doing right by our rights

I haven’t talked much about my parenting style this month (probably because I haven’t talked much about parenting at all!) and I want to, but it’s hard for a couple of reasons:

  1. I don’t follow any one method, philosophy, modality, and it’s hard to explain anything that is all over the place
  2. Talking about parenting is a ripe opportunity for conflict and I’m a rampant conflict-avoider.
(deep breath.  here we go.)  So, I’m going to tell you a bit about my parenting style and how I arrived at it.  I may end up sounding judgmental (because I am) or self-important (because I am), but it is important for me to let you know that I know that this is right for me because it is right for me.  Period.  Nothing I do is right universally, and it’s rightness doesn’t make anyone else wrong (but if you think what I do might be right for you too and want help getting there I am available to help).
Shortly after deciding to actively try and get knocked up (September 2005) I hit the world wide web and never looked back.  I grew attached to parenting choices and principles that I was still nearly two years away from attempting, but still I was committed to them.  Some of those things included: 
  • cloth diapering (did it for 7 months until it was a choice between that and my sanity and my sanity won)
  • gratuitous baby picture number one!
  • natural childbirth (I wanted a 100% med free homebirth, I got an epidural free hospital birth and I’m still bound to redo that at some point even though I want no more children.  Can you say surrogacy?)
    shortly after that epidural free birth
  • on-demand breastfeeding (did it for 23 months until he self weaned–and I was broken hearted.  I was really looking forward to nursing to the point where it made other people uncomfortable) 
    yes, that’s my boob.  you’re welcome
    • babywearing (the child was attached to my body via some kind of sling, wrap, or carrier for 90% of our waking hours, and even more of our sleeping ones) 
    • moby wrap–world’s greatest invention.
    • alternative vaccination schedule (our “alternative schedule” has included zero innoculations to date, and I don’t expect that it ever will… but I remain open)
      this kid doesn’t know there is a reason (needles) to be afraid of doctors.
      • co-sleeping (we still do this, and I don’t have any pictures of it, because I am sleeping while it’s happening)
      In June 2007 I gave birth to a baby spiderman and lived in a world consumed by these ideas for the next two years or so… and it was all consuming.  Each and every one of the items above were some portion of my self-definition and the success or failure of any of them were huge contributors to my self worth.  I was militant at best, and I’m sure very annoying.  I knew what was “right” and was ready to fight to make sure that I would be free to live as such (and also convince others of the errors of their ways in an act of loving service to the world–sarcasm).  I would have described myself as an attachment parent at the time and would blindly defer to anything that moniker told me to be.
      Then my baby became a kid… and as he grew, I did too (only because I had to).  You know that joke where people say something about how baby’s don’t come with owner’s manuals?  Yeah… it’s not funny because it’s not true!  There are millions of baby owner’s manuals… MILLIONS (and I have read half of them).  What there aren’t… are kid’s owner’s manuals (or maybe there are and I just haven’t read them because I don’t want to follow a manual anymore).
      Over the last several years I have been exposed to the work of: 
      And the best part about what I learn from them is that it merely inspires me… instead of defining me.

      I remember when I first met Naomi Aldort (and then read her book) and started trying to “be her.” Um, that was a disaster. She is a brilliant woman who says things like “a child is like the wind… Would you be angry with the wind for knocking something down or would you just accept that it is the wind?” and lives this philosophy of complete acceptance with her own children. She basically teaches that a child doesn’t need to be actively taught how to behave, they will learn all they need from observing you, but she also keeps her own kids in a 100% pure environment where they are NEVER exposed to any undesirable behavior (like they cut out all of their relatives and friends who won’t comply with their guidelines and will leave a park if other kids show up) . Once I realized that I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that I was able to forgive myself for not being her.

