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July 25, 2007
(overheard)
(John and Gus have just gone in the bathroom to brush teeth)
John: This toothpaste? (we have two 'blue' kinds, with flouride, and about three different 'baby' toothpastes without flouride)
Gus: Not THAT one, THAT one!
John: That one is for little kids.
Gus: (with a hurt voice) But I'M a little kid!
...this is coming from a kid who keeps espousing how old he is going to be and how tall...
Posted by janna at 08:47 PM
July 09, 2007
Learning my own lessons
Let's say I make Gus angry about something, and let's say that it required my apology. Often when I say sorry, Gus says, "There are no sorries."
Wow.
This has come up several times, and in these moments, I always think, "There has to be sorry, sometimes you have to trust that the person is being sincere, that they wish it didn't happen or they wish they had done something differently." How can he not accept my apology?
And then when I start to feel stuck, like I don't know what to do or say next, I stop and think about myself, and think about the fact that I'm trying to teach him a lesson I'm not learning very well myself...or better said, am struggling with and want to get better at.
I grew up an only child, but I also grew up knowing that I had a half-brother and a half-sister. I recently reached out to my sister, whom I haven't seen since I was seven, with the thought that I didn't care why we hadn't seen each other, just that we need to move forward, that I want to be able to tell my children that I did the hard thing, the right thing, and reached out. And it was hard...but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (it often isn't, oddly enough). It was one of those situations where the distance of time was wider and wider, and in your mind the divide seems too wide to ever repair or cross, so why even try? But it was time, it was time to do it, it was time to stop ignoring the situation. And we're communicating now, and trying to understand our respective perspectives and learn from each other, but anger has come up and has consumed me at times... emotion that is no longer allowed to sit unstirred is swirling within me. It's funny how 'facing' your past does that, and why so many of us avoid it. But here I have been, sorting and addressing and analyzing my emotions, when I suddenly have these moments with Gus, where he refuses to accept my apology, and I realize that I've been like Gus to my sister, that I've been choosing to sit in my anger rather than figure out how to move beyond it.
So my new lesson to myself is this: I'm letting myself feel what I feel, just as I'm letting Gus feel what he feels, without berating, without belittling, without judgment. But. I'm also deciding to let the anger go. Because it festers. Because it moves nothing forward. Because, in the end, I'm the only one that can stop it. It doesn't matter how many times a person says sorry... you have to decide when enough is enough. No other person can do that for you.
While these past couple of months have been a rollercoaster of confusion and emotion, I'm feeling more alive, more aware, than I have in a really long time. And in the end, I really want Gus and Eli to have another Aunt...and I could really use a sister.
Posted by janna at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)