Remember this little cutie pie?
(Missing her today.)
My Sweet Pickles, back when we had our days alone together. Right now she's at school and I'm avoiding a manuscript. I'm thinking about what she said on her way out the door this morning: "I can't wait to get home every day."
It's not school, the work, the other kids so much as it's growing pains. The first big wave of reality hitting hard. When she's tired, she knows it, but it still doesn't make it easy to calm herself. And she's tired because self awareness is a lot of work.
She's of that age when she needs a woman in her life. Someone who's been there. Someone who knows. When she tells me something that's been worrying her, I nod and say, "Yep. Monsters. I remember those. Where are they? Lemme go beat 'em up!" And she believes it, too. You gotta be believable. I don't tell her she did everything wrong. I don't tell her she was victimized by an outrageous injustice of second grade travesty. I let her know disappointment is normal, but it shouldn't get us too down when we've got someone we love to see us through.
I remember being her age, coming home from school upset about life. It's hard for me to understand other parents not remembering what it was like. Those promises they made to themselves NEVER to forget. The damn Cat's Cradle song. As soon as someone says, "Those were different times," though, it's over.
Pal Sarah did a Good Reads review about a book on parenting types. The brickwalls and the jellyfish...and the backbones.
My experience was brickwall.
ex.
"She said I was ugly."
"Well, are ya?"
*I sensed the answer that I was supposed to give was "no" so I said no, not believing it, but smart enough to know that the last thing I needed in that moment was another emotional knock-out.
What I needed was about twenty minutes of affectionate reassurance, but those were the latchkey years. And if someone forced me at bongpoint to make a commentary on the emotional readiness of the thirtysomething baby boomers for compassionately dealing with the problems facing young girls wearing Smurfette t-shirts and the weight of a day's long agony at the hands of the Nelly Olsen-like nemesis...I'd say nothing was worthy a break in routine and structure and chores if it didn't have to do with losing one's friend in Vietnam.
'Nuclear war. Holocaust! Ho Chi Minh. These are real tragedies! Go clean the kitchen!'
They would ignore the bong reference, then say it was even harder being raised by the Greatest Generation (whose parents suffered through the Great War...and further back would argue further back and so on).
I have golden friends. Close friends. I have the kind of friends who take one look at me and say, "What's the matter?" and I trust them to listen.
I learned this, I think. This was nurture.
A skill more important to me than business sense...holding those close who bring you back from the scared or dire thoughts.
I did not learn this from my parents.
Makes me wonder, though. You try to avoid one extreme or the other, hoping not to fall back on what you thought didn't work for you as a child, but maybe it did--it's how you came to be, after all. Pain is an educator. Figuring things out for oneself makes the lessons stick. Not having a safety net makes one more cautious. Not getting out of responsibility makes one give up the impulse of giving up. Testing how much one can endure builds confidence. Being told you're wrong makes you think things out in advance for next time.
Many other examples of things I wouldn't change. The brickwall can be scaled. (I have no idea what a jellyfish scenario would be like.) I tell myself sometimes, as much as it gets bad press these days, the Tiger moms and the hardass scenarios out there of parents raising tougher more productive kids, maybe it's true that it is a more effective way...if I like myself now...maybe...there's a big difference between open sores and callouses. I'm grateful I can lift heavier, push further, just plain deal.
But then I remember that I was not entirely brickwalled.
I had a grandma who used hugs when words failed her. I had a grandma who dropped everything to come and get me, no matter what shit she took at her job for it. If all else failed, grandma would be there. I knew it. It was like having a secret super hero in my life. The world was safe because of her.
I was lucky with the timing of our relationship, my grandma's and mine. A pocket of time in her life, her own experiences shedding light, she was perfect for me at that age. She probably never knew how much. She had the time for me, and the maturity. Maybe that wasn't always what she could manage for others, but from the late seventies to late nineties, she was the softness in a hard world that made the journey a lot easier for me.
Pick reminds me of her.
The way she takes care of everyone.
The way her hugs are so sincere.
The way she's happiest if everyone is happy.
I started noticing it when Pick was three. The familiarity. The way we picked up where we left off. That spirit that runs in my family of women who do their best if they have at least one great love.
It's a reincarnation. An inherited goodness. A great comfort to me, to have experienced this connection twice...
It's a cycle. A chain. My strength & my joy.
I can't brickwall this kid. It's impossible. She's too ahead of me. All I can do is put the arms out and raise a sword.
I love her dearly. My girl. My sweet sweet kid.
And I can't wait for her to get home every day, either.
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