Lifting weights or how to get strong enough to push away the guilt

I am on a leash. It's short and unforgiving. At the other end are the people I love, each with a firm grip on the strong cord that connects them to me. Everything I do affects them, if I turn left they must turn left too, if I stop to investigate something they must stop too. But I am on the leash and they have the control. So my actions affect my family and I am supposed to walk to heel. The worst part about this is that I trained them this way, I gave them the handle and said,' I am yours, I will always be there, just whistle and I will come running.'
No, I take that back, it's not the worst part, it's just the hard part. Red Bird, we have a role, it's well defined and the most important job known to man. We are mothers and when we made the decision to become mothers we signed a contract with the universe. We promised we would always be mothers, we would always put family before ourselves. So the difficulty when we break away, when we say 'damn it why can't I just be', is not the judgement from others. Those comments hurt for a while, but we have strong armour, the pain we feel is self inflicted.
How can we possibly think about ourselves. We of all people. Our children may be of an age where they should be independent, or at least heading that way, but they are not. The psychologist half jokingly said to me at our last visit, "You know he's never leaving home". What kind of a mother am I when all I want is for him to let go of my arm. When she rejected me, when the sight of me drove her mad, when her friends became her everything instead of her family it hurt, but it was also wonderful. She is strong and brave and independent and I felt like I had done my job. I had prepared her for the world and she was telling me she was ready to go out there and make her mark. Sure she's still my little girl and I miss her everyday, I know she's still scared and unsure and will need to hold my hand every once in a while and I will be there. But this is normal, this is what we are prepared for, this is how it's supposed to be. There is no guilt when we let them go, when we turn their old room into the home gym or sewing room or whatever it is people with houses do(!) I think the guilt comes from the fact that with our youngest, we have to put our foot down and say 'NO. I will not wait, because there is no end in sight. I have to think about me now or I never will.' How dare we start our lives when they still need us so dependently. We signed a contract. The biggest twist of course is that this isn't their fault.They can't control this, it controls them, they can't pull themselves together and just deal with it. When she was hurting or struggling with an issue in her life and I let her find the answers she recovered, it may have left a scar that every now and then she'll notice, but she become stronger for it. She will look at that scar and say' That was a horrible time but I am stronger for it'. Our fear, or at least I know it's mine, is that he won't recover. I have to work everyday to make sure that he doesn't retreat inside himself, because what if he never comes back out. How can I go off and do my own thing and leave him to it when that is a possible outcome.
So what to do. Well Red Bird, in response to the poem I say yes, I am the happiest I've ever been, because I choose to be. I choose to ignore the guilt, I choose to stop putting my life on hold. Don't get me wrong I struggle with this everyday. It's hard, but I have to believe that he won't break. For now I have swapped my short leash for an extendable one. I can only run so far, but at some point, we'll unclasp that thing for good. You haven't run away Red Bird, you just put yourself on a longer leash too. People around you are afraid you'll run to far, but you won't. When you have children like ours you have an even bigger responsibility, you have to be braver and stronger and more adaptable and cunning. If we don't take care of our emotional needs, if we don't take the time to recharge our batteries, we are useless and the consequences are too frightening if we drop the ball. These are your stories Red Bird, no one else's. Other people are in them but they are yours because they can only be told by you from your point of view.  As for forgiveness, look, you can't control how your family feels, they will come to a resolution on their own in their own time. They may forgive you, they may not. If you let their emotional struggles eat you up you are doomed my friend. People judge others not superficially, but based on their own demons. Work on forgiving yourself, let the guilt go. It is done and now you move forward. I strongly believe that whatever we do in life, right or wrong, if you act on the best of intentions, it's all good. You live, you learn you take another step forward and you smile.