A Mom’s Paradox

Teenagers complain a lot. I mean A LOT with all capital letters.  At least mine do, they are the only ones I know.

Probably complain isn’t quite the right word.  It’s more that everything that doesn’t go the way they want is a giant injustice. The store doesn’t have the right lipstick color to match the dress, how dare they! Kroger stopped carrying their favorite brand of cereal – that can’t be right, they must have to carry all the brands, right?!?!? Their boss asked them to do something that was hard-work, how dare they!?!?

It’s always been of critical importance that my relationship with my children is friendly and that they want to talk to me. Afterall, there are only 18 years of their life where I can make them talk to me (and really not even that many, as my son has proven more than once with reticence in the face of even my most incessant questioning).  For the other 75% of their lives, if I want to know what is going on, I have to rely on them voluntarily telling me.

But I hate listening to complaining.

I don’t mind listening to people getting riled up about a wrong, if it means they are developing a plan to make it right in the future. I don’t mind an occasional rant about some awful injustice – like girls kidnapped in Africa, women who can’t vote in Afghanistan, street children in India, or the massive amount of debt in our country.  I can even deal with you if you have an unusual day of incessant whining. But when everything that you say all the time is a complaint about the minor frustrations of daily life, I don’t really want to talk to you.

Thus the mother’s paradox! I know if I want them to talk to me later, I have to let them talk to me now. But I’m not sure how much of the complaining I can take!

To deepen the paradox…notice I’m complaining.

Growing Patience

Patience has always been the one character trait I most wanted to develop.  I wanted to be able to wait patiently while my children tied their shoes on the busy sidewalk. I wanted to listen patiently to all the long-winded stories that are the fabric of childhood. I wanted not to feel like banishing the cats when they meowed incessantly. I wanted to calmly admonish the dogs when they barked uproariously at the stranger passing on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to scream at the prospective of washing more dishes and more clothes, endlessly.

I worked really hard at trying to be more patient…somedays I was really good at it, somedays I was really bad. Always it felt very random and never felt like I was making any progress.

Then one day, I realized patience is not a single trait to be developed…it’s a whole collection of traits to work on. Patience is like Calculus.  You can’t just learn Calculus. First you must learn arithmetic.  Then you must learn algebra. Then a little geometry. A little trignometry too.  THEN you are ready for calculus.

As of now, I’ve identified four traits which come together to create my patience.  So, perhaps a car is a better metaphor.  Patience is the whole vehicle, but it requires four tires all working together to let the car get anywhere. My four tires are:

• Focus — to catch the shift from patience to impatience, before it wrecks havoc
• Love — to be willing to put in the effort to keep patience at the forefront
• Persistence — to be able to keep making the effort in each moment, every day
• Silliness — so all the work involved in patience doesn’t feel like the Sisyphian task it quite frankly is

Focus I have, most days, in large supply – except when I don’t.  Focus was the one thing keeping me even moderately patient all these years.  It was the reason I was successful some days and not successful other.  That was like driving a car with only one wheel, though.  I wasn’t getting very far.

Love comes naturally for me, at least for most of the creatures who need my patience on a daily basis. Not always so much for the outside world…so that’s what I’m working on.  I’ve got the tire on that corner of my car.  I just need to put some more air in it.

Persistence I also have in abundance. I am incapable of leaving a task undone.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t get exhausted in the endeavour.  I didn’t, however, realize that persistence was a key element of increasing my patience.  It was like I had the tire, but it was sitting against the shop wall…not very helpful for getting my vehicle up and running.

Silliness is not my forte. Since childhood, I’ve taken myself and the rest of the world entirely too seriously. In the anxiety literature, I’m what’s called a “catastrophizer.” Every little mistake or inattention (or lack of focus) has potentially drastic consequences in my mind. This silliness tire, I’m going to have beg, borrow or buy from somewhere. But knowing it’s a necessary element for patience — I’m working on acquiring it.  My silly children are helping me.

Continuing my tire metaphor, I’ve turned my morning breathing meditation over to putting air into these four tires of my patience vehicle.

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Daily Meditation for Growing Patience:

(Inbreath) Focus –  (OutBreath) on the things that matter

(Inbreath) Love –  (OutBreath) is the thing that matters most

(Inbreath) Persist – (OutBreath) in being present
(Inbreath) Silliness – (OutBreath) helps with the persistence

 

True Love

When I was young, I thought true love was somebody who saw me as perfect exactly the way I was and didn’t want anything about me to ever change.  (Yeah, too many 80s love songs during my formative years.  And way to many years since then wasted trying to hide all the things I didn’t like about myself so I could be lovable.)

