Not Done With The Crying

I am done with not being clear about things

Apr 28, 2025

Barker Meadow Reservoir Colorado | Credit Cindi ShardsAndWords

There is so damned much available online now about estrangement. I’ve written about being in some of the online groups for parents of adults who have chosen to estrange. Places like Facebook offer some, sometimes short term and small comfort to parents newly experiencing their child’s choice and too for parents experiencing extended estrangement. Like all social media you have to have your radar on because these groups often devolve into pile ons of the children. To the point where parents can feed off others and where post comments turn into some really dark spaces.

I think the concept of immature parents raises its head wildly in these groups. There’s the white older socialite like lady’s facebook group who has her admins kick you out if you share any helpful content that isn't her merchandise. There’s the parent who wrote a book years ago saying they were done and grew a massive following. There’s the psychologist you’ve likely heard of who was but is no longer estranged and has built an enormous practice from the experience. There’re many groups speaking directly to adult children, run by therapists and people who have excruciatingly experienced it from the adult children perspective. Frankly some of those spaces for adult children would have been places I would have loved to be involved in when I was a young mom who was navigating figuring out my own adulthood a deeply dysfunctional core and extended family while living in defense mode on a daily basis in a violent marriage to an abuser.

My reason for today’s post is that, no, in fact, I’m not done with crying, anguish, heartache, wishing, wondering or hoping while my adult children choose estrangement.

Healing is never a point A to Z experience. Never. We’ll go in and out of joy, despair, love and anger during all of life and in our specific situations, no matter how long estrangement lasts. Sometimes we will stay in anguish even if an estrangement ends.

Our work is to mend our Selves-capital S Selves. If our children’s hearts and minds open over time to take a look and see if our healing can fold into some form of acceptance on their part, a reconciliation might be possible. The thing is though, whether that is possible or not, our work is still to heal our Selves in as complete a way as we are able. Which will not be a straight line from our own traumas to healed humans. There will be setbacks. There will be relapses. There will be slow and ridiculously awkward shifts.

This doesn’t mean stop trying, it means the healing needs to be in our own lives for a time. On our own. In our own ways. With all appropriate help we can find. Especially when our child has told us they are 100% done.

So this living - life itself - while being estranged from our children will keep on going whether we stay stuck, paralyzed in anguish or get out and find some moments of kindness and pleasure for ourselves as we grow, heal and improve as humans.

I’m sharing some of what I find helpful as I take myself some of the places of beauty this country has to offer. I have always loved to be outdoors. The Dark Decade was a time of isolation where I lost so much of my Self, my motivation, my care about life at all. Daughter had already estranged herself early in that decade and as the Dark Decade lingered too long, Oldest and Youngest Sons followed. Today, with my physical health returning and my heart in shards missing my children, I’m getting out, finding beauty, meeting people and returning to the better parts of my Self while mending, loving on and healing the parts that hurt my children in ways I utterly regret.

The photos below are from early in my trip and are in Colorado. I have joined several women’s travel groups and am meeting the most amazing women. I learned about thru hiking from a new friend who has done sections of the Appalachian Trail and I believe all of the Pinhoti Trail, which is in Alabama. I am not a thru hiker and have zero desire to become one - I DO love day hikes and short hikes and as my body responds to my increased activity it makes it so much more enjoyable to be outside and in nature again. My heart fills during those times. I am never far from a lump in my throat or tears; but this being active and meeting people has made as big a shift as therapy in many ways. Here are some highlights: