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Learning and trying to be kind and living my life as fully as I can stand it.

Friday, February 5, 2016

On gratitude

Our friend and old roommate Grey owns a foam and cushion store a few blocks from where we live now. Comfiest beds and pillows ever, I swear they will change your life. ( Foam and Cushion )
Last week my dad and I walked the four kids over in the red wagon so we could visit, get out of the house and help him find a new mattress. We are quite a sight in the tall red wooden Radio Flyer wagon--it has four seats with seat belts, big fat tires and a long metal handle for pulling. It's the best.

When we walked into the store the kids were initially shy. They soon warmed up, unleashing themselves on the displays, climbing onto and into beds, pulling down signs, running and laughing. They are a mostly good-natured wrecking crew.

A customer came in a few minutes after we did--she was an older woman. Older than I am but not old. She started talking to Grey about her pillow order and the details of the cover and the sewing, casting glances at the kids now and then. No smile. After a couple minutes I joked "Don't worry, you don't have to take a toddler with your cushion."

"I would gladly take one," she replied. "My daughter has had three miscarriages."

Oh.

You might expect the next line to be "And that's when I remembered how lucky I am." or "Then I felt grateful and resolved to enjoy the moment."

No.

"That is so hard," I said. "I'm sorry to hear that."

We smiled at one another and she smiled down at the kids.

"Good luck to your daughter," I said when she left.

I know to feel grateful. That's been part of my life-view for decades and in many ways has and does serve me well. I love my life. I know things could almost always be worse. I know bad things happen all the time. I know, deep in my bones, that having four healthy children is a blessing. . .and it could change anytime.

When I worked in organ placement, the department responsible for allocating organs to the people on the waiting list, it was part of my job to read the story of how someone died. Over and over again. People died in all sorts of ways--unlucky accidents, incidents where you thought "well that was dumb!", violent ways, peaceful ways. Healthy people who ate right and ran marathons and then died of strokes out of nowhere. Kids. Mothers. Everyone. No one was safe. It's hard to write that down in this space because it feels so. . .scary and sad.

In that old job we had our own black humor about things--a way to get through the day. One of the things I used to joke about was how my kids would be wearing helmets all the time--even to walk down the street. "They'll be made fun of but I don't care!"I would say. "Too bad. Safety first."

That job hasn't affected my parenting in the ways I expected. I let my kids do all sorts of risky and dangerous things. They climb ladders and go way up on the big kid playground. They handle tools. They jump from the top of their small book case onto a pillow below. They run down steep hills. Most of these are deliberate parenting decisions--we are letting them discover their abilities. We don't put them up on something they can't climb to themselves. We tell them tools are not toys and tell them how to respect them. They fall and get scrapes and bonk heads and we are nearby or right there, trying to help when needed, encouraging them to try to help themselves when they can, soothing them when they cry. I don't promise them that we can keep them safe.

All of this has been happening for months so it surprised me to notice that my past work experience was affecting me in a different way. Without going into the really long version of the story, my sister and I got in a big fight back in November. Very unusual for us. There were many layers to this fight and it took us until recently to forgive ourselves and each other and move on. Thank God. A world where we are not friends is an upsetting place.

During those months of not really talking the self-knowledge was flying in my face faster than I could keep up. The upsetness wouldn't leave. I couldn't get past it. I was vulnerable and confused and mad. Why? What was tripping me up here? What was my part? What was her part? What was I hurt or scared by? What could I learn from this?

One of the main things I landed on was how much it scares me when I feel like she can't see the good parts of her life. When I feel like she's getting caught up in the difficulty, in the struggle, and can't find her way back to gratitude. Wait a second. Then I saw that I was scared for myself in the same way.

It scares the shit of me when I can't find my way to gratitude. Like I'm tempting fate. Don't you know what could happen, Megan? Quick, feel grateful so you don't regret it!

Well damn.

I am quite good, one of the masters even, at a shrug and an easy, comforting remark when people comment about how hard something is in my life and how well I handle them. My health crises, mainly. And now my many children.  You have your hands full! Oh, I'm so sorry you were in the hospital. You are so strong! I don't know how you do it.

"Eh," I often say. "You have your hands full too. One child or four children, they take up every bit of energy we have, don't they?" or "The days in the hospital were quite restful. Like a spa."

I believe those things--I'm not lying. But those are also choices I make, to see the good side. To find the gratitude, to move past the pain. Because what else can you do? I want to get beyond the shit, not live in it.

I have worked hard to cultivate a life of gratitude and awareness. It's not an accident of birth or a lucky roll of the dice that I am strong. I choose to be strong.

I love my life. Love it and cherish it. This is not to say I'm dancing up and down the streets right now singing "Woo hoo! I have a great life and I love it!" Clearly not, especially these days. I mean I recognize and honor that this is my one life. I am the only one who gets to live it. There will never be another Megan Doherty Shaughnessy Bondy. Just me. How lucky am I. I want to revel in it, taste it, dance with it, embrace it and think about it. I want to be a liver.

The anger and the bitterness and the despair isn't pretty. It's new for me to even make space for it. Lots of people don't want to see or hear that part because. . .well, for so many reasons. It's scary. It's ugly. It's hard or impossible to fix. It makes people uncomfortable. It feels that way to me too! I hate having to sit in the bad feelings. I want to fix it and move on. To shrug it off and get to the next place that feels better. Or eat half of a wheel of Brie with Wheat Thins until the pain goes away.

So I'm in a new place. A hard-won place. Last week I said to my yoga tribe, a group of twelve kick-ass, smart, powerful women whom I've known for a year, "It just keeps dawning on me that no matter what coping mechanisms I have, or how much help I get or how much self-care I practice or how many life hacks we implement, it just stays hard. And I don't know what to do about that!"

I am learning so much. To see how scared I've been all these months where I can't consistently live in gratitude. So scared. Like I'm just asking for it. To see how taxing it is for me to stay in the hard and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I want it to be easier, but it's not. I want to be able to shrug and smile and say something cute and funny that makes light of the reality of taking care of four toddlers. Often I can, but not always. Sometimes I need to bring out the dark side and slap it down on the table where everyone can see it.

Welcome to the table. There's room for everyone.

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