Loving the ones closest to us
Chocolate milk at dinner + the long slow work of love
I’m going through a thing with one of my kids that’s inviting me to the edge of myself. To the edge of my knowledge and experience. To the cliff of what I know about this part of life. To the edge of my coping mechanisms and memorized patterns.
I don’t like it.
I know it’s good and healthy and discomfort is where the growth happens. Blah, blah, blah. I still don’t like it.
I’ve always been someone who voraciously researches something I don’t understand so I can stand ready with encouragement, reality, invitations, and strategies. Sometimes it’s even helps. But mostly, I’ve picked up that the people closest to me rarely want my strategies.
They just want me.
My love.
My compassion.
My witness.
My presence.
It’s a bit infuriating, isn’t it?
It’s been tempting to project my experience of life onto them. But this is their life. I get to stand next door and listen. I get to stay when things unravel and explode. I get to remind them who they are. I get to separate what I’ve learned about my life from this curious unique human next to me.
Holding our life experience in one hand and a person we love in the other hand is complex. Yet, isn’t that often our invitation?
We don’t get to fix this situation for the person we love.
I hate that.
Sometimes my presence heals.
Sometimes my presence hurts.
Both get to be true.
This work of loving our closest people is slow. It’s hard to measure. No one else really sees it. Maybe we don’t even register how all the little things add up.
It’s that moment of listening on a Tuesday morning before school when your to do list is screaming nearby.
It’s that long hug that unwinds the knots of frustration inside.
It’s surprising them by taking the trash can to the curb on Thursday night.
It’s breathing deeply of a new day and beginning again, even as your nervous system sharply remembers yesterday.
It’s surprising them with chocolate milk at dinner.
It’s knowing their biggest fears and loving them through it, instead of dismissing and explaining.
It’s gifting grace to them and to you. Over and over and over and over. We’re never navigated this life before. We’re all learning.
It’s courageously learning more about you so you can show up to them with fewer walls and more presence.
It’s grieving how you assumed it might go when it turns into a chapter you didn’t see coming.
It’s loving themselves as the person they are right now, knowing they’ll change again before you’re ready.
I tell you, my friends. Loving the people around us changes us, doesn’t it?
We lost power for a few hours one night this week. My nine-year-old son walked around the house asking which electronic gadgets might still work. It’s wild seeing him realize how much of our world depends on electricity nowadays!
But it didn’t take long before the flashlights, candles, and shadow puppets came out to play. What a gift.
Sending love, Jenny. You've got this. Such a brilliantly thought-provoking post - I loved it. 😊
"Loving the people around us changes us, doesn’t it?"
Yes. Yes, it is.
Grateful for you and your insight.