Connectedness

Much of Buddhism centers around interbeing and interdependence. Never does that feel more real for me than when I spend time with friends and/or family. I'm coming off a speedy but excellent visit with my best friend. We can talk to each other about anything, and we do. We complete each other's sentences, we enhance each other's lives immeasurably.

While we speak on the phone weekly, nothing beats being together in person. I am always saddened when we part because we are so connected. I miss her all the time. I do, however, always feel connected to her, and not just because of the phone calls. I've known her for nearly thirty years, so she is simply a part of me and who I am. She improves my life so much.

I'm very thankful for her and for the sustaining relationship we have. I also feel very blessed (for lack of a better turn) to have great connections with my family, especially my mother and sister. We are all connected, too. And of course there's my amazing kids and awesome husband, who are my anchors in this life.

So hooray for connections. They make the world sing.

Choo Choo

There is something incredibly soothing about taking the train. I'm currently on a five and half hour trip to be with my best friend for 24 hours and I'm loving it. There's wifi, verdant scenery, and enough time to take a nap if I feel the urge.

It's the ultimate in security in a way, because everything is out of your control. Rather than angsting on a plane or car or boat, on a train, at least, it's nice to sit back (and not get motion sickness) and not have to do anything. Let go, as it were.

Letting go is the hardest thing.

I'm constantly searching for a way to train my brain to LET GO. I'm reading various self-help books and more scientifically based on my condition. I have a new road on which to travel with my new diagnosis. Mindfulness is even more important than ever. And the ability to let go and just be is my goal and challenge.

Thank you, Amtrak, for a few hours of peace.

Resisting Change

I'm having a challenging time with this whole transition out of school thing. We're all at loose ends and not sure what to do with ourselves. Camps don't start until next week, and I want my kids to have free time to play and yes, be bored. (It's working.)

We are having a playdate this afternoon. It feels funny to call it that with kids aged 9 and 11, but that's what it is. It will involve my socializing as well, which is good for me, but as with everything else, a change. I've become so comfortable living my solitary-during-the-day-life. Now I have different demands on me and I have to remember that this is all fleeting.

Everything is ephemeral, and everything is born, and dies. So too with chapters in our lives. So while I may be a bit uncomfortable in this chapter, there will be another one before I know it. My challenge is to stay in the present moment and not worry so much about the future. This has always been my challenge and when there's change around, I get more anxious.

I was also reminded last night of how important exercise, vigorous exercise, is for me. If I don't get it, I get wound up pretty tightly. So even though the daily schedule is different, I still need to get my exercise and meditation in. I missed the latter yesterday and I could feel a difference. These two things are my salvation. The keys to mental peace.

So I try to roll with the changes, and if I'm comfortable, that's great, and if I'm not, oh well. Blink and the situation will be different anyway. I need to lean into the change, charge into it like a buffalo in a rainstorm. (They run directly into storms, unlike other animals, and as a result, actually become less wet. It's true.)

School's Out

And the neighborhood drama begins anew. There is this angel-faced little boy with a lot of problems who tends to provoke the other children, and cries foul when people do not want to spend time with someone who speaks or treats them in an unkind way.

It is all of impossible not to sometimes feel antipathy for this child. And yet, he is still just a child. I am more afraid of who he will become than who he is, if he follows the trajectory he is on. He knows no limits and is left alone outside for hours at a time without supervision. He is seven. 

Sure, it's not crazy to be unsupervised for a bit when one is outside on a cul de sac with the babysitters and stay at home mamas on patrol. We always need to know where our children are, even and especially if they are out of earshot.

We all watch out for each other on this street. But I feel sorry for the little boy who has such a hard time playing with others. I want him to be happy, but not at the expense of my children's feelings. And who is watching him?

What a dilemma. I've coached my kids about what to say to someone when they're teasing or being rude or, more accurately, talking smack about them. But it is so very hard for my own children to stand up to this child, to take the power back from him. They are working hard at it, and they are trying to be tolerant, but everyone has a breaking point, including this little boy. And that's what scares me.

And it Begins...

Well, the drama continues. My son had a rough day at school today, and was in tears at pick up time because "everyone expects me to do everything and I can't because of my cast". He feels ganged up on and that people are ignoring this limitation that he temporarily has.

I tried to comfort him with the fact that overall he is so conscientious and such a hard worker that people are used to being demanding of him, and may forget, even though it's staring them in the face, that he has a temporary disability.

It is so hard to watch him suffer, and feel him shutting me out. Is this tweendom beginning? He does this thing where he willfully obscures a subject. It's most vexing. He'll say he's hungry and not hungry and have a hangdog look about him. It's like he wants help but he doesn't. Hey, that definitely sounds like tweendom!

Is there a section in the bookstore for tweens in casts? Cause I could use a few pointers, no pun intended.

What Goes Around Comes Around

So my last blog post was kind of prescient. My son, after being told repeatedly in the same day, not to wear his roller blades in the house or on the front step, fell and broke his elbow when he slipped on the step.

He was so upset and clearly in pain, so off to urgent care we went. They took x-rays, but didn't see a break. Sigh of relief. The next day, the urgent care people called and said, whoops, looks like there's evidence of a fracture after all, please come in for a splint and then get ready to see an orthopedist about a cast.

So my son and I went and got him a kelly green cast that he has decided he does NOT want people to sign.

What a painful way to learn a lesson. He is learning to adapt to life with one functioning arm and hand. I hope it adds to his growth, and not his frustration. This is a learning opportunity for all of us. We need more patience with our little patient. This will be our challenge.

Letting Go of Control

The older my kids get, the more independent they get. This is normal and developmentally appropriate and everything, but it doesn't address how hard it is to let your kids go and do things and think thoughts that are not influenced strongly by YOU, the all-knowing (ha!) parent.

Learning to trust your tween--is there a book out there with that title? If there isn't, there should be. My children are both growing up, natch, and my son is now 11. Which makes him a tween. He is not a typical kid by many measurements, but he is behaving like a tween when he says he'll clean up his room "in a minute" which means NEVER, and "Hang on" means wait fifteen more minutes than you'd intended to.

You can't live your child's life for you, but nobody told me how hard it would be to let go, or let looser, and see your children challenged and struggling. In Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet", he says you have to let your kids out into the world, they are "yours and not yours". Of course he said this in beautifully poetic language which I am too lazy to look up right now.

But the point remains: we have to learn to trust our children to make good decisions, and when they don't, to allow them to fail, within reasonable limits.

There is no how-to manual for dealing with letting go in your heart and your head.