Cleaning House
This last week was a hard one. I had two utterly irrational blow ups at S. involving yelling and, once, dramatically dropping the broom I was using to sweep around S's feet while she sat at the kitchen table refusing to do her homework or chores.
If I'd had only one screaming match with her, I could feel as if my behavior was somewhat justified--I apologized right away, went through the same consequences she would get for raising her voice and stomping around the house--but two?
The blow ups have been happening more frequently on S's end, too. I was called in to talk to her teacher after she had a blow up in class. The reason--and this is hilarious--is that she had a rotting banana in the bottom of her bag, which she was not particularly willing to remove, mainly because doing so would have involved also removing every other item in her backpack. Now, if you have seen my office, or our home, it is not entirely surprising that her backpack is a mess. (I once got a note from a student saying that she always felt comfortable in my office because the fact that it was messy but I was always willing to talk to her made her realize I had my priorities straight). But, earlier this year, I'd been more vigilant about reminding S. to clean the backpack out each night and more likely to catch her in any lies about the status of her homework assignments. I've been slacking in my vigilance the last couple weeks, and things have gotten--well, messy. The blow up also involved a missed assignment for which she refused to take responsibility, the f-word, and a lost assignment she'd actually done.
During our post-blow-up conversation with her teacher, S. refused to take any responsibility for anything--the blow up, the messy backpack, the missing assignment (which she'd lied to both of us, telling her teacher I had it and telling me her teacher had it), the rotting banana, the lost assignment.
What bothers me most--and S. knows this is the one and only thing that could possibly make me blow--is when people do not take responsibility for the things that are their fault. Second on the list is laziness--not the "I know I should do this but don't feel like it" kind, but the willful, "I could do this and know all the reasons why it's a bad idea not to do it but simply refuse" kind, which usually coincides with a deep selfishness (the person in this mind frame rarely realizes that her actions will affect others and not just herself). I try very hard to model these behaviors for her, telling her that everyone gets to make their own decisions about how they spend their time and how they mess up their own lives but that they need to be aware of how their decisions affect others, and that they usually do. We have talked about how everyone makes mistakes, and we are all called to forgive people and continue to love them as long as they are sincerely apologetic and are working toward changing any ongoing negative behaviors. (We're called to forgive them and continue to love them--but not necessarily keep them in our lives--if they are always sorry but never seem to change or if they aren't sorry/don't take responsibility or if they consistently act in ways that are selfish but refuse to see this pattern).
Despite lots of conversations along these lines--and, overall, and increased sense of responsibility for her own actions--S. continued to refuse to take responsibility for any of it, even several hours later--and so, predictably, later that night, I yelled at her again--second time in a week. And apologized. And took consequences. And wondered why in the world I hadn't learned--the guilt was pretty serious and flawed.
But after my blow up, we cleaned the backpack, replaced the dilapidated folders, purchased new paper and pencils. She redid the lost assignment, finished the one she hadn't bothered to complete--the one she'd claimed to have finished at school and left there when I asked her about it. And, she apologized, saying, "I know all that stuff was my fault and I just couldn't admit it. I'm sorry, mom."
I told her I was sorry, too--sorry because I should have learned from my first mistake and shouldn't have repeated it two days later. I told her I knew I needed to figure out what was causing these blow ups to happen, and that when somebody blows up, it's never the other person's fault--even if they have done the worst possible thing, we always have to find ways to handle our emotions without lashing out angrily at the other person. We need to take time and space away from each other to calm down instead of getting into it when we're most angry.
"It's OK, Mom," she said. "Like you always say, what matters is that you're trying to change and you're sorry."
So, she IS getting it, even when it seems as if she's not!
When we finally got over yelling at each other, we were able to actually listen to each other. She told me then that she was depressed "for the first time since I got here." She misses her brothers, she said, and she's angry that the state she is from made her go through such a battle to ensure that her mother could always reach her but didn't bother to protect her relationship with her brothers. She has a point.
(The next day, I made another round of phone calls. Nobody will tell me anything. I have their addresses, and the oldest brother's number, but his foster mother hangs up on us when we call. They have not answered S's letters; we don't know if they're receiving them. Please, I wrote to the social workers, at least tell us whether they've received the letters. They are both in complicated situations now, was the answer I received. Not good enough, of course).
S. also told me that her worst abuse happened during the holidays. She has been having nightmares about it every night. Suddenly, her bad behavior, her backsliding, makes sense.
The holidays have traditionally been hard for me, too. In addition to my own sad memories (along with many happy ones) from the holidays when I was a child, the holidays have always heightened the sense of homelessness that every GLBT person feels to some extent. When I was partnered, I always felt torn between the woman who loved me deeply and my family of origin. My family didn't dislike her, but bringing her to family gatherings was nevertheless awkward; there are varying levels of comfort in the family about my sexual orientation, from deep grief to total acceptance (but, even among the most accepting, a total lack of awareness about how, despite this acceptance, she was never treated the same way as other family spouses--or how challenging the coming out process was for me--or, more recently, that this break up was a divorce and had all the same emotional, financial, etc. fallout--things we never talk about). Anyway, the year I stayed with her, I missed my family; the years I tried to split the holidays, I felt harried and crazed; the year I stayed for more than a week with my family, I missed her.
The last two holiday seasons, I've been single, and it has been easy to choose to leave town and go to my family for 2-3 weeks, but it is never easy to be away from one's home and routine, especially without someone who can listen on the other end of the phone to the feeling of disassociation that is, perhaps, inevitable when one has left a place for many years while most others have stayed.
Of course, going "home" with a child who, like my former partner, is welcomed to varying degrees, depending on the person, who can't possibly yet feel as if the place I grew up is actually "home," will present a new set of challenges.
In addition to all of these concerns, I know some of my frustration had to do with not wanting to go back to work after our amazing holiday celebration. There is a lot of stress there--a co-worker who may be leaving, budget cuts that threaten the program I direct and my teaching assignment, and about which I have been a designated spokesperson due to a role I have on a committee. In short, I have been going to work to field one crisis after another rather than to do the things I love to do--teaching, planning new service-learning projects, visiting students at their service sites or meeting with them about their projects.
And so, I've turned this internal stress outward, and it hasn't been fair. I told S. all of this, in a way I thought she'd understand, the cliffs notes version: "Things at work are stressful. I love my job, but it's not always easy, and this has been one of the harder weeks. And I'm also both really excited about going away and really nervous about leaving our safe and happy little home for a whole two weeks."
"Don't you get it, Mom? I feel the same way. School is good but stressful. I love my friends but I'm still nervous around kids my own age. It's good that I won the most improved award but now I have all this pressure, like I have to be a role model. Plus, I had a lot of things due this week. And I want to be with your big fat Greek family but I also want to curl up with you in front of the tree and have our own two-person Christmas here, all at the same time."
So, she does get it, after all! Probably all we would have had to do was to take some time to formulate these sentences, and we wouldn't have been screaming at each other. It seems so obvious in retrospect.
And then she said the sentence that made everything OK: "But no matter what happens, I know this is going to be my best Christmas ever."
Mine, too.
This weekend, we went to an improv show on Friday (S. wanted to see her college buddy perform, and afterwards, I wondered why I'd never gone before--I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and laughter is definitely needed in my life these days), then to brunch today with S's godparents, who are a good, calming influence in both our lives, and then to a Christmas concert with beautiful traditional carols tonight. Today, in between brunch and the concert, one of S's college buddies took her Christmas shopping for three hours. I had planned to do some internet shopping of my own while they had my car, or to catch up on grading--but instead I cleaned the house, and while doing so, I sang, and prayed out loud--and when she was back, I felt totally centered; my body had been moving (not quite as good as going to the gym, but still), my heart was totally warm from the singing and prayer, and I was very excited and happy to see her again. And, the house was spotless, which made me feel like life was less chaotic.
When the mail came, there was a letter from her youngest brother. She hasn't seen him in several years because for awhile he was with a foster family that felt it was not a good idea for him to have contact with his sister. That family had made a commitment to adopt him but changed their minds at the last minute. Now, he is still with them, but waiting to be adopted. He asked S. how her cat and dog were doing. He told her a funny story about his cat, who get into a take-out box and ate some french fries. He said he doesn't really want to get adopted but that the state is trying to find him a family. He closed the letter with, "Well, anyway, I'm joining the football team. Well also, hope you live a good life. I miss you. Love, B."