      Fast forward to today. I screw up all the time and have moments where I am not even the best me never mind being aldort-esque, but in general I maintain a pretty high level of compassion and empathy for my kidlet and that makes me the mom I want to be.

      like this picture is really cute, but is not about accepting my child for who he is (because he is not a pumpkin)

      One tool I use to do that is derived from a self-help tool that I wish I knew who to credit for but I don’t (I got it from a friend who got it from a therapist… it’s all over the internet.  and what I find hilarious about it is that there are always typos.  I’ve attempted to correct them all here, but even if I didn’t catch them there is always right #5 to back me up)… 

      Read these, they are your personal bill of rights:

      1. I have the right to ask for what I want
      2. I have the right to. say no to requests or demands I can’t meet.
      3. I have the right to express all of my feelings, positive or negative.
      4. I have the right to change my mind.
      5. I have the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.
      6. I have the right to follow my own values and standards.
      7. I have the right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe or it violates my values.
      8. I have the right to determine my own priorities.
      9. I have the right not to be responsible for others’ behavior, actions, feelings or problems
      10. I have the right to expect honesty from others.
      11. I have the right to be angry at someone I love.
      12. I have the right to be uniquely myself.
      13. I have the right to feel scared and say ‘1’m afraid.”
      14. I have the right to say ‘1 don’t know.
      15. I have the right not to give excuses or reasons for my behavior.
      16. I have the right to make decisions based on my feelings.
      17. I have the right to my own needs for personal space and time.
      18. I have the right to be playful and frivolous.
      19. I have the right to be healthier than those around me.
      20. I have the right to be in a nonabusive environment.
      21. I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.
      22. I have the right to change and grow.
      23. I have the right to have my needs and wants respected by others
      24. I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect
      25. I have the right to be happy.

      And to see how I use it as a parent replace “I” with “my child.”

      1. My child has the right to ask for what he wants
      2. My child has the right to say no to requests or demands he can’t meet.
      3. My child has the right to express all of his feelings, positive or negative.
      4. My child has the right to change his mind.
      5. My child has the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.
      6. My child has the right to follow his own values and standards. (I know this one may be hard to digest… but your child really does have values and standards.  If they are young they are likely very similar to yours and it’s your responsibility to teach him/her about them.  If they are older they may have started to develop their own. That’s their right)
      7. My child has the right to say no to anything when he feels he is not ready, it is unsafe or it violates his values.
      8. My child has the right to determine his own priorities.
      9. My child has the right not to be responsible for others’ behavior, actions, feelings or problems (even ESPECIALLY his own parents!)
      10. My child has the right to expect honesty from others.
      11. My child has the right to be angry at someone he loves. (I didn’t know this until I was at least 30… it’s one of the first things I taught spiderman.  so important!)
      12. My child has the right to be uniquely himself.
      13. My child has the right to feel scared and say ‘1’m afraid.”
      14. My child has the right to say ‘1 don’t know.
      15. My child has the right not to give excuses or reasons for his behavior.
      16. My child has the right to make decisions based on his feelings.
      17. My child has the right to his own needs for personal space and time.
      18. My child has the right to be playful and frivolous.
      19. My child has the right to be healthier than those around me.
      20. My child has the right to be in a nonabusive environment.
      21. My child has the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.
      22. My child has the right to change and grow.
      23. My child has the right to have his needs and wants respected by others
      24. My child has the right to be treated with dignity and respect
      25. My child has the right to be happy.

      …and then to take it one step further to make sure no one is forgotten… Try reading it like this:

