What I like about writing my blog is the ability to share my perspective, both personal and professional. The professional piece is what I know to be true and the personal piece is what I think to be true.
Ever notice how easy it is to feel confident when making decisions in your professional life that you know are well founded based on experience or what feels like common sense? Or how easy it is to look at a friend’s situation and see the obvious conflict or problem and solution when they can’t seem to wrap themselves around it?
And yet when it comes to our own lives, our own personal decisions, which impact our children and those we love the most, our emotional investment seems to let the clouds roll in blocking the sun which once illuminated all we thought we knew.
Frustrating isn’t it?
I’m at one of those points in life. A place of discontent, sadness, anxiety, and confusion. It sucks. And yes, I realize it now feels like one of those Facebook posts where someone says “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” leaving you hanging, wondering what’s up, and then annoyed that you have to wait to find out what’s wrong, just to satisfy your curiosity. I get it. That drives me nuts. But the why right now isn’t as important as It Just Is. And I’m betting you can relate.
So here I am in my place of confusion and sadness which has been slowly taking over my life. The stress is beating on me and I’ve allowed it. I am now taking the turn towards giving myself permission to just be freaking sad and get on with it. Hear the hint of frustration there? I have such little patience for misery and yet, I KNOW in order to get past it, I have to FEEL it all so I can move on. Turns out, its not easy, even when you know how to take care of yourself, take the steps to do so, continually search for the positives and still your heart is saying, “uh, still hurting here.” Yeah, I know, can we just move on already??
In the meantime, I have these beautiful children who need me and watch my every move. They look to me for support and are gauging how to feel by what I show them. In the beginning, I felt compelled to show them only my strengths, my happy moments, that everything is okay. But everything is not okay. At least not right now. And life can be hard…very, very hard. And that is a truth that they are learning and will continue to learn. And I want to be the influence that shows them the truth in a way that protects them and exposes them at the same time.
I made a decision to teach them what Living while managing personal pain looks like. Some days I cry, some days I keep to myself, some days I make their favorite meals, and other days I ask them cook for themselves. Some days I give them extra hugs and some days I don’t want anyone near me. But every single day, I tell them I love them. We talk about how our transition feels. We problem solve getting through it. We identify our emotions and we apologize if we sense we’ve overstepped our limits. Are we doing it right? Yes, for us, we are. Is it text book? Nope. But it’s still right – for us.
My kids are learning personal boundaries, ways to cope, how to express themselves and what unconditional love looks like. Through our pain and sadness, it’s a life lesson supported by hope…hope that we will get through it, come out stronger and learn something amazing about ourselves when we reach the other side.
As a professional I know which techniques work and which ones don’t work, but I don’t know which will work for each kid and each family. It’s all trial and error. Parenting too, is trial and error and after the various trials and accompanying doubt and guilt have subsided, sometimes Faith that we are doing it well is all we really have. Today I have Faith that this mother is loving her children the best way she knows how. And that my friends, feels good.