Some days are pretty much like feeling your way through a dark room during a power outage—you know the lay of the land but in the dark sometimes you walk into a piece of furniture nonetheless. Still, if you’re astute enough to track the weather and know there’s a potential to lose power, likely you’ve at least set out what you’ll need to navigate the darkness. You may still bang a knee or a foot into the furniture in your effort to retrieve a flashlight or lamp, the light helps at least a little bit. Honestly, that’s how today has felt as I’ve limped through the day physically (because of my knee) as well as mentally and emotionally. Physical pain eventually wears on me and influences my focus and my emotions; but I also opted to guide my teenagers into some new unschooling territories today.
I am fairly certain my 17 year old may disagree, at least at first, but our foray into these new territories was pretty successful. However, it was also a bit more draining on all of us than I anticipated. Fortunately, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my girls have become incredibly generous in extending grace my way. Today was no exception. And today, it was definitely that proverbial cup of cold water in the desert. In fact, it helped me to take a step back from some of the initial too-loud broken soundtrack declarations that today was a mess, a failure, and that I didn’t get anything done that I was supposed to do.
None of those declarations are true. Okay, well, except that first one, because today was a bit messy, but some days are and that is not necessarily a bad thing, nor does it mean the day was a failure. It does mean I’m human. We’re human, my teenagers and me. Honestly, I don’t mind messy; for me, that translates into progress and even inching along progress that is messy and emotional is still progress.
What I am celebrating about all of this new and messy adventure today is the way my girls have shown up as this day has wound down and I needed that perspective shift, that paradigm shift. There was a part of me that wanted to quit. To wallow. To look only at the worst parts of things. But as I moved through some of our end-of-the-day activities, I paused long enough to acknowledge to myself how I was feeling and why. Even more, I was able to take in several deep breaths and whisper up some mostly jumbled, pretty unintelligible prayers. You may know these kinds of prayers—the ones that tumble out with the trusted words, God, help, please, I can’t.
And, as He tends to do, God showed up in my girls (even if they don’t realize that just yet). They brought me grace and empathy and lended their help in some small but important ways that helped me focus on what I needed to do. I knew things were more okay than I realized when my 17 year old came into the kitchen and relayed that my moment of overwhelm where I teetered on the edge of a meltdown, was really not all that intense, it was like nothing at all. That observation was a gift because I’ve been working on tempering my reactive moments.
The second moment of realizing things were more okay than I thought came through my 14 year old, who acknowledged we didn’t get to the one thing I’d said this morning we were definitely going to get to. She apologized that we weren’t able to get to it, and I was able to acknowledge her in return, for her hard work and all that all three of us had accomplished today. Because of the shift in perspective I was to make beneath their shower of grace earlier, I was able to embrace our day for the messy success it was. Did I maybe stumble my way in the dark today, banging a toe into the dresser in the dark I was feeling my way through? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t trade this day or these two remarkable young women for anything. Every day, when I sit down at this keyboard, I get to see just how incredible these two teenagers truly are.