LOVE/ENABLING--WHATEVER!!
So I had this teeny thought:
Is Love
the New Enabling, or Is Enabling the New Love?
This occurs in
relation to my adult daughter, whom I love/enable fiercely. Because she has been mentally in pain for so
many years, she often encountered financial as well as emotional problems. The Enabling took the form of money given to
her to bail her out of this or that debt crisis. What could I do but pour out the dollars,
often when that was all the gifting I could provide her? She couldn’t/wouldn’t handle being with me so
that I could provide treasures of hugs.
I wanted to give her a place to live (with me) so that those hugs were
nearby, and so she had fewer bills and debts.
And then the dreaded word ENABLING
reared its ugly accusing head. I wasn’t
REALLY helping her (really?)….I was just reinforcing her need to be needy, not
helping her to fish on her own, taking away her power to take care of her own
problems, blah blah blah.
Well, I still kept the trickle
(sometimes a river) of money going her way.
The money flow was accompanied by encouraging words and occasional meals
together at her local diner in the city….which endeared itself to me by its
ragtag ambience, booths repaired with duct tape, and nonstop coffee refills,
even if in well-worn mugs. That diner
became special to me: we met there, we
visited there, we shared a meal and some real-time conversation there.
After years with her city job, and
apartment woes (rent still needs to be paid on poorly maintained apartments
too), she cried “Uncle”…..or in this case “Mom”. She was going through a severe
anxiety/depression crisis which interfered drastically with her ability to
work…often to even leave her apartment and commute to work, let alone function when
she got there.
The real shocker for me was her
revelation that the city had lost its charms for her, as in living there. For years she abhorred her suburban roots and
seemed content in her urban life. Its charms disappeared as her disability to
work crashed through.
We tentatively tried living together
early Winter 2014, when I had surgery and needed help. Moving out of her city studio and into my
rental one-bedroom apartment was a huge step for her---and for me. Was this gigantic ENABLING? Probably.
But it didn’t feel wrong---and she was a great help to me in those early
months after my shoulder replacement.
So after six months, the trial period
ended, and we moved into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom (both deal-breaker
features) apartment back in the suburb where she had grown up, and where I felt
most at home. (This fine suburb also
boasted a killer library, another deal-breaker where I was concerned.)
We adopted a kitten soon after we
settled in, and we love her madly, even when she is dashing around during her
daily “crazy time”. We just renewed our
yearly lease. We are amazed and amused
and appreciative that this situation works so wonderfully for us. Oh, and we share all our expenses.
For
now, we can ENABLE each other! Enabling never felt so loving!
