There are a lot more wrinkles on my face and I have a lot less motivation to do anything about it;
The months drift along like a river, offering days to be gentle and moments to be determined and focused, either way, doing nothing and doing something – the river roils about its business;
Truly delighting in the company of another is the closest we come to our best, fully human nature, and spending too much time alone causes our hearts, souls and minds to atrophy;
Choosing what not to worry about is possibly the most important distinction we make between living and dying;
Letting go brings multitudes of joy and illumination, if you can withstand the temporary pain of shedding an attachment to an illusion;
Gentleness is the greatest manifestation of strength, if only the mind would allow our heart to lead;
These photos depict 2 days of my life 25 years apart – delighting in the company of my baby daughter and cuddling with my new kitten, both moments weaving together a life of savoring what might otherwise be forgotten;
I was telling friends our parenting challenges and the many ways institutions devised to “track progress” and label your child’s productivity but the best parenting advice we ever received was simply to strive to remain connected to the humans we cared for;
Staying connected and seeking ways to make the puzzle pieces fit seems a much better framework for moving through pain toward oneness to me;
Back to the wrinkles, the subject of nearly daily dread and obsession – shouldn’t I be more focused on the smile and sparkle of the eyes, those seem to be the same and they are the best measure of a life well lived;
Remembering love is a far richer use of the time I have left on this Earth than counting heartaches and insults – why not begin again today?
In 2 weeks, I will celebrate TEN YEARS SOBER!! Getting sober was the single most impactful (and difficult) thing I have done in my life. I have 10 years of supporting evidence that I will not bore you with, you will just have to trust me. TRUST is the operative word because before I got sober, I had forgotten how to trust myself. Walking through life distrusting one’s own impressions, intuitions, thoughts and feelings can lead to long-term nervous system dysregulation and persistent and extreme feelings of anxiety, burnout and depression. This was my life off and on, even during periods when I was not binge drinking, for 40 years.
Shackled to my own perceptions of existential threats, I once experienced life as a daily pop quiz for which I was unprepared. Why didn’t I trust myself and my own unique strengths and capabilities? How could a person ever learn to hang their self image on the validations of others? I think you have to begin teaching children in early childhood ways to reassure themselves that they are safe and supported. Allowing self-expression of “big emotions” instead of punishing disruptions in the day helps children learn that, even though they are not “big people,” their fears, needs and feelings are valid, important and worth pausing with a safe adult to co-regulate. This was unheard of in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s when I was growing up. So dysregulated people often reached for ways to numb those big feelings they never learned to trust and process. Hi, my name is Joan, and I’m an alcoholic.
10 years ago I did not have this clarity about how I had developed such a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. I only knew that if I did not find sustainable recovery, my family was doomed and I would forever regret it. Self-blame came second nature to me, so I just assumed I was a weak and flawed human, incapable of “controlling” my alcohol intake, so I first stepped into recovery full of guilt, self-loathing and shame. Not very pleasant or motivating emotions to sustain recovery, to say the least.
If I have learned anything these past ten years it is this: you absolutely cannot hate yourself into changing. Long term, sustainable recovery from addiction requires lovingkindness towards oneself – it’s like building a real foundation of stone instead of pretty rainbows that can vaporize the moment the atmosphere changes.
To create a loving space for myself to understand and change the ways I have sought safety from my own fears and anxieties through alcohol and in unhealthy relationships, the best tool I have discovered is practicing mindfulness. Buddhist meditation and mindfulness/lovingkindness teacher Sharon Salzberg talks about “add ons” – all the mental and emotional fears, biases, beliefs that we overlay onto our present experience, in a talk she gave to to the Mindfulness Association called “Look for the Add Ons”:
“One classical meaning of mindfulness is a quality of awareness where our perception of what’s happening in the present moment is not distorted by bias. So old fears, old habits, projections into the future – whatever it may be – may well arise – but they don’t take over. A very common one would be something like feeling a physical pain or heartache and immediately thinking, “What’s it going to feel like in ten minutes? What’s it going to feel like in a week? What’s it going to feel like in a month?” So we are not only experiencing the actual distress of now – but we are now adding all that anticipation to it, often feeling just overcome and defeated. And giving up. So it’s not that the pain feels glorious. And it’s not that the impulse to add on will rise, but it need not take over. ” She goes on to tell a story of a time she was teaching with Joseph Goldstein when a person described tension they felt in their jaw and concluded that they would “I am an incredibly uptight person and always have been and always will be. And I have never been able to get close to people and it will never change.” Joseph responded, “You mean you felt a lot of tension in your jaw. Why are you adding a miserable self-image to a painful experience? ” In this exchange, Joseph Goldstein kept reminding the man of his experience in this moment, only to be met by ever more elaborate stories (add-ons) by him. He concludes, “It is geniuinely painful to feel the tension in your jaw. But on top of that, you are now going to be alone for the rest of your life.”
“In mindfulness meditation, we look for the add-ons. We look for what might be added on to the direct experience and see if we can relinquish the hold of those add-ons. It’s not that they won’t arise, they won’t be tempting – but they needn’t take over.”
I was 49 years old when I decided to get sober and my children were 14 and 16. It was a very busy time in our household. My husband was working hard re-building his law practice after an 8-year hiatus. My daughter was exploring her independence as a new driver with friends I did not know very well. And my son was struggling with his own anxiety and depression and desperately needed a healthy, attentive, responsive caregiver. I told my AA sponsor more than once, “How can I take care of myself right now when my family needs ALL of me?” It seemed insurmountable to do both. “Take care of yourself first and the rest will fall into place,” she repeated to me hundreds of times. This was counterintuitive to me and required a leap of faith. I felt enormous guilt for “being flawed” and “inadequate.” Those feelings, I discovered many years later became huge add-ons. Just because in the moment I was feeling flawed and inadequate, I made the hugely illogical conclusion that I was permanently incapable of changing. That’s not a great mindset for quitting alcohol, let me tell you!
Like this beautiful lilac bush that was once a tiny sapling from the Wal-Mart garden center I had forgotten I had even planted in the home we left behind in 2010, little by little, and with lots of practice and support, I started to grow and feel better. When I look at this photo my friend Lorna recently shared to show me its progress (current resident of the country home we build and lived in when the children were very young), it strikes me that is is a metaphor for my life emerging from addiction into sobriety. Looking at it I see a hint of the whimsy I so enjoy about life. And it brings me back to my purpose in life: to enjoy the beauty of each moment and attempt to capture some of that whimsy for those I love.
You can’t experience whimsy if you are stuck in the weeds of add-ons, afraid to feel your feelings in the moment, knowing that they will always rise and fall and throughout, you will be okay. I see today how narrowly I escaped never feeling whimsy again had I not listened to my inner voice urging me to find a better way to live 10 years ago. Whimsy is essential to living a full life.
“People who are full of whimsy are odd, but often fanciful and lovely,” (according to Google!). I like home best with my dog, cat and family, nestled in by the fire with pretty lights and books. Simple joys bring lasting comfort and don’t require wine.
How did things turn out for my family, ten years after the turbulence that led to my decision to get sober? Beautifully. Somehow, with lots of support, I was able to simultaneously take care of myself and my family and give them what they needed. We are close and loving and enjoy laughing together. Whenever one person is hurting, we all feel it and find ways to support one another. My lifelong dream of building a happy family is fulfilled. As I approach my 60’s as a sober person, I plan to make whimsy more of a priority. This could show up as homemade jam I gift friends and family or a day trip to visit Clydesdale horses “just because.” I don’t take it for granted – this whimsy has been hard earned!
The work and the whimsy will continue. I am hoping they yield entertaining stories to share with the world.
My son is about to graduate from college and he just texted me to say he has his first official job offer that happens to be 18 hours away from home. He has the most enormous heart and my Momma heart aches when I think about sending him out into the world. This is fiction, of course, since he will be turning 25 later this year and has long been tending to his gentle heart in the cold world. He will be fine and he will always lead with love.
Our dear Caryl is missing from the picture right now and I want to howl over the unfairness and anger I feel for the immense hole her absence has left for so many of us. She loved Mario and celebrated all of our wins as though we were her family. She and her family became our chosen family, as well as the extended tribe of friends she always included in her circle of care. She would be so genuinely happy and proud right now to see Mario pursue his passion and fly on his own. I miss her so much it is painful. Instead of looking for “the bigger lesson” as to why she had to leave so cruelly young, I will try to take a cue from her playbook of love and be happy, loving and supportive of those in my life who are here now.
At her celebration of life, a woman I have never met approached me after I read my thoughts (see previous post, “Caryl with a Y”) and said, “How wonderful for you to have been lucky enough to belong to her tribe. It makes me wish I had been part of her tribe!” Right before I read my tribute to Caryl, Mario read her dear friend Kris’s words about experiencing early motherhood together and walking one another through the parenthood journey with humor. Mario volunteered to read Kris’s words when she shared she just did not think she could get through it with such a heavy heart. I don’t know many young men who would offer to step in at such a tender time, but that was the moment I realized my son had become a wonderful man. It hurts very much to have gotten to this moment and not have Caryl to hug and celebrate with.
Many years ago, we gave Mario a health club membership before he could drive to give him someplace to go shoot hoops and hang out during the summer months. One day I came to pick him up and saw him walking alongside a very elderly woman and deep in conversation with her. When he got in the car I asked how shooting hoops had gone and he replied, “I never got around to it. I was in the hot tub with that old lady talking the whole time.” Listening to this, I had a hard time not losing it over the sweetness of his big heart. I just said it was as important to invest time and energy into people as it was to get exercise and I was proud of him for using his time that day in a way that his heart had led him. When I shared this story with Caryl, her eyes brimmed with tears and she let me know that Mario would always be okay because of his character. The same is true for her sweet boys, and in her memory, I plan to keep the door open with them so they will know they have a special place to go where they are loved.
These past few months have taught me you can arrive at milestones in your life and not have the people you thought would be traveling all roads with you at your side. I’m sad my son’s happy story is tainted with grief but immeasurably grateful that Caryl was a true witness to our family for many years. We hurt, we grow, we move on. Our hearts have little stitches that bear witness to the love we continue to hold. Soon, we will celebrate Mario’s graduation from the University of Kansas and feel grateful he knows not only how to make a living but also how to make a beautiful, soulful, big-hearted life.
I remember the day, at only 5 months old, you were sitting on the kitchen counter in your bouncy seat and forming the word “Mama!” with your determined little face. Nobody believed me when I later bragged about this but you and I knew and that was all that mattered.
You became the little girl who always wanted to help Mommy. You took my chicken-scrawled grocery lists and carefully and lovingly re-wrote them before heading out to Hy-Vee on a quest for Gogurt and bagels.
You were also fond of declarative statements. Many of them notable. As a toddler, when your Daddy would walk in from work and ask you how your day had been, you usually responded, “I didn’t have a day!” with great conviction. With Mom, your declarations were often about really important things you needed to do, like the day you came to me and said, “I want to dance!”. Thus began one of many journeys led by your indomitable spirit.
You were always very quick to pick up on stress or tension in the house and, in your own loving way, offered help. At only age 9, when Mom and Dad were very burdened with the weight of selling our dream house and picking up roots to the unknown, you quietly and efficiently followed the “Staging Lady” from room to room in our beautiful house and took careful notes about the work to be done. That’s who you are, Dear Girl, the one who can take up the sword and fight for your loved ones when they need it most and without expecting anything in return. This past Easter, when your teenaged brother was grieving terribly the death of a friend, you lightened everybody’s load with your surprise visit from college. You matter-of-factly parked your car in the driveway and walked up to me, I’ll never forget how I was planting begonias to mark and remember Mario’s friend. Your presence is a fortress to those in need, My Dear. You marched right into the house and just quietly began doing normal things but in a way your family knew you were there to support us in our time of need.
