Vise

I am going to tell you a short story that is maybe/probably/mostly true. To be honest, I haven’t fact-checked it, because the story in my mind is quite possibly my favorite tale about childhood, period.

Why? 

Because this story sums up so much in one powerful moment.  And also because, in it’s most perfect way, it foreshadows something that is often our biggest dilemma in adulthood. 

And so…

----

A little girl – a toddler at the time – went on a short trip with her father, and by the end of their wandering, they returned home with a tray of chicks.  It’s likely that among his reasons for purchasing the creatures, the father may have hoped that the family would raise these small golden puffs into hens, so that the little girl and her siblings could experience the lessons held in raising animals (which are many) as well as eat fabulously yummy, orange-yolked eggs, laid in a coop with ample space and food and fresh air, and not in chicken-jail.  At least that is how it plays in my mind.

This was a day of life and hope and anticipation.

But as this little girl held the first chick in her cradled fingers, she became so excited – so swept away by this wonderful small thing, something just her size, and so soft – that before anyone realized it had happened, without her knowledge and certainly without her intent, she had smothered it. 

-----

This is the moment. 

I don’t know if the girl even knew what had happened, though if you are concerned, she is a sweet and happy girl who seems unaffected by the event.  Her father may have simply taken the chick from her tiny hands and laid it elsewhere, possibly distracting her with a phone or snack or, as it would be in our family, mommy’s hairclips.  Regardless, she will probably hear the account told at her wedding, or eighteenth birthday, or her high school graduation, to the giggles of her peers and reflective gaze of her parents.

But I want to tell it now. 

I want to tell it now because I need this story; because I am this story.  I am the little girl who is smothering the things I love most. 

I love my son, Milo, and because I love him so fiercely, I want to control everything that happens to him.  I want it to be good and safe and healthy, and for it to promote learning and development, but only where there are wood chips covering the ground and bumpers on the sharp things and someone there to praise him with a smile bigger than the sun. 

I love my husband, Craig, and because I love him so fiercely, I want his job to be challenging [but not stressfully so] and his hobbies exciting [but not risk his safety] and his friendships deep [but never hurt him].

I love my freedom, and because I love it so fiercely, I want it to be all-encompassing and limitless, but never oblige me to go beyond what is comfortable, and never require me to endure injury or pain or sacrifice for its sake, or in in its enjoyment, ever ask that I

arrive

on

time.

Yet, after these reflections, I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone.  I have heard enough tales of regret from others to be certain of this.  We are each like a child, holding a chick in our small hands for the very first time. And without really meaning to, we can be so overcome by the sheer force of our captivation that we may very well squeeze to death the thing we love so fiercely.

This Christmas season, join me as I make myself aware of the things that I am seeking, because of the brokenness of my love, to control or contain, and then as I, in small and big ways, work to loosen my constricting grip on them, that they may

breathe

and

flourish

and 

live

[and lay fabulous eggs].

Just pretend it's a chicken.

Of Spilled Milk and Modern Warfare

Wednesday's lunch was rough.  Broccoli seemed to be flying everywhere and Milo was repeatedly dropping his blue sippy cup of milk off of the ledge of his high chair table, generously spattering bubbles of sticky fluid on the wood floor that comprises his messy, ever-increasing domain.  A domain I had, not two hours earlier, vacuumed and mopped.  Labor made obsolete in seconds by two tiny hands and a healthy lunch.  

POOF.

The mess had nothing to do with what made lunch so tragic.   What had actually sent me careening off course was the presence of that devil-headed bane of humans everywhere: 

failure.  

It set upon me like a guided missile, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, with a bang.

I rarely cry.  It is something of a point of pride for me, which I’m discovering is 1) prideful, 2) a little barbaric, and 3) more than a little graceless.  Well, while I was attempting to ladle mounds of blueberry yogurt into my son’s yammer, I was completely. losing. it.  

And he thought it was laugh-out-loud hilarious.  Point, Milo.

Backstory: I had booked an appointment at an optometrist.  They had an opening due to a cancellation the next day, and it was -gasp- on the exact day that my hubs was taking off – a miracle!  No need to inconvenience anyone [except my husband, again...]!  Huzzah!  I had been putting off the eye doctor for awhile, which I think was starting to drive Craig nuts, since I was talking about it every other day, and this opening seemed like providence.  

Could I make it?  

YES.  YesYesYes.

It felt like I’d won the lottery.

Until I realized that I didn’t know what day it was.  This took place on Wednesday.  Which I failed to realize.  Or rather, that my appointment was the next day, on Thursday.  Which is not the same as Friday.  Which again, I failed to realize.

Because I stay at home and don’t work and never look at a calendar because I don’t work and stay at home and have no purpose and can’t even keep a floor clean or remember that it’s Wednesday.

Ugh.  That’s when it got ugly.  I won’t go into the depths of it, because no one wants to experience that twice, but the bottom line is that I was feeling like a total and utter flop.   