She must have read the letter 20 times. She talked a long time about what he'd been like as a child. She talked about how she always knew he would turn out "smart and a good writer." She analyzed his handwriting. She quoted some of his sentences verbatim to me, interpreting what he probably meant.
And then, in the midst of this conversation, she turned to me and said, completely out of the blue, "What would happen if I was kidnapped? What would you do?"
She's asked me questions like this before, and I know she needs to be reassured regularly that I'm really committed--that some part of her heart will never know this for sure. I went through the scenario again, answering each question that came up--no, I'd never stop looking, yes, I'd spend my own money on a private detective if the police weren't finding you, etc.
"I just think it's important to think through the worst possible things because then they don't seem so scary," she said, and I realized there was some wisdom in these words. So I dared to let myself think about what would happen if I lost my job. I don't have any savings, and I still have debt, but with my adoption assistance check, I could at least pay the mortgage and car payment and still afford food for a little while until I could get some state assistance or another job and we figured out a plan. It's terrifying to think about, but we would survive. Even if we lost the house and car, we'd survive--after all, my father did, and so have thousands of others.
I think I have this idea that when I get to the point where blow ups are possible, there's either nothing I can do because I'm too busy to deal with it or because the problems are too big (which puts me into even more of a panic and makes it even less possible to get work done), or that the only thing I can do is take a real, long-term retreat (which used to be possible, but isn't now that I have a child). But three hours was enough--and I didn't need to sit in meditation or even leave my house or even open my journal; I could even be productive, clean the house and do laundry, while working my heart back into balance.
I should have learned this from the horses last weekend; I think there's a theme here that I've been a little slow to pick up on. It's not so much what I'm doing with my time but how I'm doing what I'm doing that will affect how well I am able to stay patient and calm. I need to pay attention to what I'm letting my mind and heart do regardless of what my body's doing. I don't know whether I can prayerfully and gratefully go into my next discussion with administrators about budget cuts (I know for sure I can't sing during these meetings), but maybe I can shift the panic and anger and grief in my heart into some kind of hope, or at least a belief that things will be OK, one way or another, even in the worst case scenario.
If I'd had only one screaming match with her, I could feel as if my behavior was somewhat justified--I apologized right away, went through the same consequences she would get for raising her voice and stomping around the house--but two?
The blow ups have been happening more frequently on S's end, too. I was called in to talk to her teacher after she had a blow up in class. The reason--and this is hilarious--is that she had a rotting banana in the bottom of her bag, which she was not particularly willing to remove, mainly because doing so would have involved also removing every other item in her backpack. Now, if you have seen my office, or our home, it is not entirely surprising that her backpack is a mess. (I once got a note from a student saying that she always felt comfortable in my office because the fact that it was messy but I was always willing to talk to her made her realize I had my priorities straight). But, earlier this year, I'd been more vigilant about reminding S. to clean the backpack out each night and more likely to catch her in any lies about the status of her homework assignments. I've been slacking in my vigilance the last couple weeks, and things have gotten--well, messy. The blow up also involved a missed assignment for which she refused to take responsibility, the f-word, and a lost assignment she'd actually done.
During our post-blow-up conversation with her teacher, S. refused to take any responsibility for anything--the blow up, the messy backpack, the missing assignment (which she'd lied to both of us, telling her teacher I had it and telling me her teacher had it), the rotting banana, the lost assignment.
What bothers me most--and S. knows this is the one and only thing that could possibly make me blow--is when people do not take responsibility for the things that are their fault. Second on the list is laziness--not the "I know I should do this but don't feel like it" kind, but the willful, "I could do this and know all the reasons why it's a bad idea not to do it but simply refuse" kind, which usually coincides with a deep selfishness (the person in this mind frame rarely realizes that her actions will affect others and not just herself). I try very hard to model these behaviors for her, telling her that everyone gets to make their own decisions about how they spend their time and how they mess up their own lives but that they need to be aware of how their decisions affect others, and that they usually do. We have talked about how everyone makes mistakes, and we are all called to forgive people and continue to love them as long as they are sincerely apologetic and are working toward changing any ongoing negative behaviors. (We're called to forgive them and continue to love them--but not necessarily keep them in our lives--if they are always sorry but never seem to change or if they aren't sorry/don't take responsibility or if they consistently act in ways that are selfish but refuse to see this pattern).
