This morning was so very typical. I woke up earlier than the rest of the family. Got my coffee. Got my protein. Settled in for my peaceful hour and a half of internet, mindless TV and French Bulldog snuggling. Seven o'clock rolls around and I swear that I'm going to change that alarm on my phone that goes off just in case I fall back asleep, because the song is so very annoying. I step into kiddo's room and give her the morning snuggles that she and I have become accustom to, before making her roll out to the living room to get dressed while I make her cinnamon toast. I threaten to eat said cinnamon toast if she doesn't start to hustle as we're in minute ten of her getting pants on ( an empty threat... she know it... I know it... I can't even eat cinnamon toast anymore!). Again, a completely normal weekday morning.
Then, after being partially dressed and getting her toast, kiddo makes a poor decision. A series of poor decisions, to be exact. She does something she shouldn't, and then attempts to hide the evidence of the first poor decision with yet another poor decision. I catch her in both poor decisions, and proceed to ask her why she would do such a thing.
Again, a completely normal weekday morning.
This is life with kids, and for what feels like the billionth time, I try to explain to her that she needs to think through her actions, weigh the consequences, and most of all that she needs to not be sneaky and try to hide her poor decisions, because it just makes everything worse. THIS is the lesson I have spent the last 9 years trying to teach her. THIS is the lesson I have failed miserably at trying to teach her, and THIS is the one thing that I cannot seem to get through to her.
We got through the trauma of the whole thing and she left for school with a hug and a kiss and a " let's not let this ruin our day" pep-talk. And after she left, I was still struggling with this unattainable goal of teaching my daughter how to think through what she was doing in a way that wasn't destructive to her, to me, or to the rest of the world. Then I thought about what a really HUGE thing that is to ask of anyone. And then I thought about if I could do that. And then I thought to myself "Yeah- ya know what... I AM doing that......
......But it took me 38 years to get here."
And that's the rub.
I'm quite positive that my mother had this same battle with me, and continued with that battle until such time as it was apparent that I either wasn't going to listen or that the chances of me actually destroying something dropped under a reasonable threshold of ten or fifteen percent. Or until she didn't have the legal right to try to tell me differently.
I can recall the moment when I shifted into a full understanding that I needed to stand on my own two feet. Well, to say there was one moment is an understatement, since I've dipped back into " mommy, I need your help" well a few more times that I would like to admit. But, in general, I know the moment that I figured out that if I was going to move forward with this whole " adult" thing, I needed to step the fuck up. I was 20 years old. The details aren't important, but the end result is. I knew that my actions had consequences. Unfortunately, it still took me another 18 years to figure out exactly how big a part of my own life I really was.
In the middle of this whole to-do this morning with my daughter, she hid under a blanket. This is a pretty standard response for her when she's in a situation she doesn't like. She literally hides from it. We've talked to her about this... tried to get her to explore her feelings about it. It's not hard to understand. She's externally replicating her outsides to match how she feels on the inside, and what she wants to do is not be seen. She wants to hide from the bad feeling. I get this in every imaginable way... wanted to hide all the bad. The guilt, the shame, the embarrassment. Feeling that way sucks, and most unfortunately, being a kid is full of those moments.
And again, this is a battle that I have fought repeatedly- how to teach my daughter not to hide from the bad feelings. And- AGAIN- this is a lesson it took me 38 years to learn, so how in the world can I expect her to learn it at the age of 9!?!?
I do not begin to know how to teach her this thing that I can't even really grasp mentally, but I have embraced emotionally. That OWNING the bad feeling has made me better, healthier, and happier. That for the first time, a few years ago, I stopped hiding from all of the things that made me feel icky and started just putting it out there. When I screw up, I own it. When I'm unhappy with something, I say it. When I feel something, I make it known. I live a more authentic life because when something causes me pain, I completely possess it and that gives me the power to change it.
Sometimes, it doesn't turn out the way I hoped. There is one particular thing that has happened in my life where this authenticity backfired on me. I've lost someone that means a great deal to me. I was honest about how the choices they made impacted me. They thought I was being judgmental. I stand firm on the fact that I don't think that a decade of staying silent about the impact of their choices on my life is an indicator of being judgmental. I wanted my new found authenticity to be a jumping off point for a better and more honest relationship between us. They did not want the same. It hurts. It hurts a lot. Sometimes it hurts so much that I want to go back under the metaphorical blanket and hide from it. But, it took me 38 years to get here, and I can't go back now.
Here is the part that makes it difficult to teach me daughter about this stuff... that bad decisions have consequences. Because GOOD decisions have consequences too. And sometimes decisions have absolutely NOTHING to do with any of it. And sometimes you can actually do everything right. You can live in the truth, you can bask in the sunlight of being honest and authentic and you will still get burnt. Hurt is not completely avoidable. Life will happen and no amount of authenticity will stop it. And she will sit there one day, if she ever actually listens to me, and she will hurt in a way that is different than this hurt, because she's trying to do what her mommy told her. She's living an honest authentic life and life is still going to punch her in the gut sometimes.
The thing that it took me so long to figure out is that these two things are not mutually exclusive, and that it was consistent denial of an authentic life that was leading to a consistent unhappiness. I stayed under that metaphorical blanket so long that I was blinded by the mere hint of light. If I don't hide from the bad stuff, the bad stuff isn't as bad, and even when it is bad, because life happens anyway, I have so many great moments where I am free that it doesn't all seem like a horrible existence overall. Bad things become bad things and not an indicator of a bad life.
And that is why it took me so long to be happy.
Now, I have to figure out how to make my kid understand that. I'm no closer to answers, really. And while my current resolve is that maybe it's not a completely failure that my 9 year old hasn't learned what it took me 38 years to figure out, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying. Because, after all, I would hate for her to miss out on that kind of happiness for the next 29 years.
So, I guess I have to show by example, and that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep notching away at this particular parenting problem. And- maybe someday- I'll accept that enough time has passed that she's below that 10-15% threshold of destruction. And- many years from now, she'll write a blog post about how she's finally got things figured out...
and I'll laugh and laugh and laugh ( just like my mother is likely doing right now!).
