Lisa for Real

019. Trust is a practice

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It feels easier to trust others than to trust ourselves.

After all, if something goes wrong, we can shed any responsibility of the outcome and blame the other person.

However, if we were to trust ourselves, we’d only have ourselves to blame.

Is that the reason we choose not to trust ourselves?

Because we are afraid of being wrong and having a finger pointed at us?

What if we separate being “right” or “wrong” from the act of trusting ourselves?

What if we see trust as a practice, like meditation, that unto itself is independent of the outcome?

015. Be Marveled

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My 3 year old was working on a 100 piece puzzle.

I sat back and watched.

For the first time, I didn’t get frustrated with his “mistakes” and I didn’t feel the urge to hand him the correct piece.

Instead of butting in, I intently observed and was absolutely marveled.

I could see the concentration on his face and the wheels turning in his brain. I could feel his intention to slowly and steadily finish the puzzle.

I realized quietly marveling at my children’s abilities is a way to be absolutely present with them. And maybe it’d work on myself too.

Kindergarten Graduation in the Time of COVID

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Yesterday, I was a mom to a kindergartener.

Today, I am a mom to a first grader. 

Just.like.that.

No pomp. No circumstance. No big party with her classmates with treats and hugs from her teachers. No end-of-year clean up to bring the experience of filling the room with her creations and laughter full circle. 

Instead, we received her belongings, worksheets, and artwork in a black garbage bag. 

Instead, there was a final Zoom class with 20 classmates. Twenty six year olds individually voicing their mix of feelings about kindergarten ending. 

As the children bravely and innocently shared, tears fell.

I mourned.

I mourned for the moments that my daughter doesn’t know she missed. I mourned this “new normal” that has replaced inperson connections with abrupt electronic contactless transactions. I mourned that no proper goodbye exists during this time.

As a lump in my throat and a tightness in my chest grew, the sadness flowed.

My emotions were not only of the moment but bottled up over the past three months of quarantine. Fermenting and bubbling under the surface while I scrambled to keep it together as employee, wife, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, teacher, and mom. 

I mourned the robust and engaging lessons my daughter would have had instead of my husband and I playing teacher. I mourned her friendships that never got a chance to truly blossom. I mourned all of the what-if’s. 

I mourned the inability for me to change any of it.

Change.

I realize, above all, I am mourning that everything is changing. The changing that is inevitable because our children do nothing but grow and change and we have no control over it. After six years of constant change, I am again reminded that I will be battling these emotions for all of motherhood – in times of COVID or not.

I will mourn again and again the change from old normal to new normal. 

After these emotions flow, I will be ready to embrace the change.

I will be ready to embrace being a mother to a first grader.

Inspiration: This exact moment in time of quarantine is a tough one. I have competing emotions and emotional priorities. While the world is uniting and dividing around Black Lives Matter, our individual lives continue. Just as our lives continued as the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world. My daughter graduating from kindergarten is not a small milestone and while I have wanted to focus on advocacy work and writing, these emotions bubbled up and I had to share.

Bubble Time Lesson

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bubble time lesson

Any mention of going outside or going to the park yields a single word exclamatory response from my one year old.

“Bubbles!”

Often it’s just a mention of the park and we are actually not going out. But she’s got a one track mind and her focus on bubbles does not waver as I try to change the subject or explain to her – “later, not now” or “when we get to the park, then we can do bubbles.” She won’t let up until we start heading out the door or something truly interesting captures her attention.

Despite the nagging ☺, going out and blowing bubbles for my daughter is precious time together. As I watched my daughter during bubble time today, I smiled in wonder and awe of her natural ability to be present.

I realized – you can’t not be present around bubbles.

Those little orbs are only around for a brief moment. Its iridescent beauty lives for a couple of seconds before it floats away or more likely is popped by little fingers trying to capture it. And you can’t lament its end.

That is the bubble’s purpose.

To provide that momentary joy. To induce squeals and the pitter patter of little feet chasing it.

No tears or sadness are had when a bubble’s life is ended because my daughter knows that there is more where it came from. More joy, more beauty, more fun. And she insists on it as she requests“More? More?” without a second thought of the bubble that just came and went.

Mommy may not be able to re-create that 5 inch beauty ever again but that is okay with her.

There is just as much joy in the new bubbles as the old, no matter the size or how far it floats.

Presence is here all the time but it alludes me. I get wrapped up in thoughts of work, projects, chores, and other daily life stressors that pull me away from living in the now. I know I stand to be more present and make an almost daily pledge to meditate more. Until then, I have bubble time.

 

originally written: November 1, 2015