      1. My child and I both have the right to ask for what we want
      2. My child and I both have the right to. say no to requests or demands we can’t meet.
      3. My child and I both have the right to express all of our feelings, positive or negative.
      4. My child and I both have the right to change our minds.
      5. My child and I both have the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.
      6. My child and I both have the right to follow our own values and standards.
      7. My child and I both have the right to say no to anything when we feel we are not ready, it is unsafe or it violates our values.
      8. My child and I both have the right to determine our own priorities.
      9. My child and I both have the right not to be responsible for others’ behavior, actions, feelings or problems
      10. My child and I both have the right to expect honesty from others.
      11. My child and I both have the right to be angry at someone we love.
      12. My child and I both have the right to be uniquely ourselves.
      13. My child and I both have the right to feel scared and say ‘1’m afraid.”
      14. My child and I both have the right to say ‘1 don’t know.
      15. My child and I both have the right not to give excuses or reasons for our behavior.
      16. My child and I both have the right to make decisions based on our feelings.
      17. My child and I both have the right to our own needs for personal space and time.
      18. My child and I both have the right to be playful and frivolous.
      19. My child and I both have the right to be healthier than those around us.
      20. My child and I both have the right to be in a nonabusive environment.
      21. My child and I both have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.
      22. My child and I both have the right to change and grow.
      23. My child and I both have the right to have our needs and wants respected by others
      24. My child and I both have the right to be treated with dignity and respect
      25. My child and I both have the right to be happy.

      Voila. A manual not only for parenting, but for life too. Simple as that (I kid, of course).

      Because it’s never that simple here are some instructions for how to use this tool:

      1. Print the list out and post it somewhere you will see it daily
      2. Read it (to yourself is fine, out loud is even better) at least once daily
      3. Pick two or three that stand out to you first and take note (over the course of a few days or a week) of the ways they play out in your life (these are probably the rights that you exercise most freely now)
      4. Pick the two or three that seem least interesting to you and start looking for the places where they show up in your life (I’d be willing to bet that these are the ones you need the most work on
      5. Take them one at a time (start wherever you want–the strongest, the weakest, top to bottom, whatever) and commit to learning how to practice (decide what it means to exercise each right… and then do it) them.

      There, now it is simple. (ha ha)

      The thing about parenting (um, life?) is that we don’t get to nor do we have to take credit or blame for the outcome.  We can do our best, but our children (our lives?) will turn out to be whatever they turn out to be… and if we can love them completely for that (so they can love themselves) then we’ve done our jobs (ahem-in my opinion).

      this is an example of a person who knows he is loved.
      p.s. For anyone who’s worried about me and my recent bout with vulnerability…  First, thank you.  Second, I’m doing great.  I choose to remain vulnerable, because as we learned… vulnerability+effective self care=willingness to be more vulnerable and I’ve been self-caring the hell out of my days.  One of the perks of my new job is (free!) access to all sorts of physical health resources and I’ve worked out two days in a row now.  There is NOTHING more effective for a state of mind/mood (or my ass) than an hour of elevated heart rate.  Mmmmm, delicious endorphins…

      I’ve added an addendum to this post.  read it here!

      i don’t have time to not be connected to the internet

      my internet connection has been spotty this evening.  it’s been very frustrating.  it started acting up while i was attempting to watch a TED video about how our use of technology for connection is resulting in a phenomena of loneliness.  Pretty poetic right?  It’s hard not to appreciate life for it’s humor much of the time…  I often take pictures of everyday things that I think are hilarious.  I’ll post them here someday and share them with you out of context where they are bound to be less funny.

      I have so many things to write about tonight.  I hope I can tie them all together into one cohesive post.  This is going to be a long one.  I’d say sorry… but hey, you get to choose whether you read it or not.    Consider yourself warned.

      I feel like it’s been ages since I posted and I think that is mostly because of the headspace I’m coming from tonight.  It’s not a brand new headspace, but it is one that I had been drifting away from recently until 38 called me on it on Friday night.

      side note: I can’t even begin to explain how grateful I am to have people in my life who can (gently so I can hear them) call me on this stuff… without them I think I would just drift away into the mist never to be heard from again.  The woman in the TED video tonight talked about the truth that we need our relationships with one another to teach us how to have relationships with ourselves.  She nailed it didn’t she?

