Sitting In The Sad
*Original post written 2/7/2018. To see original post and images click HERE.
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.