Despite lots of conversations along these lines--and, overall, and increased sense of responsibility for her own actions--S. continued to refuse to take responsibility for any of it, even several hours later--and so, predictably, later that night, I yelled at her again--second time in a week. And apologized. And took consequences. And wondered why in the world I hadn't learned--the guilt was pretty serious and flawed.
But after my blow up, we cleaned the backpack, replaced the dilapidated folders, purchased new paper and pencils. She redid the lost assignment, finished the one she hadn't bothered to complete--the one she'd claimed to have finished at school and left there when I asked her about it. And, she apologized, saying, "I know all that stuff was my fault and I just couldn't admit it. I'm sorry, mom."
I told her I was sorry, too--sorry because I should have learned from my first mistake and shouldn't have repeated it two days later. I told her I knew I needed to figure out what was causing these blow ups to happen, and that when somebody blows up, it's never the other person's fault--even if they have done the worst possible thing, we always have to find ways to handle our emotions without lashing out angrily at the other person. We need to take time and space away from each other to calm down instead of getting into it when we're most angry.
"It's OK, Mom," she said. "Like you always say, what matters is that you're trying to change and you're sorry."
So, she IS getting it, even when it seems as if she's not!
When we finally got over yelling at each other, we were able to actually listen to each other. She told me then that she was depressed "for the first time since I got here." She misses her brothers, she said, and she's angry that the state she is from made her go through such a battle to ensure that her mother could always reach her but didn't bother to protect her relationship with her brothers. She has a point.
(The next day, I made another round of phone calls. Nobody will tell me anything. I have their addresses, and the oldest brother's number, but his foster mother hangs up on us when we call. They have not answered S's letters; we don't know if they're receiving them. Please, I wrote to the social workers, at least tell us whether they've received the letters. They are both in complicated situations now, was the answer I received. Not good enough, of course).
S. also told me that her worst abuse happened during the holidays. She has been having nightmares about it every night. Suddenly, her bad behavior, her backsliding, makes sense.
The holidays have traditionally been hard for me, too. In addition to my own sad memories (along with many happy ones) from the holidays when I was a child, the holidays have always heightened the sense of homelessness that every GLBT person feels to some extent. When I was partnered, I always felt torn between the woman who loved me deeply and my family of origin. My family didn't dislike her, but bringing her to family gatherings was nevertheless awkward; there are varying levels of comfort in the family about my sexual orientation, from deep grief to total acceptance (but, even among the most accepting, a total lack of awareness about how, despite this acceptance, she was never treated the same way as other family spouses--or how challenging the coming out process was for me--or, more recently, that this break up was a divorce and had all the same emotional, financial, etc. fallout--things we never talk about). Anyway, the year I stayed with her, I missed my family; the years I tried to split the holidays, I felt harried and crazed; the year I stayed for more than a week with my family, I missed her.
The last two holiday seasons, I've been single, and it has been easy to choose to leave town and go to my family for 2-3 weeks, but it is never easy to be away from one's home and routine, especially without someone who can listen on the other end of the phone to the feeling of disassociation that is, perhaps, inevitable when one has left a place for many years while most others have stayed.
Of course, going "home" with a child who, like my former partner, is welcomed to varying degrees, depending on the person, who can't possibly yet feel as if the place I grew up is actually "home," will present a new set of challenges.
In addition to all of these concerns, I know some of my frustration had to do with not wanting to go back to work after our amazing holiday celebration. There is a lot of stress there--a co-worker who may be leaving, budget cuts that threaten the program I direct and my teaching assignment, and about which I have been a designated spokesperson due to a role I have on a committee. In short, I have been going to work to field one crisis after another rather than to do the things I love to do--teaching, planning new service-learning projects, visiting students at their service sites or meeting with them about their projects.
And so, I've turned this internal stress outward, and it hasn't been fair. I told S. all of this, in a way I thought she'd understand, the cliffs notes version: "Things at work are stressful. I love my job, but it's not always easy, and this has been one of the harder weeks. And I'm also both really excited about going away and really nervous about leaving our safe and happy little home for a whole two weeks."