      The new head space is a vulnerable one.  I think you might be asking yourself… “wait, what?  Isn’t she always vulnerable?  She sure seems like it.”  Yeah, I’m really good at that (seeming like I’m vulnerable), but sometimes I’m not really… I’d say that I’m “open” about 95% of the time.  I am aware of my feelings and willing and able to express them in articulate ways.  Even the uncomfortable ones.  I know that’s fairly unique and I can see how that could be perceived as vulnerability… and I don’t mean to deceive anyone by pretending to be vulnerable when I’m not… and I’m definitely not ever pretending.  In this most recent case I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t willing to be vulnerable until someone else pointed it out.  I’m actually quite good at being vulnerable (I know that sounds weird).  Once I get there I am willing to be there, but yeah, I’m not always willing to get there (not even with myself) and now I’ll tell you why.

      So I told you that my week last week was full of big feelings but that was okay because I just felt them and they didn’t change my reality (the feelings didn’t devolve into self loathing or shame or beliefs about my life and my person that were untrue.  from now on I will refer to that phenomena as “story”) and I was pretty proud of that.

      When I woke up on Saturday morning I was heavy with emotion.  I still wasn’t in any story, I was just in feelings but they weren’t just big… they were huge… and I wasn’t able to be who I wanted to be with them present (and who I wanted to be, by the way, was an involved mother because it was just me and spiderman this weekend).

      At one moment on Saturday morning after he had already watched an hour of television of his alloted two of weekend screen time spiderman asked if he could play on the iPad and I said yes and set a timer for 10 minutes explaining (as he’s used to) that when the timer goes off it will be time to put the iPad away and do something else (like dye easter eggs).  He was in the bedroom on the iPad and I was in the living room on the computer and my feelings were getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I was feeling heavier and heavier and heavier.  I knew it had been close to 10 minutes and I figured I would eventually pick up the sound of the timer going off through the din of the household noise.

      We had a great week together as mother and son.  We had limited time together each day (maybe two waking hours in total) but we used it in the best ways I can think of (by eating together, talking, playing, and making art)…  I didn’t want to lose that momentum.

      Then two hours passed.  And he was still using the iPad and I was still on the computer and the only thing I changed about that situation was to get off the computer.  I went into the bedroom with him to start talking to him about changing to something else.  Then I fell asleep.  So, he sat there (I think it may have been 5 hours in total) playing with the iPad all morning while I got more and more engulfed in my big feelings and completely checked out from the situation.  I mean, I’m always a mom… I fed him and wiped his ass when he pooped and even when sleeping I always had one ear open and I woke out of my light sleep when I heard him click on a youtube video that I didn’t want him watching and I redirected him back to the kidsafe stuff before I fell back to sleep again… but I don’t think that deserves any praise.

      And then the tears came.  Wombat called me when she heard that I had fallen asleep because she knew that meant I wasn’t doing well and as soon as I answered the tears flowed.  I know I have mentioned crying several times on the blog in the last several months, but what I haven’t done is go into detail into what I mean each time.

      I have several different levels of crying:

