Dreamer

 Cheer up, sleepy Jean

Oh, what can it mean that

To a daydream believer

And a homecoming queen

With my oldest getting ready to go off to college, the focus is turning to the youngest. What does he think he wants to do? Did he get all the classes he needs next year? Has he even touched his summer homework!!

My youngest is my dreamer. I want to be supportive. I want to tell him he can do anything he puts his mind to. And yet a part of me is screaming in my head - ARE YOU NUTS!

How do you decide as a parent when to push, when to encourage, and when to say, This is not in your wheelhouse. It's a horrible enough feeling but even worse is when I can't fund the dream. I know you want to be a professional soccer player and in order to do that in the American you need to play in an exclusive club year round but I can't afford it. Is that reason enough to give up?

He's not a quitter. He's quite the go getter at 15. He has reached out to Professional teams on his own that have developmental youth club and asked how he can get a scholarship. He goes up to the field everyday. But in so many ways he is still such a 15 year old boy! Getting him to do chores is a Chore! Getting him off Xbox is ridiculous.

Why am I telling you this??? Sigh...I want written proof to show my son in 20 years. Parenting is hard. There are no instructions, there is no handbook, and I want him to know I struggled with how to support him through something I know nothing about.

I want him to know...

A dream written down becomes a GOAL. 

A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. 

A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true

Don't stop dreaming my love! 

It's harder than it sounds!

 About 10 years ago while volunteering in the library at the elementary school I watched the Media Specialist who was counseling some girls she overheard gossiping on the Golden Rule. I had never heard the Golden Rule stated quite like this "Treat other people, the way you want to be treated, no matter how they are acting."

When the kids cleared out I had to tell her that I was not only very impressed with how she handled the situation, but I was still stunned. I had never heard the Golden Rule stated like that. In all my years at Catholic School - in all the times someone had recited that idiom - no one had ever added "No Matter how they are Acting,"

This was a game changer. I had lived by that Rule my whole life! My life was ruled by that, rule. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Just trying to treat others the way I wanted to be treated didn't require me to think, or feel, or change my beliefs in anyway. It was like emotional Garanimals. (And you know hoe much I like Garanimals)

I am not sure that I can explain my thoughts clearly yet but that's why I write, so don't be surprised if I come back to these thoughts later with edits.

If you think of the Golden Rule only as - I don't have to understand why people are mean, nasty, hateful, unkind, rude, snippy, or anything else - I just have to treat them with kindness. You are not only repressing a lot of rage (trust me on this one) but you are over looking the core of the Golden Rule. Empathy. Why is this person I don't know treating me like this? For example the co-worker who has not said Good Morning in 3 years. You continue to say Good Morning everyday, and everyday that you do not say something about this hurt to her, and you continue to say Good Morning cheerfully, you get more resentful.  Did you ever stop to wonder what she is going through? Living in an unhappy marriage, leaving a three-year old off at daycare, trying to take care of aging parents, the list could go on....and on and on. Just because you can power through life with little available emotion doesn't mean everyone can. And FYI, that is not in the Golden Rule or the 10 Commandments. Thou shalt not feel emotions, especially at work.

If you think that everyone is following the Golden Rule - you are also going to be consumed by rage. Because not everyone follows the Golden Rule. If I am totally honest there were plenty of times in my life that I took the opposite approach. Usually during a break-up but there were also a few co-workers, loud neighbors, shirt stealing sisters that I plotted revenge against. (not that I ever came up with anything good enough to carry out) But my overall point being that when we assume everyone is playing by our rules and then they don't, it's really hard to show them empathy, kindness, and compassion.

The more time that I spend taking care of my aging parent, the more this phrase rattles in my head. My dad wasn't always (still isn't) the kindest most caring parent. When he gets anxious, or hungry, or needs alcohol he can be a real @hole. it's hard to be kind when your dad is hurling insults at you and harder when you hear him hurling them at your mom

Sigh...I have to keep repeating to myself. Treat other people the way you want to be treated no matter how they are acting. And I think it's starting to stick and in my head when I look at my dad I add - Because he is not trying to hurt you, he is _____ scared, anxious, hurting. He is watching the love of his life fade away from him a little more everyday. He is getting older and finding more wrong with his body everyday. He is facing a reality I am not yet in step with and I can not even imagine how hard it is to face.

It goes back, I guess in the end, it all goes back, to empathy. Taking a moment, taking a beat, taking the time to understand what may be going on and how you may be needed to step up in this situation because they can't. Or how much they may just may need that little bit of kindness at that moment. It's not always easy. Smiling at the driver who flipped me off, giving the cashier a compliment, sending a thank you note for the party you didn't want...those things are easier than telling your dad that it's ok to be scared, but it's not OK to call Mom names. Asking a co-worker if everything is OK, because you feel like maybe they haven't been, for a while. Putting ourselves out there, being vulnerable to people we love or see everyday is HARD. 

That's my challenge. Gandhi's words: Be the change you want to see in the world.

Is it a Greek thing??

 Everything in my house requires an argument. Are you familiar with the teaching tool call the  Socratic method? 