Now that I’m older I realize true love is really somebody who knows me, all of me, flaws and all, and is still willing to stand with me forever. Somebody who has truly heard how I want to grow and change, and is ready and willing to help me do the necessary to make the growth happen. Somebody who wants the growth and change because I do, but doesn’t hold it against me when I don’t reach my goal. Somebody who celebrates with me when I’m getting it right. Somebody who gently points out when I’m getting it wrong. Somebody who holds me when I’m discouraged at my progress.

I’m so grateful that the LOML has always known this about true love and was patient enough to wait for me to figure it out.

Grief – in Summary

Grief doesn’t look like we expect it to.  It doesn’t look like it does on TV with wailing mourners, or slow dropping tears, or even solemn faces and quiet rooms.  Everyone experiences grief in their own way, in their own space and in their own time.  Pass no judgment and give much understanding.  Just because someone’s grief doesn’t look like your grief, doesn’t make it any less painful or reflect any less meaning on the relationship that has ended.

• Grief is angry responses to normal questions.
• Grief is sudden frustration at simple inconveniences.
• Grief is tearful outbursts at minor disappointments.
• Grief is laughing louder than normal.
• Grief is frenetic movement and the inability to be still.
• Grief is avoiding quiet by constant chatter.
• Grief is a completely normal day, followed by sobbing children as you tuck them in.
• Grief is boredom, even when surrounded by “toys.”
• Grief is a heart-wrenching desire for everything to stop and be quiet just for a moment.
• Grief is a loud laugh at exactly the wrong time or wrong place
• Grief is an inability to find anything amusing.
• Grief is an urgent need to be with people
• Grief is an urgent need to be away from people.
• Grief follows its own schedule.
• Grief comes in waves. Sometimes the biggest wave isn’t for weeks (or months or years).
• Grief is a fire that drives a need to find meaning and a purpose for our existence.
• Grief is a heaviness that bows the shoulders and weights the feet.
• Grief is a sadness around the eyes and behind smiles.
• Grief is loud.
• Grief is silent.
• Grief is palpable emotions – across the spectrum.
• Grief leads to all the imponderable questions, the hows and whys of this life in human form.
• Grief brings nostalgia and stories, many of them unrelated to the deceased.
• Grief is a preoccupation and a new absentmindedness
• Grief is an inability to concentrate on anything but an aching to concentrate on anything else.
• Grief is a deep desire for everything to go back to normal as soon as possible – knowing full well nothing will ever be the same again.

Grief is all these things and more.

Conceived in the Light

We are all conceived in the light.  Don’t go off on an anti-religion rant on me, hang with me. If “the light” bothers you, think of it as, we are all conceived happy, healthy and whole…it’s just easier to express as “in the light.”

Then life – from our birth mother’s womb forward — pushes on us. In some ways it pushes us away from the light and some ways it pushes us back in. Some times we actively choose to move back into the light. Some times we walk away from the light, maybe because it’s too bright, maybe because we are curious to see what’s out there in the dark.

Unless we are careful (and are carefully tended by those with that responsibility) we can find ourselves standing in the dark with no idea even what direction the light lies in.

It’s then we must listen. Listen carefully. There is always a voice to be heard…one that calls you home. The voice sounds different to different people. It must, because we are individuals, with our own unique journeys. For some it sounds like Buddha, for some Mohammed, for some God, for some Christ, for some Shiva, for some a random stranger who has stood in this same spot of darkness before, for some their own heart.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the darkness. The voice is always there and you can always make your way back to the light.

But you must be still and quiet…and listen.

Depression – To the People Who are Standing With

Robin Williams died yesterday.  Of an apparent suicide. Yesterday evening my Facebook feed was full of caring messages from people.  “If you are struggling with depression, seek help.”  and “If you have a friend with depression be there for them.”

I agree wholeheartedly with both those sentiments. But I think they carry a harmful implication.  It seems clear from the news reports that Robin Williams was seeking help and that his family and friends were standing with him.  It still wasn’t enough to help him survive.

If you are sharing your life with somebody with depression, as a friend, as a partner, as a parent, as a child, you need to hear (and know) that sometimes you can do everything you can do, you can do everything right and still not “fix it.”

In the same way being diagnosed with cancer, getting the latest treatments and having all our friends support us for years doesn’t necessarily mean we will be a survivor, being diagnosed with depression, taking our meds and having our friends constant support doesn’t mean we can survive depression.  In both cases all those things help, but in both cases they aren’t always enough.

And just like you wouldn’t feel responsible if your friend loses their battle with cancer, please, please, please, please, don’t feel responsible if they lose their battle with depression.