Brooklyn went through a spurt, a couple of months ago, where she told me several days in a row, ”I care about everybody. Even people in different worlds than us. I care about everyone.”
(First off, lest you think she’s talking about other planets or that we know something about extraterrestrial life that you don’t, you should know my kids use the word “worlds” for “countries”, which I think is fantastic and adorable and I am 1000% committed to NOT correcting them.)
I cannot convey just how seriously she says this. Her voice grows low and quiet and she meets my eyes dead on and delivers this statement with all the seriousness of a person giving a speech to the UN.
I love this about her. I told her that. I gave her a hug each time and told her, “I love that about you. I care about people everywhere, too. That’s an important thing we get to do, is love other people and care about them even if we don’t know them.”
Her teacher, at conferences, also said this is her favorite thing about Brooklyn. That she goes out of her way to help and stick up for everyone in the classroom. If, for example, a student is having trouble sitting still on the carpet and gets moved to sit in a chair, Brooklyn will pipe up to say, “And that’s okay! Because they can still learn in the chair! That’s what’s best for their body right now.”
And it’s one of those moments where you realize that they’re listening. Because that’s exactly the type of language we use at home.
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Home has not exactly been a haven these days. It’s cluttered and messy and I’m not sure you can actually walk in Caden and Brooklyn’s bedroom right now. Every time I tackle one space I think three more become overwhelmed with papers and LEGOs and stray socks. (Seriously, where do they come from?)
There’s no winning here.
Tyson has been busy with transitions at work and also working on another project in the evenings. Our February was chaotic, a month in a series of chaotic months. I’ve been busy with writing and volunteering and attempting to stay on top of appointments and keeping Nolan occupied with things other than “watching every episode of Ninjago” and “eating literal spoonfuls of sugar from the canister on the counter”.
Last week, Tyson and I had that conversation of “Hi, I’m really busy, can you do more?” “Hi, I’m really busy, can you do more?”
The house is supposed to be our shared responsibility and yet it’s been easy to fall into the trap of self-pity and frustration lately. It’s been easy to think I’m doing more than my fair share, that if he helped more it wouldn’t be this way, that if I just literally never sat down I could get on top of it.
Of course, none of these things are true.
There’s definitely no winning there.
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“And that’s okay!” is basically Brooklyn’s catchphrase.
“This boy at school likes to wear pink. And that’s okay! Because pink is just a color,” she’ll say.
“Caden likes to put his snowpants and boots and jacket on in a different order than me. And that’s okay! That’s what works best for him.”
“I don’t like cucumbers. And that’s okay! Because I like other foods.”
”It sounds like your friend had trouble controlling their body,” I’ll say, after she tells me about a friend who was removed from the classroom, “You and Caden have a pretty easy time controlling your bodies, and it sounds like your friend has lots of energy and has a harder time sitting still than you do.””And that’s okay!” she’ll say.
And it is.
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“And that’s okay!” is a pretty great mantra to live by. You’d think I would know this already since I’m the one who gave the phrase to her.
I was originally writing this with a different ending in mind. Though let me assure you the endings to the essays I write frequently surprise me. Rarely do my drafts get written so clearly and predictably that they travel from A to B to C in such a logical, unsurprising order.
I thought I was going to end by talking about how I often want to read instead of tackling one of the 34 tasks swirling in my head or to get takeout instead of making dinner because even though I love to cook doing it every. single. night often seems like just a bit much, and how sometimes I just need a moment but you don’t often get that moment with small children and so you react in ways you wish you hadn’t just a second later. And I was going to tie it back to how our house is a disaster but we’ll figure it out because that’s what we do. And that’s okay! Because we all do these things and that’s okay. We’re human and we can embrace our humanity. This is all true.
However. I’m not finishing this piece at the same time I started it. I jotted that opening paragraph as a note in my phone a few months ago and that feels like a different time entirely. And also I wrote that paragraph about our house being a disaster last week and it already doesn’t seem quite so important anymore so it’s going to sit up there like a loose end. (And that’s okay!) Instead, I’m writing these very words right now in light of coronavirus and what feels like a very uncertain, bizarre, weird time. Just when I think we’ve hit peak crazy something else happens and here we are, finishing an intense week in a series of intense weeks, cluttered houses and all.
So instead I’ll end with this:
Sometimes we need to sit with our feelings and emotions, particularly when they’re confusing and conflicting. And that’s okay.
Sometimes we scroll longer than we should through social media and read six articles too many about the same damn thing. And that’s okay.
Sometimes we have to mourn the loss of things, like predictable schedules, events we were looking forward to but are no longer, trips and travel plans being no more, our daily routines being upended in ways we didn’t expect. And that’s okay.
Sometimes we despair the clutter in the corner or the crumbs on the counter even when there are much bigger things going on in the world. And that’s okay.
Sometimes we forget that our anxiety can be quelled with things as simple as “taking deep breaths” or “making a fresh cup of coffee”. And that’s okay.
Sometimes all we can do is take care of the present moment. And that’s okay.
Sometimes it takes a six-year-old, using the words you’ve given her, to remind you that we need to take care of people in different communities, in different demographics, in different “worlds” than us. And that’s okay.
Sometimes we need to just be and rest and exist without putting pressure on ourselves to produce or perform. Especially when it feels as if the whole world has lost its mind. And that’s really, really, really okay.