The other day I got mad.
BIG mad.
The kind that had me calling two kids to the couch for a bit of an “awakening;”
The kind they’ll probably tell stories about to their own kids.
I’d already been frustrated all morning after taking in too much information about the happenings of the world, and seeing the widespread lack of compassion.
The news these days riles me in ways that apparently no amount of epsom salts can undo.
I’ve started buying them at Costco, if that tells you anything.
Next I’ll be having them just back a dump truck in.
I regularly toss my phone and walk away to take deep breaths.
I didn’t need to add an issue with my ipad no longer working in the middle of an illustration job.
“Is this a joke?! Am I being punked?!” I said to the sky.
I almost Googled being cryogenically frozen.
I had already been one step from going full Goldie Hawn in Overboard,
and just “Buh buh buh”ing through the rest of the day when the two youngest girls started in with attitudes rooted in selfishness, which I see as one of this world’s most systemic problems, one of the causes of this mess in the first place, and so “NOT TODAY, SATAN” is what my whole being said.
I’ve faced all kinds of things in my 25 years of mothering.
I think selfishness will be my hottest button until the very end.
As I lectured them, I felt flushed all over.
I could feel my jugular veins bulging.
I could hear my own pulse in my head.
With the passion of an activist, I talked to them so firmly that, by the end, both of their eyes were bulging, and they were making efforts to look sideways at each other in solidarity without me noticing it.
“I did NOT raise either of you to live selfishly!
To see this show up in you like this really disappoints me!
Selfishness draws people inward, and creates smallness in your character.
Being open and giving to other people is the only way to make your life truly big!”
I felt really pleased with my lecture, actually.
Good points, solid theme, patted myself on the back,
and then I even ended it with the dramatic twist of grabbing my water bottle and going to my room, fuming, with heavy footsteps.
I closed the door behind me with an extra forceful “I hope you were both listening” click;
But, as soon as I sat on my bed I noticed I did not feel better, or happier.
As a matter of fact, in that moment, I felt more isolated, more frustrated,
now almost to the point of also feeling sick.
I let minutes pass as I fought crying, feeling positively surrounded by a growing darkness.
Was the world and even my own household so self-focused that they would refuse to see simple ways they could reach out, or love each other, or offer help?
Tone of voice, listening instead of speaking, waiting to respond until after you’ve taken a breath.
These seem like simple lessons, right? Why was no one getting it?!
I’ve worked on these things since they were so young!
Why, then, was I still teaching this?!
And then, sitting there on my own bed,
after my own anger had risen, and my own buttons had exploded when pressed,
I heard a voice ask me if I was just SPEAKING understanding and love, or if I was truly living it.
In that moment, from somewhere above, I saw my own self.
Humbled, I called each girl in, one at a time, and started by apologizing to them for letting my anger get to the point where I had raised my voice at them.
I don’t want our home to feel like that: Angry and frustrated.
I calmly explained my morning, and ways I’d already felt because of it.
Through tears, each girl hugged and comforted me, and I also hugged and comforted them.
A half hour later, the air was cleared, we had all been heard,
and since then things have felt better. The air is more breathable.
They are showing me that they truly understood.
I realized that, without them having to listen to the anger, it was much easier for them to hear what it was I actually said.
Since that day, I have thought about that moment in all of my interactions;
The ones in person, and online; Even with strangers I have never met.
I haven’t done it perfectly by any means, but it’s been a reminder that conversations go better when people feel heard, and words are more calmly spoken to them.
Since that day I have felt very strongly that it’s the only way we’re going to make it out of this.
Things push my buttons so often lately. It’s like the whole world got turned up a notch.
I am sad, and I’m exhausted.
The combo of perimenopause hormones and current events in the government might just be my death, but no change will come if we are always just yelling over one another.
I think maybe we all just need a soft bed to sit on, at our core, and someone saying,
“I love you too much to let that be how we leave it.”
Our common ground is much easier to see if we can face each other,
apologize about how we hurt one another,
and explain our own pain and our wishes instead.
Of course there will always be problems.
The world’s people will sometimes hold insurmountable differences,
but there are so many lessons to be learned from one-on-ones at a bedside with soft voices and open arms,
from lessons that come from a place, not of anger, but of rest.
As I hugged the second daughter I called in to apologize to, I thought,
“I think this is how we move forward from it all, actually. Just like this.”
We wouldn’t have gotten far that day together very well if it had ended in the tone left by that forceful door click;
But, coming with gentleness and humility can work to hand us the shovel we need to move mountains, even if it’s just little by little;
What is piled up can be chipped away at,
even if it takes us a while to dig.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
