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Brave, Character, Courage, Courage, Faith, Family, Fear, Grace, Hope, Lessons, Love, Parenting
The journey to a different pasture
I have hesitated in sharing the following writing for almost two years. One reason is respecting the privacy of my child and protecting the safe space to let him grow and mature. Another reason being I didn’t want to give a tiny handful of people the satisfaction of getting a glimpse into our lives. For now, that pride has been worked through and has been replaced by a healthier pride. A mother’s pride.
May should come with a daily mascara alert. Also, a personal soul cheerleader reminding you that you can do all the exhausting tasks this month throws on us.
I’m overwhelmed. Which accurately describes every mother at the end of the school year. But this year feels different having a senior. Because it is different. It’s so different. And dumb. I wish Senior year could have moved as slowly as his Fourth-Grade year – that one was a dousy.
My Momma-Heart is raw. My brain keeps cheering me on that I can do all the hard things, while my heart is singing Meatloaf lyrics and informing me that it won’t do that. It doesn’t feel like it can take one more last. Not when there are so many things that I still need to tell him and teach him. My friend gave the advice to have all the conversations and say all the things – so that keeps me up at night. Only my darling isn’t too receptive when I pad my bare feet across the house to have a heart to heart, hoping he is awake as well. Nor does he care about learning how to perform the heimlich maneuver on himself or the most efficient way to load a dishwasher.
I don’t want to brag, but I handle being overwhelmed like a champ. In the case you need some advice on this so the rest of your May can be smooth, let me offer some tips that I find helpful:
- I simply quit living. I stop being proactive on my schedule and quit looking at my calendar in hopes it will stop time. It’s odd that this doesn’t work and only adds to the frustration of being overwhelmed with tardiness and lack of preparation. But, keep trying it.
- I mentally hit the snooze button on the household work and checklists that normally keep our life running smooth.
- I don’t grocery shop until the natives start hollering that we are out of milk and “everything”.
- I curl up in bed when possible, and stare at a lot of walls and even more piles of towels that are begging to be folded. Towels are so needy sometimes. Fold yourself.
The biggest lie is that this will stop the inevitable from happening. Time marches on, whether we are present for the moments or not. The world doesn’t stop turning just because we are stuck in reliving our memories. I’ve learned we miss a lot of sweet moments if we are staring into space thinking they aren’t happening.
CS Lewis tells us, “What you see depends on where you are standing”. This is never more true than when your baby is about to leave the nest. I stand behind him and see my handsome boy standing in a pile of beautiful baby feathers he has shed throughout the years. He stands at the edge of our nest and sees his future laid out wide in front of him. It is sweet to watch him stretch his wings in preparation to fly, but the sweet is wrapped in a somber blanket of not wanting it to be over.
You may not have a senior, you might just be dealing with the other side of our current crazy – end of the school year crap. Banquets, Recitals, Award assemblies, class parties, school parties, standardized testing…bless. You just thought you turned in all the paperwork in September. There is a whole ‘nother pile of summer camp signups for everything your child ever considered doing. Then the darlings decide to take a growth spurt the last month of school and you’d better go buy them all the new clothes since their shorts are closer to the “booty short” description than “prep length”. It’s enough to overwhelm June Cleaver, no wonder we get stuck in sensory overload.
While I can’t take out the calories of our emotional eating, I can offer this…
Pause Momma. Say no to all the unimportant tasks that aren’t relevant to this short season. Create margin for breathing so you can have the energy and strength to be present for living. Live this day.
The towels might end up learning how to fold themselves. After all….we did figure out how to put a man on the moon. I’m just sayin’….
“Grace is having a relationship with someone’s heart. Not their behaviors.”
I believe grace may hold the largest percentage in the make up of love. It is hidden in all good things. All of the things we strive to be and have, there grace is… indexed first in the ingredient list.
Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. Acceptance.
In conflict, I’ve often prayed for God to help me see someone through His eyes. “Help me love them as you do.”
It isn’t a prayer I like to pray. Most often, my heart has to have been beaten and softened by the waves of life before I resort to trying grace.
And yet, when you pull grace out and bestow it, the peace that covers the situation and the hearts involved, makes one ponder why we don’t use it more.