And most recently, Sweet Girl, you gave your Momma a weighted blanket for Christmas. I am not surprised you were the one who listened to me and addressed this need so lovingly. You know I am not bold like you are yet this does not disappoint or frighten you and how I love you for it.
Now you are on the brink of adulthood and life is showing your Dad and me you are prepared. I will spend the rest of my days in gratitude for the wonder that is you, my precious Isabella Bernadette. Your Grandpa summed you up correctly at a very young age and it is to our complete delight watching his prediction unfold. He said, “That little girl is going to call the shots every step of the way.” And you have and we hope you always will. I love you, Daughter.
My son, my second child, just left the house for his Senior Year of High School finals. I know this day is a major rite of passage. So I go to my basement and retrieve a few fragments of his and his sister’s childhood from the big box of grade school papers I have kept all these years. I am that Mom. The one who frames art projects and puts every lost tooth in a ziplock bag. These memories are my treasures.
You don’t get to choose many of the experiences your children will have outside your four walls and nothing prepares you for the disappointments the world will heap upon them – you can only hope that your love will be the cushion your child needs to bounce back and return to the world of unexpected experiences the following day.
As a child, Motherhood and writing were my true callings. I wrote plays and each afternoon baked goodies in my Easy Bake oven before picking my imaginary kids up on my bicycle riding up and down my long driveway and talking to them. As an adult, my life has luckily pretty much mirrored what I always dreamed and imagined motherhood would be. Except the joy I have felt over the beauty of children’s innocence and unfaltering love was deeper than anything I had ever experienced. And the anguish over not being able to solve a child’s heartache with a bowl of ice cream and a hug more harsh than any adult experience I had ever known.
The most unexpected delight from mothering a girl and a boy has been the gift of being the guardian of the gentle unfolding of their hearts in this world. Being a parent at our house has often meant inviting the outside world to our table. The way my children embraced our Little Brother when we were matched as a Family in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program was loving and open-hearted. They were open and accepting of the experience and shared our abundance of love, food, toys and fun with him without urging by me or their Dad. And the outside adventures their hearts led our family to were beyond any planned playdate or experience I could have ever mapped out. When our daughter told us at age 8 she wanted to be a competitive cheerleader, we set off on 2 years of driving hundreds of miles each week and thousands of 8-counts and sassy faces and moves to impress judges at competitions. She already had grit, determination and focus. The competitive sport just gave her an outlet, and her overwhelmed Mom was grateful for that.
My husband will faint in disbelief when he reads this, but I am grateful to have lived in the country on 32 acres for part of our kids’ childhood, in particular, the formative part. They learned how to occupy themselves on long, windy, hot summer days without constant monitoring or activities. Families enjoyed campfires, storytelling and music in the evenings and our son became a huge fan of the annual music festival that took place 1 mile from our back door. To this day, his favorite smell is smoke from a campfire and as a young man, our house has become the headquarters for his friends to linger, laugh and talk into the night by a simple campfire. Our daughter honed her writing skills and our many 8-hour car trips to visit family in St. Louis were a great source of inspiration. Here she writes about the “Throwing Up Spring Break” of 2006 which was preceded by the “greatest day” of our 6-year-old son’s life at Disney on Ice.
Although today officially marks a transition from parenting children to young adults, and my heart is somewhat tender with wistful memories of those early days, I look forward to the next chapter – one that has already begun with my daughter – of witnessing, supporting, validating and loving the young adults my children become.
These 2 are my treasures and they belong to the world now, not me. That’s both the most painful and proud reality of parenting: these children gifted to us are born to fly. Instead of planning the next week to make sure I am available for sporting events or other activities they love, I am, even as I write this, officially promoted to Witness. I don’t have to referee their journey anymore. Another Mom recently said, “You go from parent to consultant overnight.” It might take me a few boxes of tissue to make the transition. Each tear will be worth it.