Something I’m learning as I stay home with Milo is that the voices I have allowed to survive in my head are, in part, incredibly unkind.  We are always cultivating our minds, by what we plant and prune and water, and I have allowed a split crop of self-pity and nasty self talk to take root.  I don’t think I am alone.  You might be a dad or mom at home, like me, or perhaps you are working full time, or are single, or unemployed, or retired, or married, or divorced, or widowed, or like grape soda or run a circus, or run a circus while drinking grape soda – which, I don’t know, sounds sort of great.  Regardless of your circumstance and role, I have a sinking feeling that you also beat yourself up every now and again.  

Or again and again.

Today I remind myself, and perhaps, you, that what I need more than a clean floor or a full schedule is a serious helping of grace, accompanied by a wake-up-you-crazy-person slap across the jaw.  

The world is full of ammunition.  Full of smooth stones named comparison and pride and lies.  

And as we walk among this weaponry, some of us choose to throw these stones at the people around us.  Others carry them in our arms until the burden is so heavy that we can’t walk.  

Good glory, child.  Put. down. the. weapons. *Smack*

Newsflash:  We will never be enough.  Not for this broken world.  

Never busy enough, or put-together enough. 

Not witty enough or perceptive enough.  

Never attentive enough or organized enough. 

Not rich enough or selfless enough.  

Never fit enough or well-read enough or relaxed enough or patient enough or exceptional enough.

So quit playing by the wrong rules.  Cry when you need to cry.  Scream sometimes.  The world does not need another person who is too crippled by fear and self-loathing to function.  It needs you.  It needs me.  It needs the character that you have and your smile, and my hands and my voice.  It needs your love and your listening ears and my laugh and my feet.  It needs us to clean up the rubble so that the next person can walk in the clear.

Handlettering work by the amazing Jessa B..

I will need to wake each and every morning and remind myself that this is still true: today, tomorrow, and the 20,000 days after that.  But it is necessary for me, and it is necessary for you.  

Because that broccoli is coming, baby, and we'd better be ready.

In Over My Head

I like to think that each of us has a small list of terrors that we’ve never been able to mentally conquer.  I know I do.  They say that a person should never live in fear, but I feel confident that intermittent moments of panic can keep life exciting as well as promote advances in human ingenuity.  For example, if no child had ever been afraid of monsters, would we have night-lights?

I think not.

This is my fear shortlist.  Feel free to leave a comment containing yours - or we could just wait for that fateful day when we bump into each other at the beach and suddenly find ourselves being chased into the water by giant nutcracker dolls.  

So, what fills my nightmares, you ask?

Spiders – I don’t care if they are big, small, hairy, spindly, bright, dull, strung on a web or trapped in a cage.  If it has eight legs, I hate it, and will readily baptize it in the raging river of an American Standard.  No exceptions.

Deep water – I do love me some tropical beach, so please understand that I’m not referring to the deep end of a pool or bodysurfing on icy Atlantic waves.  What I’m talking about is black-as-night, teeming with evil jellyfish, great white shark-infested waters.  You like free diving?  Fabulous.  Swimming the English Channel for a charity?  Send me a support letter.   But I’d rather ride a bicycle made of bacon through a pack of rabid dogs than dip my toe in the Bermuda Triangle.   

www.thatwouldsuck.blogspot.com

No.  Possible.  Way.

Skin diseases – I know that there must be a reader out there who is dealing with a destructive and painful epidermal affliction.  I am so genuinely sorry, but if I were to leave this number off of my list, I would be lying to you.   I like to give blood.  I loved dissection in A & P lab.  I didn’t even mind taking a course in disease and pathology (that is, aside from the searing cognitive plutonium known as STD slides – if we were to start showing these images in 6^th grade health class, teen pregnancy would instantly be a non-issue).  I even like watching surgeries on television.  However, if there is one thing that I cannot stand the mental (let alone visual) picture of, it’s covered under the umbrella of skin disease.  I can deal with eczema, psoriasis, or even poison ivy, but when you start using adjectives like flaky, scaly, and puss-filled in the same sentence, my mind starts melting down like chocolate in August and I have to start singing America’s Top 40 to fend of the shakes. 

Lurkers – Whenever I arrive at our house down south, my first act is always to go find my trusty baseball bat under the bed, and to walk in and out of every room (checking in every closet and under every bed) to be sure that I have no lurkers lying in wait for me.  The other week I drove home without C, and due to the intense creakiness of our house combined with baseboard heaters and with my overactive imagination, I fell asleep in a half-seated position with my right hand clutching my bat.  I had even planned out the best manner by which to thrust it upon waking, should the need arise.  If you try to play on this fear for a good laugh, be warned.  I will swing at you.  And it will be your fault.

www.awidernet.com

There are more fears where this list came from, but these are the majors, and I’ve reached a necessary-stopping point.  I Googled “skin disease” to try to come up with better verbal imagery for you, and the images that popped up may leave me unable to speak.  Permanently.

You’re welcome.