Right? That Bob Goff sure is smart. I need grace daily, yet internally – and lets be honest, sometimes externally, roll my eyes when it’s time to bestow it. Especially when my fairness factor kicks in and keeps sending my brain reports on why grace has not been earned.
When my boys were younger and argued a lot, then the tattling began. I would tell them, “Be nice to your brother! Extend some grace.” It had only been uttered 101 times before an exasperated McCray said, ”MOM, I don’t even know what that means!!”
Grace (n): mercy; clemency; pardon.
Truthfully, I think Webster fails to describe accurately. It’s like a salve. Better than Neosporin or Eucerin. It covers a hurt or transgression like an undeserved Band-Aid. It is acceptance given when we don’t understand. It is forgiveness given when the action is deamed unworthy.
Shocks and stuns. A force as startling as the power of electricity.
Turn towards grace. Flip the lights on.
In the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors….let grace be the paper that covers the rock of “fair”.
Love can be the scissors.
“Raising children is like being pecked to death by chickens.”
That quote has hung in a family member’s home for years, probably still does. I whispered it often during the early years of raising boys, sometimes still do. In my most exhausting moments of Motherhood, that quote has served my children well. The assurance that other mothers also felt this exasperated on the journey was protection for my daring little chickens and their scissor sharp beaks.
The chickens have grown. I miss those dang chicks and their itty bitty pecking, it was really kinda cute looking from this angle. Especially since we’ve learned that raising teenagers is like riding a rollercoaster with a blindfold on. Some days it’s steady and smooth as you track up the hill on the Judge Roy Scream, only to be pushed off the top and realize the track gave way to the old Texas Giant with its wooden, rough ways – jerky enough to break your bra (a tragic true story).
There are moments of complete pride, realizing how far they have come in their maturity. There are also moments of desperately begging God for more time to train the monsters.
Recently, while I was cooking with Mason, McCray strolled through the kitchen and dipped his finger in the sopapilla cheesecake filling. Big brother yelled, “Don’t do that! It has eggs in it and you’ll get melanoma!” Hearing this, my face scrunched up and I just stared at him, wondering how he made it to through 12.7 years of school.
I held some hope that McCray, the freshman, would correct him. Instead he rolled his eyes and said, “It’s malaria you moron.” Which explains his grade in Health class. Bless you teacher. We should have sent a better Christmas gift. Would a sopapilla cheese cake suffice?
I should remind everyone here that I’ve never claimed to be a good teacher. Also, Sopapilla cheesecake has precisely zero eggs in the ingredients. I informed them the sickness they were looking for was Salmonella. To which they both shrugged and said, “Same.” It’s a wonder we fail at HQ trivia every day at 8 p.m.
Our oldest is a Senior, he graduates in exactly too soon of days. A fact I have grieved and dreaded for the entirety of his eighteen years. I can’t imagine not seeing him for longer than a week, or walking to his room for a goodnight hug. I don’t know how I will pack him up and drive his belongings down to Austin, only to get in my car and DRIVE AWAY FROM HIM. 
My baby. My first born. My boy who fills so much of our house with his unique character and audacious personality. Tears are flowing as I type this.
And yet, the same precious, growing child that I am crying tears over can drive me absolutely crazy. I’ve been told that God has a way of helping us weepy parents let go, by allowing them to act like know-it-all-fools in the last months they are in our home. This is true. The same child that can make me gush over his adorable ways, makes my head explode and my heart ache while watching him learn life lessons and navigate tough choices, sometimes making the wrong ones.
God is so gracious. How does He do this from heaven?! As Bob Goff shares, “I think a Father’s job, when it’s done best, is to get down on both knees, lean over his children’s lives, and whisper, “Where do you want to go?”
I have returned to that visual a lot this past year. Where do you want to go my son? These boys have been watered with love and light, and a pile of prayers. For the eldest, this has been the year of mom stepping back and allowing him to steer more. I haven’t done this perfectly, as every-person-in-this-house accuses me of being a back-seat driver, but we can unpack that another time.
I’m trying. I’m learning. I’m clinging to the fact that while childhood is only a chapter in their life, we remain parents forever. Once a parent, always a parent.
Which is my rebellious way of choosing joy in this season.
Choosing stubborn gladness throughout the journey of my heart being pecked to death by this thing called parenting.
