Going to a party and staying for all of it

I know I've written a lot of introvert/extrovert in love posts....  So you probably know that when it comes to parties, Tad and I experience them differently...in our excitement levels to go them, in our desire to stay or leave and at what time...and our next-day feelings about it.

We went to a party on Saturday night. 

When I first received the invite to this party, I presented it to Tad.

"I really want to go to this party." I said. "And I want all of us to go, but more than anything I want to go the WHOLE thing. I don't want to be the first people to leave. I don't even want to be the second people to leave.  So we could all go, or I could just go with the kids.  It's up to you. But I want to go to the whole thing."

We all went.

And Tad made it clear that he was going to the party with me and that he understood I would most likely not want to leave. Ever.  Or until everyone was gone and we were being ushered towards the door. 

I had a lovely time and laughed and talked and ate chili and chocolate cake and squash and quinoa salad...  My kids all but disappeared with their friends. 

And about the time of night when I'm usually beginning to hide on Tad so he can't make eye contact with me and tell me its time to go, I found him on the porch happily engaged in conversation.

And we weren't the first to leave. Or even the second. In fact, we were among the last, all leaving together out into the cricket chirping, post-rain, almost ten o' clock, autumn night.

When the kids were buckled in and Tad shut his door, I reached over and grabbed his face and kissed him.  And said, "Thank you."

Going to a party and staying for all of it makes me very, very happy.

It's complicated.

Last night I went to a meeting--a steering committee I'm on. And I was listening to everyone talk and throw out ideas for this conference we were planning.  I thought all the different stuff that goes on in cities and towns...  All the different non-profits doing similarly aligned things, all the different places serving youth, or people with disabilities, or elders or people of different racial and cultural and religious backgrounds... and it just hit me how very strange it is how most of us humans just want to be healthy and safe and want our friends and family to be healthy and safe...  But how we all disagree so much on how to do it...Or we're doing things working toward the same goals or missions yet not working together.  So many non-profits or government agencies are doing things that serve the same purpose but doing them in opposition to each other or in competition with each other and my goodness...how sad that is.

And then on the way to work this morning, I listened to NPR and the news of the government shut-down and saw on Facebook how my friend Patti (and so many others are) now without work or pay and the people in the middle of needing government help at a standstill...until the shutdown shuts up.  And sometimes I'm just overwhelmed about how complicated it all is, all these SYSTEMS that have muddled and confused and mucked up just the very simple idea of humans (and animals, and our planet) being healthy and safe. 

I know it's all a lot more complicated than that...but we've made it so, haven't we?  I wonder what the answer is...

The line between respect and indulgence...

Effing picture day. 

If you recall, last year at picture day, they almost had to call me to come and help at school because Lucy was having a picture day breakdown.  The photographer said, "Smile!" And Lucy felt that she did smile.  But she was urged, cajoled and asked again and again to smile.  Resulting in her breaking down into tears and her teacher jumping to her aide.  At the end of the whole thing, it resulted in the above photo once they got to the group shot.  Which I will treasure forever.

So, leading up to this year's picture day, Lucy has been pretty high anxiety, asking, "What if they tell me to smile and then they don't think my smile is big enough."  I told Lucy that it was her picture and that her daddy and I are paying for it and we're fine with whatever face she wants to make.

This turned into her making a lot of pretty crazy practice faces, leading into the picture day.  I started to worry--will she roll her eyes?  Will she stick out her tongue?  I mean, I really am fine with whatever face she makes, but I don't want her to seem disrespectful either...   I told her that I talked to her teacher, wrote on the picture order envelope that she can smile however she likes...  She talked about picture day all day yesterday and into the night.  Obviously her anxiety around this is real.

But I wondered, am I indulging too much. I mean, when it comes down to it, it does seem a little ridiculous. Who cares?! Just smile for the picture for crying outside!  But my girl has boundaries and while she is a loving, smart, funny kid, she does NOT do things that don't feel right to her. 

This morning, she chose a red velvet Christmas dress to wear in her picture.  Then she asked me to cut the white fleece Santa Clause cuffs off the arms.  Fine with me.  She even brought a brush downstairs and asked me to help her comb her hair.  Then off we went to school.  As soon as we got to her coat hook, her friend came up and said, "Lucy! I don't understand why you don't just smile pretty in the picture like I'm going to!"  Tears immediately sprang to her eyes.

Obviously this is a big deal to her.  I kind of wanted to just agree with her friend, but I also was just beside myself that we had finally made it to picture day, she was feeling fine...and now we were in tears again.

Anyway, I got her situated in her room, and she clung to me and didn't want me to leave.  I knelt down by her and held her hands and looked into her eyes and told her that everything was fine and that picture day would be fine and that I'd come back and get her at the end of the day and she could tell me all about it.  In the end, her teacher had to come and hold her arm so she would stop clinging to me and I could leave.

Man, it's hard to be a mom sometimes.

And I had to wonder....where is the line between indulging her and respecting her very real and very powerful feelings of anxiety?

I know that people would have opinions about this from one end to the other.

