I Gave My Child The Strength To Fly.

But if he flies too close to the sun, I can only watch.

I knock on the door. No answer. I knock again.

“What,” he says. Each letter a distinct syllable, thick with disdain, annoyance, and the hatred that flavors most interactions with my quarantined fourteen-year-old.

I step inside.

“Just checking in.” My words are as tentative as my approach.

“Can you get out?” His shout is automatic, reflexive, punctuated with an elongated “PLEEEEEASE.” Vowels stretched in feigned politeness — a mocking attempt to convert animosity into respect.

I pause.

He sees my regular check-ins as an enemy intrusion. I’m prepared for his reaction. His anger is a language I’ve learned to decode these past fourteen months of isolation—his depression and anxiety concealed behind a wall of rage. I hold my tongue and absorb his animosity.

I search for his Goth-black curls.

A ring of red haze cuts the dark. LEDs outline the perimeter of his loft bed. The four-post frame, draped in heavy blankets, creates a cave, an alcove, a crawl space where he burrows in his solitude.

Black-out shades hang like soldiers, protection against the invasion of daylight. Metal pins of various sizes and shapes pierce the double vinyl backing of the grey velvet, wielding messages of unity, symbols of identity, mantras of equality.

Love is Love. Be You. Stop the Hate.

A solitary pin, blooming with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, dangles at the top. Its safety latch has come undone. It clings to threads neutral to its fall.

Rainbows are no longer a journey to a pot of gold or the backdrop of a family portrait in crayon. They are a manifesto to his authenticity.

The silence echoes.

This is where I hover, in a state of indecision. Does my child, my baby, need me to break this barrier, to forbid the loneliness he’s demanding? To force him out of the darkness, out of his voluntary confinement? Or, do I turn and walk away? Respect his wishes? His privacy? Do I allow him the seclusion he finds comforting?

Indecision.

Indecision reinforced by stale air damp with teenage angst.

Indecision cluttered at my feet: days-old dirty dishes, weeks-old worn clothes, months-old abandoned passions. Crumpled sketches, torn drawings, and unfinished paintings—discarded testimony of his artist’s heart.

Indecision flooded by the unseen but not forgotten. Memories of detangling hair, shared make-up, high-heeled fashion shows. Memories of matching dresses, Hollywood orchestra seating, car ride karaoke. Memories of whispers and late-night chats, divulging the secrets of womanhood.

Indecision frustrated by a year of isolation, friendships limited to digital connections, his exposure to worlds inaccessible to me, boundaries no longer mine to set.

Did I loosen the reins too much, too soon, not enough? Did I step back too far? Did I helicopter too close?

Indecision stressed by the blades and scissors I removed to deter another act of self-harm, by the pharmaceuticals I stored behind lock and key, by the alarms I set to windows and doors.

Indecision rooted in fear.

Fear of walking away, of granting space, of what could happen outside my watch.

Fear of not having the answers. Of not knowing the question.

Fear I cannot fix this: make all his pain disappear.

Fear of the truth: this is his path. I’m only a spectator.

A friend asked, “Do you feel a loss? Do you feel grief?”

A loss? Of what — of a future I’d imagined, expected, planned? Mother-daughter fantasies? Romanticized visions of attachment attributed to estrogen dominance?

No, that’s not the loss I grieve. He is here. He is my child. He is a gift.

The loss I grieve is his innocence. His dependence. His unwavering trust in me. I want to be his safe place.

Outside the regrets that mold my existence, there’s a history of mistakes I averted, things I got right, more than right.

And what I did get right forms the ground he walks on, provides the stability for him to fly, gives him the strength to push me away.

“I asked you to leave.” He says. His veil of politeness withdrawn. “Get out!”

I back away. I give him space. I hope it’s not too much. I hope I’m not too far.

Thank you for coming on my journey. Here’s another piece you might enjoy.