I’ve been in a “season of remembering” and feeling grateful lately, after a cold, harsh winter and a major health setback. During this time, I have had countless ideas for blog posts but we are experiencing a time in our family when all computers are nearly dead and also I need to learn much more about technology than I want in order to reach the “next level” of blog writing. So the ideas and creative impulses come and go and I have done nothing.
Until this morning, looking out at the lovely grass and listening to the birds as Spring begins to unfold, I started remembering how connected our family had the privilege of being to the seasons when my kids were young. My husband and I intentionally semi-stepped off the grid of urban life and uprooted our young family from the city to a country setting. At the time, all I can remember is wanting to have a simpler life with fewer distractions and outside intrusions but we didn’t have many specific ideas about what our “country life” would feel like beyond that. The lessons came for us, many of them surprisingly difficult and unpleasant, yet we know, looking back, it was absolutely the right choice to make for our children.
This morning I started remembering all the unstructured, wild fun we had together when we lived in the country. We’d take adventurous walks on our land and the kids would get filthy dirty without worrying about being clean or “ready” for the next obligation on our busy calendar because there wasn’t much of a calendar to worry about at all. Just time, nature, freedom, each other, the weather, the critters, and the expectations of enjoying one carefree day after the next. So I guess what I am saying is country life gave our family a framework we were craving that didn’t exist in a city: some land, some time, some freedom – to enjoy life with youngsters unbothered by schedules and timetables and expectations. That’s exactly, as it turns out, what we all had. Let me tell you in one word what that life felt like: glorious. It took returning to the city and hearing from parents we must contact the “nanny” to coordinate “play date” schedules for me to appreciate how golden our lives in the country had been. It was isolating at times and occasionally boredom set in. But all you had to do was wait for the next spectacular sunset or sunrise to unfold and rest beneath the quiet (unless it was tornado season) heavens to remember what we had was very special.
I recently heard my daughter describe in great detail what the sky looked and felt like out in the country minutes before a big storm. That memory is part of her and it will stay with her for life. Unless you have spent a considerable amount of time on the prairie and its open skies, you’ll never understand what she meant when she told her friend about that sudden quiet, green-turning-to-black sky that happens right before a big storm. We took shelter during those times in our basement and in each other. We weren’t worried about which activities might be cancelled because of the inconvenience of the weather. The weather was part of our lived experience.
As a Mother, your kids reach college age and you might start looking back to reassure yourself you gave them what they needed. I am fortunate that I didn’t have to worry about much beyond fun and safe experiences on our land when they were little. And I can already see those early years have shaped the young adults they have become. After all, it takes a lot of mud puddles and unstructured play to build a competent adult. Thank goodness we had plenty.
In 18 days, she’s coming back home for the summer!!! It is a triumph to have survived the most dreaded event of my life. I could not help but project onto my daughter my personal feelings about being away from home for the first time, so I caused myself infinitely more suffering this year than she ever came close to experiencing. It’s what I do.
During her time away, my daughter has fully embraced her new experiences. She’s in a great sorority, she participated in variety shows and charity events, she travelled to other college campuses, she has made wonderful friends, and she has her own separate identity that is hers and hers alone. Her Dad and I are extremely humbled and proud. And somehow, through all of it, my heart got BIGGER, not smaller, and we got closer, not more distant.
When my college Freshman daughter was in kindergarten, we BOTH hated it so much I had a countdown calendar in the kitchen that we eagerly scratched off the days leading up to the long-awaited summer break. I think I hated kindergarten more, come to think of it, because my Isa spent the following summer writing letters to her teacher who was helping her husband heal from cancer. That’s my girl, she stays connected to the people she cares about. I should have known the “break” for college would not be an actual break, as my heart feared.