"Don't you get it, Mom? I feel the same way. School is good but stressful. I love my friends but I'm still nervous around kids my own age. It's good that I won the most improved award but now I have all this pressure, like I have to be a role model. Plus, I had a lot of things due this week. And I want to be with your big fat Greek family but I also want to curl up with you in front of the tree and have our own two-person Christmas here, all at the same time."
So, she does get it, after all! Probably all we would have had to do was to take some time to formulate these sentences, and we wouldn't have been screaming at each other. It seems so obvious in retrospect.
And then she said the sentence that made everything OK: "But no matter what happens, I know this is going to be my best Christmas ever."
Mine, too.
This weekend, we went to an improv show on Friday (S. wanted to see her college buddy perform, and afterwards, I wondered why I'd never gone before--I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and laughter is definitely needed in my life these days), then to brunch today with S's godparents, who are a good, calming influence in both our lives, and then to a Christmas concert with beautiful traditional carols tonight. Today, in between brunch and the concert, one of S's college buddies took her Christmas shopping for three hours. I had planned to do some internet shopping of my own while they had my car, or to catch up on grading--but instead I cleaned the house, and while doing so, I sang, and prayed out loud--and when she was back, I felt totally centered; my body had been moving (not quite as good as going to the gym, but still), my heart was totally warm from the singing and prayer, and I was very excited and happy to see her again. And, the house was spotless, which made me feel like life was less chaotic.
When the mail came, there was a letter from her youngest brother. She hasn't seen him in several years because for awhile he was with a foster family that felt it was not a good idea for him to have contact with his sister. That family had made a commitment to adopt him but changed their minds at the last minute. Now, he is still with them, but waiting to be adopted. He asked S. how her cat and dog were doing. He told her a funny story about his cat, who get into a take-out box and ate some french fries. He said he doesn't really want to get adopted but that the state is trying to find him a family. He closed the letter with, "Well, anyway, I'm joining the football team. Well also, hope you live a good life. I miss you. Love, B."
She must have read the letter 20 times. She talked a long time about what he'd been like as a child. She talked about how she always knew he would turn out "smart and a good writer." She analyzed his handwriting. She quoted some of his sentences verbatim to me, interpreting what he probably meant.
And then, in the midst of this conversation, she turned to me and said, completely out of the blue, "What would happen if I was kidnapped? What would you do?"
She's asked me questions like this before, and I know she needs to be reassured regularly that I'm really committed--that some part of her heart will never know this for sure. I went through the scenario again, answering each question that came up--no, I'd never stop looking, yes, I'd spend my own money on a private detective if the police weren't finding you, etc.
"I just think it's important to think through the worst possible things because then they don't seem so scary," she said, and I realized there was some wisdom in these words. So I dared to let myself think about what would happen if I lost my job. I don't have any savings, and I still have debt, but with my adoption assistance check, I could at least pay the mortgage and car payment and still afford food for a little while until I could get some state assistance or another job and we figured out a plan. It's terrifying to think about, but we would survive. Even if we lost the house and car, we'd survive--after all, my father did, and so have thousands of others.
I think I have this idea that when I get to the point where blow ups are possible, there's either nothing I can do because I'm too busy to deal with it or because the problems are too big (which puts me into even more of a panic and makes it even less possible to get work done), or that the only thing I can do is take a real, long-term retreat (which used to be possible, but isn't now that I have a child). But three hours was enough--and I didn't need to sit in meditation or even leave my house or even open my journal; I could even be productive, clean the house and do laundry, while working my heart back into balance.
I should have learned this from the horses last weekend; I think there's a theme here that I've been a little slow to pick up on. It's not so much what I'm doing with my time but how I'm doing what I'm doing that will affect how well I am able to stay patient and calm. I need to pay attention to what I'm letting my mind and heart do regardless of what my body's doing. I don't know whether I can prayerfully and gratefully go into my next discussion with administrators about budget cuts (I know for sure I can't sing during these meetings), but maybe I can shift the panic and anger and grief in my heart into some kind of hope, or at least a belief that things will be OK, one way or another, even in the worst case scenario.
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