Who's Voice?

I try to understand the voice I hear, but it is garbled. There are sounds and thoughts of emphasis that pull at me and grab my attention, but more often than not I just don't understand that voice.

The new me is so many people all at once... mother, daughter, lover, care-taker, friend, nurse, gardener, home owner, employee, creator, and confidante. With all these voices bouncing around my head, the hum of self barely exists.

Probably the most pressing at the moment is that I'm the rather new mother of a teenage boy. Nowadays, teens have enough pain and emotion to process for even the very best birth parent to handle; but I'm not even that. And to top it off, I'm only ten years older than my kid.

I love this child... I hurt when he hurts... I feel when he feels. I want to hold him and protect him but the little shit is bigger than I am, by about a foot! I'm such a huggy, lovey person but with this relationship I have to figure out new boundaries. I have to be strong where I would normally be weak. I have to smile where I would normally cry. This tests me to the core, but I can't help it, because I love him and I will continue to support him.

When everything around me feels such a wreck, I know that I have to be stable. I have to be the strength to hold him up when he feels like diving under. I'm tired beyond tired. I drive out of my way by 45 minutes to take him to school every morning and to pick him up every evening. But no matter how complex my life or surroundings could be, I find strength... for him.

I didn't raise him from birth so I didn't instill in him the values I find of the utmost importance. Probably the most difficult we struggle with is lying. Down to my deepest bone I believe in honesty. I live as true and forthright as I can bare to be. And he lies. He lies so much I'm not sure what to believe. I want to trust him, believe him, support him... but how do you support something when you don't even know that it's real?

I've given him blind faith and been led astray. I want to teach him better. I keep thinking if he just trusts me enough he'll stop lying,... but I ultimately don't know that. One major aspect of raising a teen is knowing that they make their own decisions, and merely attempting to shape their choices without force.

With all of these new aspects in my life, each day is tiring. I have all these voices screaming at me to be this or to be that. When each day all I want to be is me... better and better, me. Why can't I just hear me?  Maybe I could be stronger if I could just hear my voice a little bit more.