I had a conversation with my four-year-old daughter the other day that was so enlightening to me. I had been at work during the day and I came home while my mom was playing outside with the kids. The boys were filthy and happy and bopping around the back yard but I could see that Ella was upset about something. She came and sat next to me while I tried to comfort her and to understand what was wrong. We were sitting close to my mom who explained to me that Ella had taken a sort of nasty fall off of her swing just a minute before I pulled in the driveway. Ella continued not to talk so I just assumed that she was embarrassed because of falling and I snuggled her a little bit and then let it go. About an hour later, after my mom had left and things were calm Ella climbed into my lap and said she was ready to tell me why she had been in a funk earlier. She said, "I fell off my swing and I fell right down onto my face and it really hurt."
"Ok", I said. "I bet that did hurt and I'm so sorry about that. But Grandma asked you what was wrong and you wouldn't tell her. And I asked you what was wrong and you wouldn't tell me either. You need to use words to explain to us what's going on so that we can help you."
"I just didn't want Grandma to worry about me," she said. I paused to try to understand why that mattered to her.
"Well honey, people only worry about you because they care about you. How would you feel if you told Grandma that you got hurt and she said she didn't care? When someone loves you they never want to see you hurt or upset. It's hard for them."
And then she kicked my ass.
"But I just wanted her to let me be hurt and upset."
Yes. I got it.
Don't we all? Don't we all need that from the people we love sometimes? For them to just allow us to feel the hurt that we feel without trying to make it better, without the bright side, without us having to worry about what our own feelings will do to theirs? We don't need our people to be "strong" enough to handle us and handle our low points. We just need them to be ok enough and human enough to sit in our dark places with us and not be afraid and not scurry around to turn on the light because it feels safer that way. Please don't try to pick me up. Just lay down next to me and remind me that I'm not alone. Love me in this place the same way you loved me when I was feeling more whole, when I was a little easier to love. Lay down next to me...maybe not forever, but maybe just for as long as it takes me to learn to love myself in this place, to love myself through this trial.
Sometimes, there are trials through which we simply cannot love the people we should or wish we could. I have had to let go of my own father because his level of toxicity was too much for me to bear and it began to rob me of my own health. It is the great sadness of my life that I don't really have a dad even though he's alive and we live in the same city, but what's more, that I couldn't find a way to love him in his dark place. And this has become a learned behavior for me. I am a person who can sense a needy person from four thousand miles away. I have sensors for this that have become hardwired into my nerve endings. If you begin to expect and demand too much from me, more than I think I can give, my red flags are ding, ding, dinging up ALL over the place. And then I will cut you off, freeze you out, and shut myself down just to protect my own well-being.
I know now, that that only happens because I have a terribly hard time loving myself. I don't care if that sounds cliche, it is the absolute truth. And if you're nodding your head right now, it's likely that it is the truth for you as well. Some of us, if we were not loved well growing up, have not learned to love ourselves well in adulthood. There is always a little something inside us that tells us we are (for some unknown but deeply understood reason) unworthy of love and belonging. I am like a starving child over there in the corner and if you come at me asking me to share my lunch with you, an abundance which I certainly do not have to give (I can't even feed myself), I will cut you off, freeze you out, and shut myself down because can't you see I'm starving over here??
This past year, I have taken a trip to hell and back...actually I'm not sure if I'm back yet but I am definitely stumbling along the rugged path. And it wasn't until I was in the place where I was asking my people to share their lunch with me, to love me in my dark place, that I learned how to give that love as well...to others AND to myself. I fell off my swing and slammed into the ground face-first and I needed to just sit with someone who would allow me to to be hurt and upset. And some of my people couldn't do it. I understand why because I have been that person and I have felt those red flags. But some people have absolutely blown me away with their ability to show love and compassion and to keep showing up even when I don't seem to be getting better. They have taught me how to love others and to love myself and I am so deeply and wholly thankful for those people that I don't even know what to do with it all.
The thing is, I'll always be a wreck...in some form or another. That's just me and that's ok. The closet of self-improvement is a lonely place to be. I'm done with that. I'm just loving myself right here right now and showing up for life AS IS. And then, miraculously, that is the place where self-improvement happens. Who knew??
I'm so grateful to be learning this lesson. I'm so grateful that I can be the kind of mom who allows my kids to be hurt and upset and struggling and confidently tell them that that's ok baby, I love you right here. Your confusion doesn't scare me, your mistakes don't make me uncomfortable, our disagreement on this subject doesn't negate my love for you one bit. I'm in it with you and FOR you no matter what knee you scrape or what your life ends up looking like. It is such a gift to be able to love myself this way and love my kids and other people this way. I've had some excellent teachers. None of them are perfect, they're all human and stumbling along their own rugged paths. And this is what I hope to show my kids. I want them to say, "she was human and she let it show and she never withheld love when I was human too."
Thanks Ella, for showing me that it's ok to face-plant and to feel hurt for as long as necessary until I'm ready to get back on my swing again. The swing is worth it.
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