Thank you to all. I can see there are so many that have faced the same challenge, the same heartache and grief. It's so hard to get to this point of accepting that I am powerless to help her. We spend our lives as mothers kissing hurts and offering shoulders and advice in equal measure. Who could anticipate the day would come when nothing we did could steer them down the right path or heal the pain?
My daughter called today. She wanted my advice with with something connected to her coursework at college. On the one hand, it's nice she still wants my advice. But I just couldn't go there with her. I told her I didn't want to. She couldn't understand my reluctance, and pushed me to explain. I told her I couldn't take the time just then, but another time I would.
Then I realized, she's in therapy right now (at least she's still showing up) and the one thing I said I was willing to do was to attend a session with her and explain in a controlled therapeutic setting my boundaries, and my reasons.
We'll see what comes of that. Meanwhile, I'm staying the course. Hard. But I know necessary.
To do this, I remind myself that she is not mine, she is her own person. This is her turn on the planet, her journey around the sun. I cannot will her or control her be something else, or to be something for me.
But still, I hold on to the hope that many of you have written about. That the future is yet unwritten.