Changing....growing and action! (Relationships)

I must be getting to be of the age where I have had enough life experience to not be an expert but enough to be able to reflect upon life---and the ending of life and changing relationships.  Recently, I've had an intergenerational conflict with my son, as my father had with his mother before him and as my brother has with his mother...beginning to see a pattern?  As a teacher, I've learned that life is all about building good strong relationships, respectful, heartfelt and comforting.  As a mother, I've tried to do the best I could with what I had to improve the life of a small child and made decisions that were likely not right but were the easiest to fall back on.  As a lover, I have been a coward--it's difficult to face your own feelings or to communicate when  things go awry, all the time thinking that no one has noticed.  That the walls you have built are there to protect the heart.  What happens to the heart when the walls keep getting higher and you let less and less light in?  I have always avoided conflict of any kind.  I've had to learn the hard way that relationships are just as much about conflict as they are about love--getting to know a person, even a child as they grow into young adulthood--our perceptions need to change as they don't rely on us or need us as much--it isn't until much later that they realize that they need us even more.  I am going through a time of internal conflict--not just about relationships with others but also myself.  I'm in a period of flux, and growth and all too aware of what the abrupt stop will look like and feel like.  Sometimes it's my choice; perhaps, it won't be.  I don't want the people I care about to slip through the fingers of my life and not realize how much I care about them and how proud I am to have them in my life.  Sometimes just a phone call away, sometimes a letter or email away--always away but close to my heart.  Time to give thanks, a time to be and a time to reflect....and a time to act.