The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus or Socratic debate) is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

Perhaps it is genetic in Greeks, or my husband only got half the lesson? He tends to forget the COOPPERATIVE and DIALOGUE parts.  When I met my husband my family would tease us by calling us Lucy and Ricky. The bickering was constant and would live both of us upset and one of us retreating to lick our wounded ego. But I specifically remember a time when my parents were visiting and I was driving, I don't think my husband had his license yet, and he was telling me to go a certain way. I told him which way I was going and he was, what I will call, arguing what they would say to day is Mansplaining. I got upset.

Gently from the backseat my mom responded that we were both saying the same thing just in a different way. It was like a lightbulb went off. No wonder I was so mad 50% of the time. I was saying the same thing I just wasn't feeling heard or acknowledged. I would like to tell you we have fixed that but alas...

Then we have two beautiful boys. Low and behold - I have two more boys to argue with. Sigh.

My boys have very different personalities so they do not generally both get argumentative at the same time - yet. Also the things they will push back on differ but that only meant that at any given time I am locked horns with one of my 3 boys. Pushing, pulling, hugging, yelling, laughing, loving working harf to get to the next thing: shower, clean up your room, finish your homework.

Last night, I think I broke. Literally. I am trying to plan a vacation and fast because our window of opportunity is running out and I have asked, cajoled, and pleaded. My youngest son sat down with me for a few minutes to look at the VRBO website and he said, "Mom what's your dream vacation." I just stared out the window and started to cry.

I HAVE NO CLUE!!

It was the word dream that struck me. Because if I could dream anymore, which having been beaten down my the Socratic argument for 25 years I can not, it would just be that none of it is this hard. That planning a vacation would be joyful, fun, exciting, hopeful.

That's when I broke. I just sent them all a text that said "FYI-I'm at the end of my rope, Goodnight." and went to bed.  I am looking for a SA group - Socratic Anonymous.

"Waking up is hard to do..."

 I know these are not the real words, but have you ever sang the wrong words so many times you think everyone else is singing it wrong? This is one of those songs and I woke up after having been dreaming all night about having a Panic Attack singing this in my head.

Transitioning into summer mode is hard. Everyone expects it feel awesome. FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEDOM - You gotta give what you take. Thank you George Michael. (Can't say I didn't butcher the words to this song also)

The start to summer this year was exciting and eventful. Getting ready for graduation for weeks and it was finally here. Processing all that happened and then cleaning everything up, literally and figuratively. And now a solid week of rain. Will I ever get the boys to mulch? Stay tuned!

Summer is so hard, I know,  because of the lack of structure. I think the reason it's gotten harder is because I leave for work for a few hours, write each boy a note flowered with Good Morning, Hope you slept well, here are your chores for the day....and come home to puffy eyed kids still in PJ's still lapping up cereal. Ugh.

What I've really learned over the last 5 years, I HATE being in charge! I want to be home waking up at 10 a.m. eating cereal at noon and maybe getting out of my PJ's in time for laying around the pool. I think I would have done well with lots of money. And then I wake up - because Waking up is hard to do!

Alas, we are here again and seeing as this maybe the last summer my oldest is even home hanging out with us I feel the added pressure to stop nagging and make it FUN. And honestly that is even more exhausting than writing out chores. I am right smack back in the no win job. Seriously, when do I get ot be on the other end of this?

FYI - the other song that I still sing my way is FunkyTown. I know now that they are saying Talk About it Talk About it Talk About it but I still sing - HOT TAMALES HOT TAMALES HOT TAMALES!!!

its more fun

Enjoy

Be a Rainbow in someone else's cloud.
-Maya Angelou

 

Get ready....

 My 18 year-old graduated, heading to college son took off today to watch the State Track Meet. He was alone and it was 2 hours away. I didn't think he would go then he jumped in the car and left and my brain said - 

HEY! DID HE JUST LEAVE? BY HIMSELF? HE'S JUST A BABY? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!

For 30 minutes after he left I fought with myself not to have a panic attack that he was driving two hours by himself to somewhere he had never been.  I had to remind myself that my husband, his father, got on an airplane and flew 5,000 miles to another country when he was younger than 18. Lord how many panic attacks did Gia Gia have sending her only son to the US for a year? Later for 4 years? Eventually forever....

I was remembering when he stared 1st grade. Another mother said to me that letting her child go to be in someone's else care all day was really hard for her. Not knowing what they were doing, eating, feeling all day was terrifying to her.  Oddly I wondered if she and I were separated at birth because it sounded like school was as traumatic for her as it was for me. (that's a whole other can of worms I can save for my therapist) But I understood. Here we are again.

It is that transition, from knowing mostly what he is doing all day, where he is, how it's going. To not knowing. For some reason the human brain seems to equate knowing with safety. If I know he is at school he is safe. Unfortunately for so many people in the US now that has been shattered. Too many school shootings mean that sending them to school doesn't equal safe.

This fall will be another major transition. Not just for me. I know that it is time to let the bird fly from the nest. I am happy for the bird!! Truly. With my anxiety level I just know that it will mean a lot more moments fighting with my brain for control over the panic button. Some days I will win, some days I will lose. I just hope my son is patient with me. 

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