      1. watery eyed: I’m emotional (could be a good or bad emotion) and my eyes fill up with tears
      2. movie star crying: it’s when level one progresses to the point where the tears start to spill out of my eyes and roll one at a time in perfect lines down my cheeks. it’s quite pretty.
      3. cry talking: it’s where there are active tears falling and some sniffling, but I can still carry on a conversation (this is as far as it has gotten lately) and the tears dry up fairly quickly.
      4. sobbing: i can probably still talk some, but there’s a lot of catching breath and snot involved 
      5. wailing: talking is out of the question.  i am choking and gagging and there is snot pouring out of my nose.  my nose has turned bright red and tripled in size.  my top lip is so swollen that it now touches my nose.  it takes hours to fully recovery from the physical changes to my face.
      Saturday I finally got to level four.  And it happened twice (maybe three times?) in one day.  Still, it wasn’t until that night that I started to get into my story and started to have conversations with myself that included a lot of shame and blame…  it was just a lot of time with a lot of big feelings present.  It was also a day where I felt like I couldn’t get ahead… I bought myself flowers and then my sunglasses broke.  No matter what I did to try and climb out of the self-pity pit, I would get shoved right back down into the pit where the big feelings festered.
      Let me tell you, in case you don’t already know… that feeling sorry for yourself is a very efficient way of using up all of your capacity for empathy in a day.  Parenting without a capacity for empathy–not pleasant–not effective–nope, not good.
      Sunday, I woke up and I knew I was in my story.  This is still an improvement from the old days because at least I was aware of it, but I was in it and there was no escaping it.  I explained to my mom that I was having a rough time emotionally, I didn’t think I was going to be able to hide it, I really didn’t want an audience and I asked if it would be okay if I just dropped spiderman off at her place for the easter festivities and went back home.  She said yes (thank you).  Apparently my family is worried that I wasn’t there because my hard time had to do with BFO.  It doesn’t.  I promise you.  That man did not break my heart.  That man didn’t have my heart and he hasn’t had it for a long, long time.  It’s a shitty situation and it sometimes gets me down, but he doesn’t have the power to hurt me like that anymore… not to worry.
      I came home from dropping off spiderman and immediately called 38 because suddenly I was willing to be vulnerable and I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.  After a brief hiccup where I involuntarily responded that I was “good” to the “how are you?” question I went straight into blubbering and crying and it was great.  I mean, it sucked.  A lot of it was painful and it was definitely scary and I talked about a lot of things I had been afraid to talk about and I asked a lot of questions that I was afraid to ask… and then the conversation was over and I was still alive.  Even better, I felt good about doing it.  
      I think vulnerability is really important.  In the times where I choose not to be vulnerable I am doing so because I’m afraid.  In the past, even though I would talk about my feelings (openness), I wouldn’t share my feelings (vulnerability) because I was told that they were too big and/or because I was afraid that by showing them it would drive people away.  Well, neither happened.  I didn’t just talk about the feelings… I felt them, out in the open in front of another person, and they were first validated (not judged, labeled, or put down), and then the other person stuck around.

      Would you look at that?  I should do this more often.

      The high of the successful vulnerability experiment lasted about an hour… and then faded into complete terror.  I had been vulnerable and now I was afraid.  I can’t even tell you of what… of everything I think.  More than anything else I was afraid that being vulnerable meant I was going to have to get used to living in fear.  Not appealing.  True, to an extent, although I imagine it gets easier… but not appealing.  Not an opportunity people line up for.  My response to the fear was to try and figure life out and find a way to control the chaos, but my mind was racing and I couldn’t even do so much as put pen to paper and form words.  Finally through the noise of my ego my intuition spoke up and reminded me that if I was going to be of any use to myself I was going to need to quiet my mind.
      And there was the answer suddenly (although I didn’t realize it until later).  Vulnerability was perfectly safe (certainly as safe, if not safer, than being emotionally unavailable in terms of long term quality of life stuff) as long as it came along with effective self care.  I say I didn’t realize it until later because the only self care I practiced was to do a guided meditation (I made up my mind to do one, decided I didn’t want to, did it anyway, but picked a shitty one with a really abrupt ending that wasn’t mind quieting or satisfying in the least) and then watch tv until I fell asleep; and then I wondered why I woke up this morning feeling off.
      I figured out the vulnerability+effective self care=willingness to be vulnerable again formula this morning in the car when I reached crying level five.  Yep… I was about 20 minutes away from the office (my new job… start of my third week… only my third day in the office because I’ve been out at trainings and such… my first time working in person with my new boss because she telecommutes from texas most of the time… and the day i’m going to be introduced and have to talk about myself in the all staff meeting) when the face explosion began.  I’d say I started at level three and expected it to pretty much stay there but all of a sudden I was in full blown level five crying.  I was just so raw… I had opened myself up completely and sat with sheer terror afterward and I didn’t do anything to effectively nurture myself afterward.  So there I was on the 5 fwy in the middle of Los Angeles looking like I had been assaulted by killer bees and wailing in my car.  I cried the rest of the way there and for another 10 minutes in the parking lot.  Then I pulled it together and came up with a convincing story about allergies and hoped the 90 minutes I had before the meeting would be enough for the swelling to go down.
      It was, and the meeting went well and my introduction was charming and funny and everyone laughed at my opening joke, and all the while inside I felt like I might die.  It hurt so badly just to exist for most of the morning.  I was still completely raw and exposed and had none of my self love tools within reach.  It was awful.
      Then things started to happen… I had interactions with friends… I had memories of feelings and experiences… and gratitude just started to arrive.  I choose gratitude often, but this time it just showed up which was really nice of it don’t you think?  and I realized instantly how much better I felt with it hanging around.  Shortly after gratitude arrived so did amusement, then consciousness, inspiration, and organization and a few more of my best self qualifiers.  It wasn’t instant, it wasn’t all of a sudden, and it certainly wasn’t linear but over the course of the day I went from feeling like I might die from emotional pain to feeling back to my centered self again.  
      At one point I sent myself a text message that said “i love you.”  It was the first time I texted myself with something that wasn’t a grocery list… and it was really effective.  Particularly because the way the messages on an iPhone work, it looks like I sent it and got a response.