But the truth is, I'm Lucy's mom. And I'm doing my best.  And I can only hope I'm doing right by her, respecting her fears, feelings and wishes...and pushing her to do her own thing.

Communication, force fields and marriage.

I wrote a blog post last month called working on my introvert care skills and I really have been.  Working hard on them.  That is.

Since my introvert partner is a teacher, I know that he has to spend his energy on at least thirty other people all day long. And then come home to be a parent to two more people and a partner to one.  Since I'm one of the only adults in this scenario, I try to make sure that when his energy reads of inwardness to me, that means he wants to listen to music or watch sports or read without me and my rays of loud energy that want constant reverb, playback, trampoline return...call it what you will....So, I've been going into our room to read when he's on the couch clearly relaxing.  I've been trying not to take it personally when he just wants a little quiet and peace in the house. Event though I might want some togetherness and noise.   It's been going well...leading us to more understanding I think.

However.

The other night, Tad sat on the couch, turned on music and seemed like he wanted to talk.  So I came in to join him. 
"SO!" I said. 
"I'm just turning some music on here." He said, smiling. 
So I joined him and started talking about my day.
Like this...

 

 

And he was listening as he drank his tea, relaxing, and the music played but I just got mad.  I didn't want him to listen to me with his eyes closed. I wanted him to lean forward in rapt attention! I wanted him to ask me really interesting and probing questions.  I wanted him to not look tired.  Or even be tired. I wanted him to find me so fascinating and enthralling, that it was like he wasn't even teaching all day long without any breaks! 

 

And frankly, I was very impatient. I didn't even wait more than thirty seconds into telling about my day before I sort of stormed off..  I was imagining the scene more like this:

 



Me.
Exploding onto Tad's force field of calm and tranquility. 

So when I went into the porch area to get some sewing supplies together and then knocked fifty drumsticks on to the ground with a lot of loud clattering and then walked back through the living room without looking at him, he said, "Hey. What are you doing?"

Turns out, he did want to sit and talk.  He did miss me.  He was just tired and happy to sink into the couch and relax while we reconnected.  Perhaps he could have opened his eyes and looked at me. But he didn't know how important that was to me.  Perhaps I could have waited thirty seconds longer and he would have reacted more how I wanted him to. But I didn't know that he actually did want to hang out. 

So funny how with just a little more communication...
Like if Tad had said, "Hey! I want to hang out with you tonight"
Or if I had said, "Do you want to hang out, or should I give you some space?"

We would have had a situation much more like this:

 

Like, I think, we both wanted in the first place.

 

Ah, what a lovely bunch of life lessons marriage can give us.

 

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft. 

That's the sound of me making a loud, obnoxious noise.  

 

Weird

Tonight at dinner Lucy was expressing concern about what one of her classmates said.
"She said I'm weird." Lucy said. "And she said I'm gross."

Tad and I immediately jumped to her aid and defense.
"You're not gross!" 
Tad got up and hugged her.
"But you are weird."

Lucy started to protest.

"That just means you're not like everybody else." Tad said. "You're weird.  I'm weird.  Your brother's weird!"

"Yeah!" Coen chimed in.  "Me and my friends are like some of the weirdest kids in the school!  At least that's what we're trying to be."

"Tell me about it." Tad said.

Lucy still looked a little unsure.

"Your mommy's the weirdest woman I ever met!" Tad went on. "Kids in high school used to tell me that I was weird when I was just walking around the halls, doing nothing!"

"Lucy" I said, taking her little hand, "It's wonderful to be weird.  You're wonderful and weird. And we love you."

Tad picked her up and tipped her upside-down. "You're a wonderful, weird girl!"

Lucy started to laugh.  

"We're all weird."

And this is where we belong.

Terrified...or how I just want everyone to feel good all the time.

We had four boys overnight this weekend for Coen's birthday.  This brought me a lot of anxiety.  First of all, Coen chose four boys for this endeavor.  I kept suggesting other boys to invite because, I worried, their feelings would be hurt were they not invited.  Coen wanted only four.  He's an introvert, like his Daddy, and he knows the number that will work for him.

"But it's an uneven number!" I said to Tad, still rallying for an extra kid.  "Uneven numbers are trouble."
"Maybe for girls." Tad said, "But for boys, you're fine as long as you have three or more. Three is the magic number."
"Man." I said. "Three girls at a sleepover spells DISASTER!"

But Saturday came and Coen's four friends arrived.  I could barely contain my buzzing nerves.  I was endlessly thankful that Tad is my partner. Tad, who is a teacher and handles 28 kids (more than half of them boys) every day.  Tad who is really really good at talking to kids reasonably, taking into account that they are human beings, but still getting them to do what he wants them to do.  Tad who is entirely even tempered and can laugh thirty seconds after reprimanding someone for saying "Shut up." to someone else...by suggesting, that a person could--if shutting up were their aim--just ask the other person nicely to stop talking...

