence.
I promise to secure your financial future by writing regular checks into your savings account so you can have a cushion for the years that you will spend finding out who you are and what passions to chase after. I promise to watchfully allow you to explore and follow your bliss in those years where we tend to get lost or disillusioned with life, for those days will come my son. At some point in your early adult life you must sit back and evaluate all that you’ve come to know thus far. You will have to sit with yourself and go inward to decide what it is that you actually believe, and what it is that I, your father, or your friends, or anyone else in your life believes. You will challenge everything that you’ve come to know by way of school, family, or even your father and I. I am here to tell you that it is alright. You are your own person and you will have to find out what it is that you believe while still remaining true to the morals, and values of compassion and integrity that we promise to instill in you.
I promise to teach you the value of good day’s work. What it means to put your heart and soul into something. You will come to know for sure that you only get out of an en devour what you put into it. This hard work will make you appreciate everything, appreciate time, appreciate money, appreciate other people’s hard work and any favor that is done onto you. You will consequently learn that without other’s, we are meaningless. Working among people opens you to their stories, their lives, and you learn that we are all connected. Nothing separates us, not religion, race, politics, sexuality…nothing. We are all exactly the same biologically. We come from the same place, from the same creator, and we all come here with a purpose. Every single limitation that we place upon our co-existence is self-created. It’s blocked love.
I promise to role-model that a creative life is a life of living love and raise you in a creative environment. I promise to nurture your imagination just as much as your mind and let your world will be full of magical kingdoms where you can chase dragonflies and ride magic carpets. I promise to envelope your surroundings with art of all kinds. Beautiful and awe inspiring crafts of another human’s hands. From the forward thinking graffiti art of Bansky, to Raphael’s The School of Athens, any result of another person’s imagination mixed with their heart and soul is art. I promise to let you find your creative mind and engage in it with you by supplying you with endless resources to keep your imagination bright and happy, for creativity is next to spirituality.
I promise to reinforce your love for God and be a partner in your finding your own spirituality, and your own personal way to talk to our creator. I will do this by being an example of God’s child and by showing you how I pray so that you may have a starting point for your own spiritual and inner journey. By really loving God, you will come to understand that it doesn’t matter what name someone calls their God, there are many names for God yet it all leads to the same principle. You will learn about other’s beliefs and you may find that you adapt some of those beliefs but not others. This is also part of your journey, in fact it’s a part of everyone’s journey. A journey is about learning all kinds of new and different things along the way. Some tickle your fancy, and some don’t but everyone has different ways of believing, and your love for God will mean that you have acceptance for all other beliefs, even if you don’t accept those beliefs for yourself.
Being a spiritual being having a human experience means that you have been given a body. I promise to remind you that your body is a miraculous machine that can heal it’s self with very infrequent outside intervention. I will remind you of how to take care of it by modeling good eating habits with foods that are free of chemicals and have actual benefits of health. I will model how natural therapies and good exercise are all that you mostly need to live a healthy life. Living a healthy life enables you to be independent yet collaborative. You are free from self created limitations and can therefore interact with life to your hearts content. Taking personal responsibility for yourself lets you be of service to others. You can share more, give more, help more, therefore planting the seeds for which you will sow. I promise to remind you of this by living the example.
My love, you are already born with all that you need to live a full, abundant life rich with dynamic experiences. You are born with compassion, love, and an imagination, it is the privilege of your father and I help you keep them, strengthen and explore them, and then help you deepen the values you have come to know. I can watch and guide you with this because I know what it is like to have all of your divine gifts covered under resentment, insecurity, and fear. This is how I have come to value these very promises that I am making to you, because of my having worked through the resentment, my overcoming the insecurity, and having pushed past my fears.
This morning as I fed you, we just rocked in silence and stared at one another, and then you fell asleep in my arms. With my stomach growling and bottles to be washed I made the deliberate choice to hold you while you slept instead. What felt like hours was actually only one but when you are living in the moment you will find that time wants to be your friend. It slows down so that you can take it all in and learn what really matters. Dirty dishes never get up and walk away from the sink, but children grow and change over night.
After I put you down for your mid morning nap, I sat out on the deck with some tea in my #1 Mom mug given to me by a friend, still ignoring the dirty dishes. As I was contemplating the fact that I never thought I would be holding a #1 Mom mug and how lucky I was, I was able to catch the first leaves of fall falling from the oak tree across the street. I have to thank you for my being there to see it, for you have taught me to live in the moment like nothing else has before. Life is about moments my love, the collective moments that end up being the script of your life. Living in the moment lets you live authentically and with a purpose. When you live from your heart and you act only out of love, you will never be wrong. In doing so you let your inner light that you come to this life with fully shine. That light ignites the inner lights of others in a ripple effect just like when you toss a stone into a quiet lake. Always be shiny my love. I love you with every fiber of my being. Thank you for choosing your father and I to come to this lifetime. I am overwhelmed with gratitude with God choosing us for you. There is no way that I will let neither HIM or you down. I promise.
Mommy
Jenna Prosceno 