My sister sent this photo of me and my mother recently. It’s one I had never seen before and it just resonates with me. My mom tells me that the Big Kids had been teasing me and I sought refuge in her lap. I’m the youngest of four and more than a little spoiled. In my house there was a Momma, a Daddy, Big Kids, and Little Kids – designations which still stick despite our advancing respective ages. My brother and his friends teased me like it was their job and they were richly rewarded with the payoff from their innocent taunts in the form of my melodramatic tears and screams. I view this photo now through full-circle lenses, having been both that child seeking comfort and the parent providing it. This current season of my life that finds me head of my household and head of my department all while being emotionally unattached to a significant other has me longing for a similar safe harbor. Someone or someplace to whom or wherein I can remove the armor I painstakingly don each day as I lead the charge of both home and work life and take pause; a brief moment of safety and reprieve from duties. They don’t prepare you for that part of parenthood, do they? You don’t fully realize when you hold that tiny human for the first time, looking on in wonderment and awe at this impossibly tiny creature that has your nose and his eyes – they don’t prepare you for the expectant stare back at you from said creature. There is this unspoken expectation for parents to know all, be all, and fix all and generally speaking, parents want nothing more than to meet those daunting expectations yet nothing prepares us – nothing could prepare us.
My brother went to college when I was in the 5th grade. This photo is from an awards banquet where he was named Defensive Player of the Year for SMU (that same year the Offensive Player of the Year was Eric Dickerson). The pride is evident on our parents’ faces and understandably so. I’ve seen this picture hundreds of times but it wasn’t until I was in the process of scanning old photos in 2012 and came across it again that I was able to see past its surface significance. The me who was sitting at my desk in 2012 holding this picture was the exact same age as the woman beaming with pride for the accomplishments of her son whose arm was holding her tightly.
What the huh?
I felt like I was at the optometrist hearing, “which is better – A or B? A. Or B?” It was in that moment that my perspective shifted and allowed for this alternative view of my parents, not as omnipotent and omniscient heroes capable of solving any and all of the world’s problems but rather as 2 people just doing the best they could with what they had and with what they knew.
You know the lack of preparation I spoke of earlier? They also don’t let you know that, as a parent, you are going to feel like you are completely screwing up your children at least 85% of the time. By removing my parents from the pedestal upon which I had placed them not only released them from some substantially unrealistic expectations, it freed me from them as well. Perfect parenting is unattainable. Some days, just keeping everyone alive needs be counted as a “win”.
The impact of my revelation goes deeper. That day was a also the day that changed my relationship with my parents. Leveling the playing field and making it to where we were all just human beings trying to move through this world as best we can allowed me to identify some long-standing grudges I had been harboring towards my parents and release them. It flooded me with this overwhelming abundance of grace which seeped into all aspects of my life. There was no external force at play here. This monumental milestone moment in my life was 100% within me this entire time. The injustice I had served my parents for decades made me sick and ashamed but instead of wallowing in a sea of regret, I set my focus on the moments I have left with them and changed my actions and attitude accordingly.
The blessing of having both of my parents still alive is not at all lost on me. I end each call with “I love you” and each visit with a hug. Because I now know them as mere mortals who share genetics with me, I know that when they are forced to ask for help it pains them as much as it does me when I have to admit defeat and I can respond in kind. Far from perfect, I am often reminded of my dear friend, Melodie. She lost her mother and whenever she has a moment where she is really missing her, she will smell some Merle Norman makeup because it reminds her of her sweet momma. Any compulsion to complain about my living parent dissipates quite quickly then.
Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. And since that revelation back in 2012 regarding my perspective of my parents and substantiated by my work with therapists, I regularly examine all of my relationships to make sure that I am not holding others accountable for any of my own unspoken expectations nor assuming responsibility for the feelings or actions of others. We just don’t live in a binary world. Few things are one way or another but rather there are degrees and increments – nuances, if you will. Our perspective allows for us to recognize and appreciate the nuances of life and I would challenge that all the really good stuff happens just on the other side of fear and smack dab in the middle of nuance.