Hi bloggers!
I am not sure if I have exhausted all I would like to say about Eclipses. The idea of a saga or drama, comes from a conversation with my child from earlier today.
She said that she wants a life without all the 'drama'. It kind of made me laugh because as a 12 year old girl, she is always embedded in drama. For her to say this was confusing for me at first. I understand people wanting some peace and no drama...no saga....no series of unpredictable eruptions by trusted adults or good friends. I told her at that moment about how she is always the one bound by the latest drama. She could not deny it so she simply said nothing. I mean everyday to a 12 year old girl is sort of a drama.
Anyway, I cannot say she is not also correct in pointing out that problems at home, that she sees between the trusted adults in her life, are not contributing to her stress. We DO and we are contributing to that. It's very difficult to LOVE your children the right way when you are not experiencing a healthy loving adult relationship and they are seeing that. It's kind of like being on stage doing a performance for an audience. But instead of having practiced ahead of time (out of sight of the audience, who would have no way of knowing that you were incompetent at doing something until it was rehearsed a thousand times), you must improv it all. That is kind of what parenting is like. So a little preparation for the role goes a long way.
I wasn't sure what this blog would be about exactly...I often improvise my writing. Actually, I ALWAYS improvise my writing and I publish immediately, most times without so much as a spell check. I do that because I like to capture the authentic thoughts-good, bad or otherwise. I feel they show the truth about a person. My conversation with Annika was also spontaneous and born from frustration and anger and a temper tantrum and a fight! She was fighting with her brother and I was trying to have a very brief conversation with my mother. I had to hang up with my mother, noting that my children were demanding my attention to the point of being disruptive of a conversation I was attempting to have. She was laughing (which I did not appreciate)...she said she knew how it felt because she had four kids once. I guess I needed to chuckle a bit. It's surreal to whine at your mother because your kids are driving you crazy. It's funny because life is circular. One day Annika may call me and have the same experience! Although she claims she will not be having children, so who knows!
Anyway, this is my Love Blog, and who do I love the way I love my children, right? So let's talk about that. So Annika was completely a mess. Now at this point, my mother was telling me something that actually connected to Annika and her (Annika's) feelings about her school and the future of what school she would be attending. So the more ironic part was that I was talking with my own Mom about Annika and trying to gain understanding of what might have been said that was now contributing to her feelings that were then presenting themselves. Anyway...that might not have made sense to some of you. That makes me laugh.
Ok, so let's try and make sense so that people will read my blogs, shall we?
I talked with Annika for 2 hours. It started with me being on the phone for like 10 minutes with my own mother, and being interrupted from the conversation by my children bickering over who was holding the Wii Controller. Next came me attempting to continue the conversation with my own mom while managing the dispute. I got very upset at my daughter rolling her eyes, yelling back at me and stomping around throwing things. I heard her almost break a bowl. I knew I needed to address what was happening here at home. I let my mom go. I made Annika come sit with me on my bed. I knew that the root of whatever was bothering her was not really about the dispute over the Controller.
It took a long time of trying different "ways in" to get into her thoughts and get her to open up and start sharing. I think some parents give up easily. But because I have always had a very deep and close relationship with Annika, I HAD to find a way in. I HAD to. I cannot stand to feel separated from her and I know it hurts her too. Annika is like my little soul mate. Anyway, we finally did get to that heart to heart connecting. It scared me because it took so long that I thought we would never get there! I was really worried. When I feel worried like that I often ask Archangel Michael to open the path and help me. So far, every time I have called, he has answered. That's a pretty good relationship too.
As for what was really eating my little angel...it wasn't as bad as I thought. She just wants people to acknowledge her for her maturity and not try and keep her "out" of stuff that she is actually capable of "handling". It's a delicate thing (and I explained this to her)...adults DO need to protect young innocent kids from worrying. We do that by analyzing whether the problem can be resolved without them knowing the full depth of it, so as to avoid unnecessary stress. I helped her to understand that some people are better at managing stressful situations then others and that is ok. I also showed her how adult maturity and teen maturity are still WAY different things. For example, as adults who have repeatedly experienced and lived through things, we can see that something will work out ok, whereas a child or teen may be so overwhelmed by something they cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Parents protect their kids from having too many things to worry about.
I sort of felt bad at saying that to her because the truth is, I don't feel I have been doing a very good job at protecting her from that.
My friend Lori recently told me, "we are only human"...and she said this to me after I confessed not being the best example as a mom and yelling and hollering at the other grown up in the house. It helped me to have been forgiven so quickly by someone else. To have her hear about my ugliness and just tell me, "it's ok...you can do better and you will do better. Forgive yourself".
There it is folks- forgive yourself. Love yourself. We do it for others all the time, don't we? So why would it be hard to do it to ourselves and for ourselves?
I guess the only answer is that it shouldn't be.
Moving forward with our day was very fluid after the talk she and I had. We were feeling separated from each other over some problems that were happening in both of our lives. But after we talked a while, that distance grew closer and we saw our sameness and our differentness but we felt closer regardless.
So the saga may continue, because life is full of diversions and intrigues. But don't forget about the eclipses which cause the lines to be blurred and emotions to run high. Breathe deeply and persevere, like we are doing!
~Namaste
Lilac
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