This is my message to all the Moms who are now in my shoes, anticipating (perhaps dreading) their child’s first year of college and what lies ahead:
Whatever groundwork has been laid before college holds the parent/child bond together;
In spite of whatever fears you may have from your past, your child is eager to move into the future and will do so regardless of how you feel, and it will be okay;
Your child needs to experience the world without you and vice versa – families change in many ways over time, but love makes more than enough room for the new stuff and people that will come into your life;
Instead of thinking as the transition to college as a personal loss, remind yourself each day that it is a victory – you created and raised a child who wants to engage in this crazy world with the tools you helped nurture;
If you are married or have a partner, be extremely proud that you did this together – and if you are still together, even more so, for staying married and releasing a young adult into the world are both enormous accomplishments.
Yes, my heart aches because the time with my daughter as a budding adult is gone. I am learning to put those feelings aside to wholeheartedly enjoy the friendship and journey we are on together. She’s not going to leave me behind, she has proven that. I can keep counting days until I see her again if I want to, but this year has shown me that our bond of togetherness is stronger than physical presence. She lives in my heart.
This summer, she has promised to take some walks with me and our dog, Pudgey. Over the winter, Pudgey and I got sort of lazy and may have put on a few pounds wallowing in self-pity. Thank goodness the Commander is on her way back home to whip us into shape!
I got to spend 3 whole days with my daughter who left for college this past August. Let it be known, Momma is still not adjusted to this transition. Daughter, however, is fully settled and thriving. Experiencing her life, all the wonderful parts she chose so lovingly to share with me this weekend, has blessed me immeasureably. I see now the future she embraces instead of the fear, worry and sadness I have held for so long.
The weather was perfect, and our weekend began with my sweet dancer performing in her University’s “Greek Sing,” a talent show of sorts geared toward entertaining the hundreds (if not thousands) of Moms visiting their college students. Seeing the entire ensemble gave me concrete proof that college students are “different” than high school students in many ways.
Young adults moving about the world in their own skin, playing by their own rules and trying new experiences with their peer groups exhibit an energy and effervescence that is contagious.
It felt wonderful to step away from the tired, grumpy, complain-y adult world of “ain’t it awful” to breathing the spring air of fresh life, young energy and optimism for the future. That energy was palpable. I soaked it in. I feel new.
We enjoyed lunch with her new friends and Moms at the Sorority house then a lovely evening meal that she and her friends had carefully plotted – and everything was perfect. I was captivated by watching my daughter and seeing both parts of myself as a young adult and a whole new beautiful person – the unique woman she is evolving to become. She’s on her way. She’s where she needs to be. All my heaviness, worrying, tears – have just been for a Momma who didn’t yet understand her new place in her girl’s heart and life.
She proved to me this weekend I am still very much in her heart. Fairly newly sober, I need “spaces” in each day now to process my thoughts and feelings and renew my energy. Intuitively she understands this. We did everything at my pace and she gently led me through the weekend without pressuring me to do more than I could. Staying centered is important to me now, and I had no idea how very much my daughter respects and understands this.
Instead of continuing the evening with the group after the dinner, she told her friends we’d probably go back to our hotel and watch a movie. I was delighted. Off the hook yet also blessed to feel so “understood.” Ironically, one of our favorite movies happened to be on tv – “The Blind Side.” As we wound down the weekend, the words of Michael Orr to his Coach and later his Momma perfectly reflect my Daughter’s gentle love and presence: “I’ve got your back,” he said. So does she, and this Momma is beyond proud and happy.
“She will call less and less,” my husband casually remarked last night about our College Freshman whose nightly calls warm my heart. I bit his head off. “DON’T SAY THAT!,” I yelled back. Silence. What was that about, I began thinking. Everything is off kilter these days because it’s all new: our first child recently left the nest for college and at 51, I am in a new job, earning more than I have in eight difficult years. I call them “difficult” because I have never fully embraced my value as a stay-at-home-mother, even though this is what I always wanted to do.
The sacrifices you make when you decide to earn less in exchange for being more present feel mostly unnoticed and under appreciated most of the time.
But that’s the kind of Momma I wanted to be! ALWAYS available, no matter what. So when my biggest paycheck of eight years hit the bank account last night, I found myself weighing the value of the money versus the value of being physically present for the household. Here’s how it feels to me: in the short term, putting a hefty-ish paycheck in the household account feels better than making sure there is a roast in the oven but in the long term, knowing we raised a young woman who wants to touch base with us often is the greatest payoff possible.
