Striving For Progress Instead of Perfection

After we lost Brody my husband and I had an awakening.  We needed to start living we said.  Stop trying to be in control of every aspect of our lives and just live.  Let things be.  Enjoy our family.  Let the housework go.  Put the phones down and have conversations.  We knew that we were over committed, over worked and exhausted.  We never stopped.  I was, who am I kidding, I still am a controlling type A, who if nothing goes my way watch out or else the horns and tail come out (or so my husband jokingly claims), kind of woman.  Let me assure you that I am not a monster.  I am, in fact, extremely loving and affectionate.  I am wild and crazy and love a bottom of the belly, tears in your eyes, kind of laugh.  I love to have fun, I am way too sensitive for my own good, and my heart is big.  But I depend on routines to get me through the day.  I have commitments and deadlines.  I have rules, and my seven year old usually breaks one of them before the week is over.  I push myself way more than I am physically or mentally capable of and I have put entirely way too much on mine and my family’s plate.  When dinner isn’t ready and on the table by five pm I get anxious and short fused.  When everything isn’t just right and something is out of place my heart starts to race and I immediately find the need to fix things.  When we have just three minutes left in the morning before we need to be in the car and on our way to school and my daughter starts to cry because she doesn’t have her chapstick “like all the other girls in school,” I want to yell.  I want to yell because I am frustrated that we are on our way to being late.  In the moment, nothing else matters other than the thing that I “need” control: time, routines, or the picture that isn’t hanging evenly on the nail in the wall.  Or, I want to yell because of something that wasn’t said the way I wanted to hear it, or the mismatched outfit that my daughter insists on wearing to school. 

So suddenly, the day that we came home from the hospital after losing our baby, we were insisting (or rather desperate) that our daughter sleep in our bed rather than maintain that she wait to crawl in with us until early morning like usual.  We couldn’t let her out of our sight.  Having her with us every second lessened the pain. Suddenly, the dishes sat a little bit longer and the laundry waited to be neatly tucked away into our dresser drawers.  Dinner waited to be served until whenever we felt like eating and the play room floor began to close in from the day to day mess that our daughter made.  To be honest, we let everything go.  But we didn’t care because we were enjoying life and taking it all in; this new thing that we were trying felt good.  Really good.  What had happened to us was bigger than any dirty dish that was hoarding the sink or the laundry basket full of clean and folded, or sometimes freshly crumpled, clothes that consumed our bedroom floors.  Bed times were no longer and we lived life spontaneously.  Suddenly, the only thing that mattered was the three of us and enjoying every moment that we had together, because we realized that it could be taken from us at any given moment.  Of course, this always mattered to us, but there was always something pressing, or so I believed, that was pulling my attention away from the things that mattered.

But, I must admit to you, this “nothing else mattered but us three” thing slowly made its way back to the bottom of the priority list as our lives began to fall back into the everyday chaos that consumed and overwhelmed us.  I went back to work and fell back into my routines, juggling all of our commitments and deadlines and suddenly my controlling, nitpicking, anxiety ridden old self showed her ugly face again, burdening the lives of those I loved the most.  I even caught my husband following behind: harping, short fused, and exhausted.  Little did I realize that I was setting the tone in our house and everyone else was just following along. 

And then it hit me.  Two nights ago I was putting ear drops into my daughter’s ear as she had been complaining: “Water is making those weird sounds again in my ear, mommy.”  She was afraid of those ear drops and had argued with me before about how “they are going to hurt,” or “they will feel weird, mommy, I just know it.”  And before, I would argue back and demand that she just let me put the drops in so she could feel better.  I put them in and this time she didn’t put up a fight.  But as soon as I was finished she looked up at me and asked, “Can I cry, Mommy?”  Holding back tears of my own, I said "of course you can cry."  And I thought, yes my child, please do cry.  Let it all out; because I will comfort you and tell you that it’s all ok.  And then, the regret set in.  Every stop crying, you’re fine moment replayed in my head right then as I was comforting my fearful child.  Every control my daughter’s feelings moment because I just couldn’t handle the drama that would play out for the next ten minutes that I just “didn’t have time” for.  What had I done to my little girl, I thought.  Here I was, telling my child all of her short life that she could tell me anything and I encouraged her to share her feelings with me, yet I was inadvertently depriving her of actually doing just that.  She didn’t cry when I got the ear drops out because she was being dramatic; she was crying because she was afraid.  And I was “too busy” and just too blind to see that.  She needed me to comfort her with a soft voice.  Instead, I scolded her.  Told her to settle down and to be a big girl.  But she didn’t need to be a big girl; she just needed her mom to hold her and assure her fears that it would be OK. 

