Grown up Wounds

It's so hard, you know you think the hard part with your kids, is just getting them safe and grown, with love and guidance, and every lesson you can think of. In many ways it is easier when they are grown, your time becomes your own again, a luxury as it were. A chance to dwell within yourself and search, but in many ways it is harder, because when your children are grown the wounds are very different. You want to stand back and let them work out their own issues and responsibilities, and aside from that you really have no say in the matter any more, you have to request permission to intervene, to offer advice. Right now my baby, my 22 year old baby is hurting, and it is killing me. It is killing me because I know the pain she is in, the anxiety, anger, and depression... The realization that you have to do something, but you have no idea what that might be. It is easy to say that their lives are theirs, and you need to let them pick up the pieces and pull themselves up, but that deep aching primal maternal instinct wants to shield and protect. I know she is not a baby, and I do not baby her, but she reached out to me in such a way that brings me back to that little girl, that angry little anxious girl that lost her Dad when she was six years old, now depression, with learning the true colors of those she trusted. I offer her words of encouragement, hugs and prayers, but in reality if you told me that i could take all of this pain away from her and put it on myself I would...That is what I would do for my baby both of them, but I cant as I must honor her journey and know that this is part of it. One thing that i am pleased about is her willingness to talk to a Doctor, not only a willingness but a desperate want, when in the past she refused. I am just blathering here, I think that nothing can bring you more pain, and more joy than motherhood.