We are all conditioned to thinking of our investments – financial, emotional, intellectual – in terms of returns. That’s why I count the number of days I maintain long-term sobriety, because as the days add up, I figure the greater the “return.” But not if I’m not emotionally sober. To maintain emotional sobriety, you better be invested in pouring every type of energy and asset you have into living a life worth living. After all, what’s the point of removing something as pleasurable as drinking red wine if I’m not going to enjoy the benefit of sobriety and that enjoyment isn’t going to spill over into other people’s lives and well-being? Huh? In other words, it’s just as important to replenish and nourish your emotional, spiritual and physical coffers as it is to earn money and spend it wisely. Now I get to do both: earn money to help support our family and reap the benefits of staying emotionally invested and close to my children as they were growing up.
These days, I think alot about special times with my children when they were young, especially bedtime story reading. My daughter and I had many favorite books, among them, a 1950’s Caldecott Award winner, “Blueberries for Sal.”
Little Sal was so much like my Isa: precocious, daring, full of life and love for new experiences. Together we would read the story about the Momma Bear and her Cub on the same mountain – but the other side and out of view – as the Momma Human and little Sal – picking blueberries to sustain their bodies through the winter.
My paycheck from the new job felt like a pail of blueberries from the book. Very gratifying and fun but also a worthwhile investment for lean, cold days in the future. It felt good and associating it with something so precious from my daughter’s childhood gives me peace of mind that our sacrifices have been worth it. Especially when she texted back, “Yes I do” this morning when I asked her if she remembered reading “Blueberries for Sal” with me.
“Why can’t a paycheck just be a paycheck and not turned into a dumb pail of blueberries, you weirdo?,” you may be asking yourself. Because I am committed to living a life worth living. This is what it means to understand a woman in midlife experiencing an emptying nest and working to maintain sobriety: a cherished moment of understanding in a three-word text from your beautiful daughter away at college puts everything in perspective. And all is well with my world.
I am pretty sure I have written about this before, but the display of racial hatred in Charlottesville, Virginia this past 24 hours bears repeating. We all try to raise happy kids, right? And kids that will be kind to other kids, blah blah blah…. I think it is important to remember that BIG things start out as LITTLE things, both good and bad. Liberals, Feminists, whatever you want to call them, often get labeled for calling out acts of hatred 24/7, for acting as self-proclaimed watchdogs of ugliness. In my mind, this is a perfectly acceptable tradeoff – social condemnation in exchange for those constant, nitpicking little nudges of the moral conscience. With my children, I think I strove to teach them they did not have to draw attention to themselves or do anything to bring any kind of condemnation or isolation upon themselves. Instead, I tried to show them quiet, powerful ways of refusing to allow others to normalize hate.
My kids did their fair share of bickering when they were young. I tried to tune it out in my head until it became meanspirited. As soon as the bickering took a turn towards hatefulness, I would step in and announce the “penance”: each one had to do something kind for the other before bedtime. That was it. I did not “follow up” or punish by making them regret losing a favorite toy or pastime. I merely tapped into their moral conscience so they would think about the other for a moment and perform an act of kindness out of human decency. The end.
In this way, I hoped my children would learn to stop and think about others long enough to consider what they could do to alleviate pain and suffering.
Mario was always the first one to enthusiastically embrace words of kindness, acts of forgiveness and deeds of pure goodwill. It was so heartwarming to watch, really! Isa was more contemplative and less demonstrative of her willingness to change, yet she always eventually offered kindness in perfect measure to whatever the situation demanded.
In today’s culture of absolute intolerance, fear and hatred are running amuck. It is very difficult to perceive something as a small act of kindness as an antidote to the enormity of negative forces in our world. Still, with one small little lesson in mind from childhood, I hope my children will continue to practice kindness in the face of evil, knowing that their small efforts contribute to the healing balm of hope this world so desperately needs.
Cheeky Street 