My children teach me many things: how to love deeper than I thought possible, how to dream with an absolute confidence of success, how to laugh so hard that my eyes brim with tears, and oh, so much more. The cool thing about how my kids teach me is the manner in which their lessons appear: wholly unexpected, undeniably wise, and overwhelmingly relevant.
During March and April of this year, I made incredible and unsurpassed progress along my journey to wellness. Having passed more than three decades peppered with seemingly inevitable murky periods of deep depression and high anxiety, I have often wondered if mental, physical, and spiritual health would ever be mine to claim. But then I stumbled upon first one book, and then another and another, the words and insight of each weaving softly together to fashion a deliciously cozy cape of comfort and hope. I felt connected to the Universe and to God in a manner which was previously outside my experience. Triumphant, I shed the fear of God which had been bestowed on me as a dark gift from my well-meaning parents and the teachers and ministers of my fundamentalist upbringing. Suddenly, I understood. God is love, and the only real thing is love.
I started meditating every morning and before bed each night. I began exercising four and five times a week, something unheard of for me. I gave up meat. I began eating salads and fruit. And enjoyed them! I lost eleven pounds in four weeks, and I felt amazing. Happy. Peaceful. Loving. Joyful. Grateful.
Then I did what I do so well. I listened to other people. People who mean a great deal to me. I listened to their problems, their worries, their desperation.
I listened. A good thing.
I absorbed it all, made it my own. I felt their pain, took it into my heart, my soul, and mourned with them for their loss of faith and peace.
Not a good thing. Not at all.
Suddenly, my newfound wellness teetered on the brink of an early death. Sadness hung like a fog around my heart, and I began to struggle helplessly against the suffocating grip of depression. The discordant tones of mind-numbing anxiety, which I thought I had set aside, began to batter my now weary brain.
I dragged myself out into the light, my children trailing happily behind me. Settling into a chair, I let the sun warm my skin and hoped it would thaw the blood that seemed to be frozen in my veins. My children’s voices tinkled like bells, and I fought to embrace their music. A little while later, after my son (a.k.a. Lil’ Jeff Gordon) had finished his race around the driveway, garage, and sidewalk, finally and predictably triumphing over Tony Stewart, he stands before me, his smile wide and perfect, and beckons, “Let’s play a game, Mommy!” My daughter, who has been busily decorating foam packaging with chalk, is thrilled with the idea. We settle on “Mother, May I?”
I offer my son his first direction: “Pretend you are a monster truck and you have to jump over three blue vans. Jump three times.”
“Mother, may I?” he asks.
I nod and say, “Yes, you may.”
He giggles and grins and jumps three times.
My daughter waits and I ponder the perfect dictate for my fairy princess. “Hmm,” I say, thinking hard. “Pretend you are a penguin and waddle four steps.”
She laughs and declares, “I love this! Mother, may I?”
“Yes, you may.”
She waddles perfectly and my children look at each other and fight against falling to the ground as laughter bubbles up from their tummies, making them shake with delighted glee.
I smile at my little boy and instruct him, “Pretend you are Max (of Max and Ruby fame) and hop two times to the Red-Hot Marshmallow Squirters. He hops twice, and I remind him gently, “You have to say ‘Mother, may I?’ Go back to where you were.”
He sticks out his bottom lip but scuffles back obediently. My daughter takes her turn, and at last my son gets his chance to advance to the finish line: me. He remembers to say the magic words, as does my daughter, and moments later, I offer one last set of instructions: “Stand back to back and hold hands.” They do this and I smile because they look so darned cute. “O.K. Walk sideways three steps and get a Mommy hug.”
They laugh again, and wobble toward me, finally falling into my lap and our giggles mix together, sweeter than ooey, gooey, cookie dough. We play the game twice more before we go inside, and each journey from the middle of the driveway to my arms is marked with more musical laughter.
When they collapse in a heap against me at the end of the third game, I learn my lesson. I have permitted my recent emotional and spiritual missteps to rob me of my victory. Who cares if I stumbled? Who cares if after eight weeks of feeling productive, worthy, perfect as I am, I have faltered?
Just as my little boy had to take those steps backward before moving toward me again, I, too, am going to have to take two steps back or three or four, as I walk this path. What my children taught me in the midst of our play is that we aren’t meant to make sure and steady progress all our lives. We advance and retreat, advance and retreat. In the end, when we find ourselves in the arms of those we love, we claim our prize. Love.
Because that is all there is.
I have yet to learn how to listen well to those who need to be heard without taking their pain and making it my own. That’s fine. I’ll learn. Someday.
But for today, I know for certain that I love and I am loved.
That is enough.
Thank you, my dear Babies, for loving me as I am, no matter how often I stumble.