      38 deserves all the credit for this idea, by the way.
      if you try it (which I think you should), send her a little heart light when you do,

      Anyway, I’m starting to run out of steam and I imagine that if you’ve gotten this far that you’re tired of reading.  I’ll try to wrap it up.
      I learned a lot this weekend.

      • My body, mind, and spirit feel like this emotional experience was equivalent to climbing Everest and I am aware of how much self care I need on a daily (hourly?) basis to be able do this work and be my, not only, best self… but my best vulnerable self.  
      • I learned that being a single parent is completely unnatural and expecting yourself to be able to perform at the same level you do for a two hour window in a twelve hour window is unreasonable (which explains why i gave up before i even tried) and in order to make these future weekends work I need to gather the hilary-clinton-village around me to help me raise this child.  
      • I learned that allowing other people to see me in weak moments doesn’t necessarily drive them away and can even bring them closer.  
      • I learned (was reminded that) I really don’t like going to bars/clubs.  
      • I learned that I have a lot of old habits that I need to remain aware of consciously work on reprogramming every damn day.  
      • I learned that “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” is still the way to go
      • I learned that if this is ever the question: should i let go?  the answer is always yes. (well, not if we’re talking about dangling from a cliff…)
      • I learned…  a lot.

      well, it finally happened…

      I missed my self-imposed deadline.  Friday came and went and I didn’t blog.  Now, to me… it’s still Friday night because I haven’t been to bed yet, but technically it’s Saturday and hopefully all of you are sleeping peacefully.

      hmmm… what to write about…

      You see, that’s the real issue here.  I thought it would be hard to stick to my thrice-weekly writing commitment and it has been surprisingly simple to integrate into my life, except on the days that I don’t think about what to write and am not struck with divine inspiration (you would think that on Good Friday of all days inspiration would be in abundance…  perhaps if I were a good Christian instead of the godless heathen I am).  So, now that I’ve managed to successfully commit to writing three days a week I think now I need to commit to thinking about writing three days a week.

      So I missed my deadline.  I didn’t blog.  And now I have a choice. I can feel bad about it. Or not.  I don’t think I’m going to feel bad about it.

      Nah.  I’m not going to feel bad about it.

      I didn’t blog but I did go to a great event, hung out with some cool peeps (shout out to my LLC/BB!), and then spent some quality phone time with a favorite.  If the goal of this whole thing is to get full on life instead of food (which it is), I’d say that I had a full plate (of life, not food) today and I’m going with it.

