teaching the gray

i shouldn't be writing- i should be sitting on the couch with Jude who is 104 degrees. but the little one is asleep and zoe is at brain balance with mike- so i will have a brief moment of ...ahhh - with my coffee.

i was thinking about the last few days with zoe and the comedy of her seemingly different behavior depending on my posts. i'd write she's doing awfully and she then she'd have a great day- etc. and i realized the apple doesn't fall far- or perhaps the apple is significantly influenced by the tree. the fact that i dichotomize her behavior into all good or all bad is so not helpful. and here i am, trying to teach her to live in the gray- to be less extreme-

really kris? really?

i think i need to spend some more time being still. i think i need to be more accepting of where we are "now", where ever that is, and less concerned with it's overall significance. because really there are good and bad moments in every day- in every hour. sometimes i hear zoe emphatically say, "this is the worst day of my whole entire life!" , usually spurred on by something like not being able to get her shirt buttoned. and i find myself trying to re--frame it for her. dissecting the day - so she will see that what feels like the end of the world, or is enough to classify as a bad day, is really only a bad moment, and that there have been good moments as well, often more so than the bad ones. trying to regulate response- to learn to judge the level of drama.

and that is the humility of parenting. it's kind of like looking in the mirror when you don't want to. seeing all of your own struggles and issues in your child. hearing yourself 'teach' them the right way, while you're working on it yourself. i'm horribly dramatic with those nearest to me. mike reminds me all the time- even in my writings here. it's all or nothing- we're on the road to recovery or we're doomed to a life of endless therapy and lesson repeats.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope
For hope would be for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

just be. take it as it comes. when it rains, let it rain. chances are we'll be in a similar place next month, and next year- because life isn't black and white- but i think it's more than gray. i think it's blue and green- like joni mitchell sings. it's not a box with sharp corners, it's bendy and flexible and surprising.

and it feels so much better to be in this place.