It’s difficult for me to admit this to you.  Because in doing so, that would mean that I am a mean and heartless mother.  I know that this is not factual, but to the rest of the world who reads this, I was not there for my child and that may speak volumes as to who I might be the rest of the time.  I share this with you in hopes that you may find that you are not alone.  You are not alone in your frustrations or your irrational actions.  If you find the need to control, you are not alone. 

My husband and I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon that was out of town and consequently we could not pick our girl up from school.  Instead, she went with our friends and we wouldn’t be able to pick her up until well after dinner time.  Two nights ago this would have made me anxious.  My heart would have raced and I would have snapped back at my husband because he wasn’t driving fast enough to get back home and into our nightly routine.  This sounds absolutely ridiculous to me as I type.  Regret and guilt begin to consume me again.  BUT, this is today.  This is the beginning of peace and reconciliation.  So, on the drive home, I was relaxed.  My husband and I ate dinner in the car on the drive home.  We talked about our lives and the people that we wanted to be for our daughter, for each other and for ourselves.  We laughed as we talked about our wild and crazy dog who was probably waiting for us at home by the window, like always.  We picked our girl up and when we finally made it home it was time to get ready for bed.  Her homework hadn’t been done and she was asking for dessert.  And so, we let the homework go for just a little while.  We sat on the couch and snuggled and I sat there with ease.  We each had a bowl of ice cream that was exceedingly unhealthy, but I woofed it down anyway.  I was at peace, right here with my family.  No routines, no need to control and not one worry about the time.  And that felt good.  Really, really good.  I realized that my daughter could feel it too.  I could tell by how her shoulders were relaxed and by the warm smile that she looked up at me with as she said, "it’s nice spending time with you, mama."  And when my husband pulled us both into his arms and said, "this is what I love the most, right here" while he squeezed us tight against his chest, I realized that this was exactly where I wanted to be each and every day…

Relaxed and at peace

No routines

No watching the clock

Not controlling one single darn thing

And never, ever acting out irrationally again

And so my friends, I leave you with this:

To the mom who is consumed with deadlines and routines or who survives on being in control; put down the phone.  Shut down your computer.  Let things be.  Even for just a little while.  Watch your children play, or better yet, go play with them.  Eat dinner an hour later and eat the bowl of ice cream.  The laundry can wait and so can the dishes in your sink.  Your family needs you.  

To the dad who follows behind, just like mine; take hold of your wife and remind her that the dishes can wait.  That you need her, that you want her and only her.  

And to everyone else; yesterday’s mistakes are not today’s.  You get a do over each and every day.  Do not become consumed with your regrets or with the guilt that washes over you each time you think about the way you handled the meltdown from your child.  You get to do it right the next time and your family will thank you for it, trust me. 

I am a work in progress.  For the record, I did bark at my husband yesterday for not driving fast enough to our doctor’s office because we were late, as usual.  But I recognized it right away and I changed my behavior.  This morning’s meltdown about the chapstick was resolved by the way I reacted to my child’s behavior.  And what do you know, I found her chapstick in my purse just as soon we got to her school.  I changed my daughter’s entire day because I spoke a little bit softer and I validated her feelings.  I understood that though a measly tube of wax may not matter to me, it does to her, and that’s what’s important.  Finding the chapstick probably made quite a difference too. 

Transformations do not transpire overnight.  They take effort and time; but from here on out, I’ve got all the time in the world for the things that matter the most.