LOVE is complicated and yet so easily recognizable. LOVE can be profoundly tender and yet deeply painful. Some still believe in those desperately pathetic words that Ali McGraw once said to Ryan O'Neal, "Love means never having to say you're sorry. " ( REALLY? ) And yet, to others, LOVE means ALWAYS having to say you're sorry , especially when it's no fault of your own. To the latter believers, it seems that the more you love, the more 'sorry' you feel. It is so clearly the ' ying and yang ' of parenthood. You're sorry when you child falls and scrapes his knee because YOU weren't there to prevent it. You're sorry when your child has to endure doctors' needles and probing sticks down the throat because YOU did nothing to prevent it. You're sorry that your child must miss a class field trip due to an illness that YOU couldn't make go away. You're sorry that he can't have dessert just before di...
Everyone goes through "stages" or "chapters' in their lives, whether its wanting to move out of the city and buy a farm, or learn to roller blade and lose those unwanted pounds, or join a book club or bridge club and become more "rounded", or sign up for that design class you were always sorry you didn't pursue. Sometimes these stages present themselves without effort and we consider it "meant to be". And yet sometimes it just HAS to be...