The other thing that stressed me out was that our neighbors were over when the party started and I was just so incredibly freaked out about hurting the feelings of the kid who was not invited to sleep over, though he joined us for dinner and left after.  I wanted to go knock on the door of his house and talk with his parents for thirty minutes about how much we like him and how much I am worried that his feelings were hurt...  Tad suggested that might be unnecessary. 

Tad and I stood in the kitchen talking while the boys ran up and down the stairs, laughed with each other, talking and playing...
"I'm like...terrified of them."  I admitted.  "What's wrong with me? I feel so incapable!"
"You're not incapable." Tad laughed. "It's a bunch of boys.  It's just boys.  Anyway. I'm just doing my part. I mean, you almost fainted when I mailed a letter the other day.  You do plenty around here.  I can handle this."
I thought about that.  That was true.  I spent the day prior cleaning out the basement, taking stuff to goodwill, trimming all the weeds and errant saplings around our yard.  I manage our household.  And for heaven's sake, I teach teenagers about sex for my job. 

Is it really that I'm afraid of these kids? No, I know each one of these boys, have known most of them since they were three years old.  They are sweet kids.  They are goofy kids.  They're not much different from my kid.  

So what am I afraid of?  What is it that gives me such anxiety, that keeps me from volunteering to take a group of kids in my son's class on an outing? That makes me so glad Tad's there to help during a sleepover? 

I think...it all comes down to this. I don't want anyone to have hurt feelings.  That's why I wish we could have invited everyone in the world overnight so no one was left out.  That's why I felt nervous at the group of them. I mean...what if someone is mean to someone else? What if someone gets bullied?  What if I have to tell someone to stop being mean to someone else and that makes them feel bad? Oh my gosh, it's ridiculous! 

I mean, in my very smart brain I know that sometimes people just have to feel bad. It's a part of life.  To learn how to get through feeling bad and then feel good again.  But I just don't like having to tell someone to stop something or that they can't have something or just saying no to anything at all.  I know. It's completely silly.

I've been working on my practice for YEARS of being really nice to people--without being a doormat.  I totally can do it.  Anyway...that's just the truth about me.  I get nervous about having to do anything that might make someone feel bad in any way..  That's just me! Don't look at me like that!

Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt your feelings?  Oh my gosh, I didn't mean to. Here. Have a box of cookies.

Thanks Louis C.K.

Tad and I watched Conan the other night and Louis C.K. gave this wonderful speech about cell phones.  If you don't want to click on it, I'll tell you.  Basically he said that he's not letting his kids (who are 8 and 12) get cell phones.  Because they don't need them yet.  Because why rush the inevitable time when they'll live, not in the moment but in the constant checking and texting and facebooking moments so many of us live in now.  Because his job is not to make them happy, or do things he doesn't believe in for them just so they don't feel weird.  His job is to nurture the adults they are going to become...

I loved his rant.

I'll tell you why.

What he said rang very true to me.  Life is sad.  Life is so incredibly sad. And sometimes you just get hit with the realization or the thought or the feeling that you are just so very alone.  And that is terrifying.  So we text someone or call someone or go on Facebook to see other people so that we don't allow ourselves to feel that sadness. Or feel that loneliness.

Yesterday I had to go to a breakfast event and as I pulled away from my house I realized I had forgotten my phone.  And at first, I was like...should I go back and get it? But I kept driving.  And I parked at work and walked to the breakfast event (about a mile away).  And on my way there, I just looked at the city, coming alive in the sunrise and sort of just felt it breathing.  It made me want to yell "GOOD MORNING!"  And I was wearing my tennies, my fancy shoes tucked inside my purse to put on when I got there.  That made me feel like a real business lady!  I smiled most of the way there.

And had I remembered my phone, I would not have felt anywhere near that alive.  Because I would have called someone...or texted someone...or just looked at it to remind myself that I could connect with someone...anyone else.  But instead I connected with me.

And then, after the breakfast event ended, because it was supposed to rain, my coworker offered me a ride home.  I looked out the window as we left and said, "No. It looks like it's not raining yet. Thanks! I'll walk back."  And then I got outside and it was raining.  I guess looking out the window into an enclosed courtyard is not a good indication of whether or not it is indeed precipitating.  At any rate, I walked.  And I kind of grinned at people around me and not once but TWICE different business men offered space under their umbrellas at the corners.  And finally it was just me, walking in the drizzling rain and feeling wide awake and happy. I smiled at everyone I passed (and people either smiled back or avoided eye contact with me--really a pretty sane response either way!) 

I stopped and took a picture of my city, glistening wet in the rain and waking up.

And you know, I've done that before,  walked like that, only when I was feeling sad and let that feeling wash over me too. And I have cried like a big buffoon, just cried my eyes out for no good reason at all except that I just felt so tremendously overwhelmingly sad.  It it felt lovely.  How good it feels to feel!  So thanks Louis C.K. for the sentiment.  I want to crash through all the joy and grief and pain and love in my life and really let it in.

And I want to teach my kids to do that too. And I would change one thing about what you said.  I would say that I am nurturing not just the adults that my kids will become but simply the human beings that they are now, from whom they have grown and that they will be.  And do my best to teach them how to be alive.