      This week went by at a rapid pace and I think that is largely due to my current relationship with myself.  I had a lot of big feelings this week (anger and sadness included which aren’t my favorites.  question for you: what are your favorite feelings?!) but I didn’t experience any pain, torture, or distress.  This is a new experience for me. I think it comes from a place where I attempt to apply the same principles I apply to my relationship with spiderman to my relationship with myself:

      Every thought or feeling I have is a normal, expected reaction to my life experience and abilities… no need to judge them or label them or punish or reward them.  Just accept them.  Let them be.  Observe them.  Then they pass and life goes on.

      magic.  (by the way, sometimes when spiderman asks me how i do something i spontaneously answer “magic” before i think about the fact that it’s my job to explain to him the way the world works.  my kid totally thinks i am magic.  which i am.  but that’s a different story.)

      meditative parenting

      We’re going to stick to the parenting theme this month and here’s why: 

      1. I am suddenly spending a lot less time with my sweet son (because of my new job/and the resulting commute and our new parenting plan/weekend-share-schedule-nightmare) and I want the time we have together to be of the highest quality possible… starting now, not next month, now.
      2. Even though I am not supposed to be trying to do it all… I can certainly do more than one thing at once!  I can still write my morning pages, practice daily meditation, have conversations with my inner teacher, etc. etc. etc. all while focusing on parenting.  I can, in fact, meditate on and talk to my inner teacher about parenting… so that’s what I will do.
      3. I am going to see the Dalai Lama on Saturday, April 21… which is the first scheduled day of the spiritually focused month.  Um… yeah… that couldn’t be any more perfect if I had planned it (which my subconscious did, I suppose).
      Isn’t life amazing when I stop and think about my inklings/decisions before taking action on them?  
      Yes.  The answer is yes.
      I recently read another blog post/article about children and change… that I won’t share here because it wasn’t good enough for me to endorse it, but it was so timely considering my post from Monday and some of what has been brought to the forefront of my awareness about change and my child.  Here’s what I’ve been thinking.
      My child (yes, spiderman, and yes… he really goes by that outside of the blog world) is a change machine!  He is quite possibly the single most resilient being on earth.  How couldn’t he be?!  six of the moves I mentioned on Monday have been during the course of his life (he’ll be five in two months… you do the math), he’s gone to five different child care center/preschools since the age of four months (and changed classrooms at several of them more than once), and in the last three years he went from living in a home with both of his parents, to living in two homes with separate parents, to living with both parents again, and finally to living exclusively with me outside of regular visits with his dad.
      I lived in the same house for the first 18 years of my life.  I went to one preschool, two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school.  The kid already has me beat.  And to be completely honest, I feel so much guilt and shame for this.  I used to think I craved the changes I have since associated with escapism fantasy because my life was relatively static as a child… I have certainly prevented my child from feeling like his life is standing still… and I can only hope that doesn’t result in the same distracted numbing that the changes have provided me over the years.
      This divorce, although obviously having an impact on his little nervous system, is something he’s approached as if it were normal.  If I am in any way responsible for creating his “normal” (which I think I can, but you can tell me I’m not and I’ll believe you) then I may not have done the best job.
      The biggest parenting truth I know right now is that no matter what I say, he will only learn from what I do.  That’s a hard one folks… so I’ll repeat it again.  No matter what I say (no matter how many times I explain the merits of healthy eating), he will only learn from what I do (which historically has been to make very poor food choices).  And it applies far beyond anything food related… 
      Things spiderman probably thinks are normal (and I’ll include things here that I am completely comfortable with and totally ashamed of and not identify which are which… you can guess in the comments section, we’ll make it a game!) either because he’s experienced them or observes me doing them: 
      • moving to a new home annually
      • sleeping with your mom/parents
      • living with both parents, and then not… intermittently
      • eating pizza five days a week (okay, i’m going to come out of the shame closet here to clarify that when this has happened it has been because of poor communication between all care providers, it’s not because i ever knowingly feed him pizza five days a week)
      • being surgically attached to an iPhone
      • picking your nose in the car
      • having a dirty house
      • hoarding trash in the guise of collecting things for art projects
      • having your butt wiped (or clothing be taken on/off, or really anything you can actually do by yourself but you don’t want to and your mother is an enabler) by another person
      • eating “meals” in every room/on every surface of the house except for the dining room/table
      • making very dramatic noises when injured by clumsiness
      • eating food that comes to you through the car window (some of these are from the past)
      I’m sure I could go on…  I guess, the bottom line is that I know that he’s watching, and sometimes it scares me to think about what he learns from that.  And then when I stop to ask myself if it should scare me to think about what I am doing to myself that makes it possible for him to learn it, sometimes the answer is yes.  Ouch.  So, if I want my son to learn to love himself I have to teach him by loving myself?  Wowza.
      …and then I stomp my feet and curse and whine and act like a total baby because life is hard, and why can’t it just be easy, and why can’t I just get away with doing whatever I want and still get everything I want… and and and and… and then I remember he’s watching and the cycle continues…

      ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

      I like change.  I love change. When I was a kid I used to rearrange my bedroom furniture monthly, I had 12 jobs between 1994 and 2003, I have moved 16 times since 1998… and I’ve been happy for each of the changes, every time. Now, before you assume that I am from another planet or that you won’t be able to relate to tonight’s post let me clarify that, of course, I only really love change that I control (or temporarily believe that I control). …but I do usually find a way to feel like I’m choosing the change so it works out.

      Side note: I don’t sit still well… I fidget and wiggle. I like to be in motion, and I mean that figuratively and literally. I think the two things are related.

      I used to wonder if all the changing I did in jobs and homes was related to being unhappy (in my marriage? with myself?) and I can now say with confidence, yes. Yes, it was. Change, especially big life changes, can be a powerful distracting force… work well to numb the pain.

      heh.

      I’ve made a lot of changes recently. I changed my relationship status. I changed my diet. I changed my self care practices. I changed the pool of people I’m attracted to (to include, perhaps exclusively, people who don’t have penises and do have vaginas–for now, people without genitals need not apply… baby steps)–and I know “changed” is the wrong word here, but I’m using it so it will fit into this paragraph’s theme. I changed my outlook on life. I changed my job.

      This explosion of changes is not an unfamiliar pattern. I subscribe to the “do it all at once” school of thought.

      Still, something is different (i say that a lot lately don’t i?)… changing used to be a way to escape. I loved the escape fantasy… If things were rough I would daydream endlessly about just driving away and never coming back. (Ah, blissful… Imagine combining escaping with the invisibility cloak fantasy. Heavenly, right?) I was always running away from something. This time, I feel like I’m running toward something, or maybe even alongside something (because I feel like I caught up with it already).

      All of the past changes were a means of escaping, but they never worked because I was trying to escape myself… What’s interesting is that when I really embraced myself, took the time to get to know her, accepted her, understood her, forgave her, loved her…I lost the desire to escape her. I actually quite adore her and I want her with me always.

      When I started my new job last week I had a sense that a big change was coming… certainly my daily routine was going to be overhauled… almost everything about it would be different.  But, I was also very clear that a lot wouldn’t be changing.  My roles, my values, my priorities… the things that make me who I am and make the live I am living worth it… those stayed the same.  My job changed, but my life didn’t.  That.  Was a first.

      In a few weeks I’m going to change my hair (drastically) and in a few months I’m going to move again (to a new city). So, I’ll keep changing what’s outside until the outside and inside match, but I have no expectation that it will change who I am… and I am so glad–I like what’s on the inside.

      p.s. speaking of change…  I am seriously considering changing the theme of this month.  In the art month last month I was having some pretty profound spiritual experiences and I am thinking it would be pretty silly to ignore my intuition because the “agenda” says otherwise.  I’ll decide and let you know by Wednesday, but if that is the case I’ll be moving on to “ish” which is scheduled for next month and then will either pick up with the parenting stuff again right away or move on to what comes naturally for the month.

      p.p.s. speaking of change (again)… I changed my mind (or rather, my approach) about the “letting go” I shared with you on Friday.  I thought that in order to “let go” I needed to change my feelings for this person… turns out, the only way to change my feelings for her is to shut the feelings down and (since I’ve learned from Brene Brown that you can’t selectively numb feelings… it’s all or none) that doesn’t work for me.  So, instead I am letting go of expectation.  I’ll let you know how it goes (so far: emotional, but much better than trying not to have feelings…)