It's been a rough week...month...year...I don't even know anymore. When did it start, and stop, being difficult? I can't define those moments anymore.
My life isn't like climbing a mountain and descending the other side and looking back and saying, well, phew, that's over. Nope. My life is like being a rock on the beach just within reach of the waves. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow. Storms and calm, little good things, little bad things. Relentless. Constant. Unceasing.
Why do I say all that? To put today's conversation in context. Yes, it was a big revelation. But, really, not that big. Ebb and flow. After other big conversations like this I've felt close to her and hopeful about our future. I've made big statements that, "we're finally bonding now!!" No. No, we weren't. And we never will. She isn't ever really going to trust and love me. Not in the deep way that children and their mothers are inexplicably bonded. I'll be family to her, yes. But not really a mother. I don't think she'll ever feel she has any mother.
Tonight we were alone in the kitchen while I loaded the dishwasher. She was in her pajamas and had been on her way to bed when she had to come down to tell me something. The other kids were already in bed. I didn't plan this conversation but I asked her a question and then we kept on talking. It went on for an hour. At the end I let her stay up still later and I played a game with her and let her win. It was a nice time.
It was truly nice. It was! Insightful and informative. I enjoyed it.
But it doesn't mean she won't look me in the eye and lie to me tomorrow. Or harm someone else if she feels like it. She'd sell her brother for a piece of candy without hesitation. This is just who she is.
So, whereas before I would've felt that something like this was momentous and turning the tide in our relationship. Now, well, it's the tide. It always comes back. There is no turning. Just the relentless ebb and flow. There will be good and then there will be bad. So, enjoy the good but don't even think the bad isn't coming.
One thing we talked about was her incessant lying. It's constant. Daily. Every tiny thing. Deeply illogical. Going out of her way to find reasons to lie. She finally confessed that after I told her awhile ago that she is really bad at lying she decided to practice so she could become such a good liar that I'd never know so she'd never get in trouble.
These are the glimpses into her brokenness. 1. Lying gets punished. 2. I don't want to be punished. 3. So I'll practice lying to get so good at it I avoid punishment.
No concept that instead of going through the pain of practicing lying and getting punished she could, instead, just stop lying. I think back over the hours of conversations we've had in which I tried to help her see that lying equals punishment. Now I know why I was never getting through. All the while I was blathering on she was silently contradicting me: "nope, only detected lying gets punished". There's an emotional brokenness within her that defeats me. What to do with a child who seems to be choosing, at age 6, to be a professional criminal?
Because it's important to take note of why she began lying with intention. She made the decision after I told her I always knew she was lying because she's so bad at it. Think about that. I thought I was telling her not to even try. In reality, I was throwing down the gauntlet. She took my words as a personal challenge to do better. Like someone saying, "you're such a bad criminal" and the person thinking, "well, then I need to become a better one." This is not normal thinking.
She reminds me so much of her grandmother. So friendly and personable! And it's all manipulation and sneakiness. The natural con artist.
She was talking about her paternal grandmother, Jackie, and she said was trying to talk about motivations people have with her limited 6 yr old communication skills. She made this sophisticated connection between what Jackie would do and the fact that Jackie would bring books as gifts. She, correctly, identified the books as tokens more for me than the kids. The books were meant to say, "I'm a good person" even while she was plotting ways to not be a good person.
I thought it was really insightful that Jane identified Jackie's manipulations. And it also told me that Jane, herself, has done this smoke-and-mirrors act with me. I think about all the times she's been helpful recently and I wonder, now, what she was hiding by doing that.
This is my life. Evenings playing board games with my budding criminal.
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