Sitting In The Sad | Water Street Dream storytelling photography | Chicago Family Photographer

Don’t you just wish you could shoulder the sadness

felt by your children?

When they’re wee little people,

their sadness comes from lost toys
and
upset tummies.

As a parent you navigate those sad feelings with your littles,

sometimes with

the power of a good bribe

(Heaven forbid,
but you know all the good parents 

on planet earth have done it).

You remove them from the situation.

Or you try redirecting. 

Oh how we redirected.
Over.
And over.
And over again.

Or you let them sit in the sadness,

knowing it’ll pass
just as quickly as it arrived.

And then they get a little older.

And their sadness takes on a different feel.

A feel that’s,
well, 
I guess,

out of your control.

You can’t orchestrate a best friend
they’re deeply longing for.

You can’t make all the kids in the classroom
want to hang out with them.

You can’t snap your fingers and magically
have them back on the inside

instead of the outside looking in.

You can’t take the insecurities away.

You can’t remove the mean words
said two years ago

by the kid that continually,
continually
pesters.

Yes, 

you can love and nurture and squeeze 

and shower words of affirmation

all over their sweet little hearts,

but sometimes they have to walk the hurt.

And sometimes they have to sit in the hurt.

Without your rescue moves.

And sometimes the hurt

really hurts.

And as a mama,

that’s hard.

Really really hard.

At least for me it is.

This winter, 

for the first time ever,

Jackson has said he hates school
and doesn’t want to go back.

Nothing in particular,
but mostly just

everything in general.

He’s lonely and sad,

and as a mama,

that’s heartbreaking.

You always know it’s coming down the pike.

That’s life.

We know that.

But you just wish it didn’t have to be already.

You wanna eek out a few more years of sheltering

and happy happy joy joy

before heartache periodically visits.

We know

this too shall pass.

We do.

But in the meantime,

when your normally over-the-top social kid

who wants to get to school early and stay late late late,

decides he doesn’t want to arrive until the bell rings

and has no desire to stay after school,

your heart just feels sad for him.

On the upside,

you soak up the extra mama time.

You look him in the eyes as he steps into the car

after school and says,

“I missed you all day today, Mommy.”

and you remind him
that he’s the best little boy on the planet.

You stop and read and play Yahtzee
more regularly,

because you
refuse
to play Monopoly.
You,
dear mother of little people,
are allowed the guilt-free right to say
NO
to games you hate.
You're still a very good mommy.
They're gonna turn out okay.
I just know it.

Extra cuddle time on the couch happens

because sometimes,

when hearts are heavy,

the only thing that helps is
sitting in the sad together.

Not dismissing it,

but also being alone in it.

Sitting together in it.

I’m prone to want to rush right through the sadness

but I was reminded today as I listened to a podcast in the car,

 that we do a terrible job and a terrible disservice

in trying to rush people
(ourselves included)
out of the sadness.

Timely advice because this mama’s heart 

just wants to swoop

in and make everything better.

And so
the older I get,
the more I think 

there’s real value in sitting in the sadness for a bit.

For a bit.

No formula.

Not easy.

Not what we really want to do.

Eventually it’s healthy to start walking through it,

but there is value in the sitting.
And the feeling.
There just is.

So I wonder what sadness you
or a loved one is holding onto today?

Maybe sitting in it together,

with a soft fleece blanket

and a shoulder to lean on

 is the perfect place to be.

Sitting in the sad.

Together.

Because
together
is
always
better.