Where Did the Time Go?

It’s beenawhile since my last post — how the great whitewater of life flows… and let me tell you, the rocks that come along…

Wait a minute. It’s time to put this all into perspective.

I’m learning to shift my attention. As I understand the Law of Attraction, what I pay attention to is what’s going to happen, over and over again. That’s a very simplified description — there’s a lot more to it than that. But sometimes it comes down to HOW I look at things and, yes, WHAT I look at, what I pay attention to, what I chatter about in my head, what I gripe about, what I obsess about, what I fight.

So on Saturday, on a long weekend with kids — what I have come to call the perpetual party at my house — I was not feeling real welcoming of every little imp that set foot inside my door. It would seem logical if I simply said, “Sorry, the house will be empty of anyone but you and me, Son,” but I knew that whether imps were here, or chimps were here, or elephants were here (well, maybe that’s an exaggeration), or none of them was here, I’d still kinda feel not real lovely. Not horrible, but just not lovely. I’ve had horrible, and this wasn’t it.

But nevertheless, it certainly added to my “lovely” perspective about things.

Here’s the scene. Imagine yourself in it.

You’re sitting in a chair, reading. You have a house to straighten up, but the book beckons. Just plain SITTING beckons. After a long time of having a hard time sitting without feeling like you must get up and DO, DO, DO and not sit until you have gotten it all DONE, you have finally learned that it’s NEVER going to get done, so why are you spending half your life doing things that are never going to get done, and then regret that you didn’t spend more time DOING the things you would have done when you got all the things you didn’t want to do, DONE?

So you’re sitting there. Reading. Spongebob chattering on the TV with no one watching. Furnace kicking on and off during an early spring chill, you covered in a blanket.

Your darling blond son comes downstairs from where he’s been playing with three of his friends. (Upstairs: his room and the room north of it, a nice, big area at the top of the stairs — a kids’ playground that, you’ve decided, is not going to be a decorator’s haven, simply due to the existence of CHILDREN that frequent it. No use fighting what can’t be controlled. Too much pain, agony, energy. Life is supposed to be fun.)

He says, with enthusiasm only a kid can exude, “MOM! LOOK! We’re PAINTING!”

He’s wearing tight blue gloves. You don’t have any blue gloves. Not bright, shiny, medium-with-a-hint-of-green blue…WAIT! Those aren’t gloves, that’s PAINT!

Ohhhkaaaaaay…

“WHAT are you guys DOING?”

“We’re splatter painting, Mom! Come look!”

“Where?”

“On some cardboard, come look!”

Up the stairs you go.

In a nice little collection, on top of something — a set of plastic drawers, maybe — you don’t really notice — of paint bottles. Tie-dye paint. Acrylic crafter’s paint. A lovely little artistic palette of spontaneity.

There’s the cardboard, duct-taped to the wall. A work of art, due for transport to the Smithsonian Institute. Or maybe it’s a mental institute for mad parents.

After a lecture on ASKING before one uses one’s parent’s prized possessions (not just for the benefit of the Son, but the Friends), you really try to pay ATTENTION to the fact that the paint is on the CARDBOARD only.

Soon thereafter, as you are going from one place to another in the house, trying to regain your sense of equilibrium and sanity in your lovely haven you call a home, your son bounces up to you and says, “Mom, can we splatter paint the walls?”

“NO!” The word thunders across the house creating a rumble that rivals the feeling that one gets when standing near railroad tracks.

“Pleeeeease? Can we? Can we? Pleeeeease? Aww, come on, Mom!”

Now, you consider yourself a rather creative soul. You really are not a huge fan of the flat brown paint that covers the walls and ceilings in both rooms up there. You’ve thought of painting it anyway. And, on some level, you think how much fun it would be to splash paint on walls and express oneself artistically (almost) at will. Might even look kinda cool. Especially if you happen to be a kid.

But NOT TODAY!

“No! Maybe some other time. We’ll talk about it later.”

You don’t realize that somewhere inside a 9-year-old’s mind, the 5-position switch: (“NO – “MAYBE” – “WE’LL SEE” – “DISCUSS” – AND “YES”) skips from the “NO” setting to the “YES” setting. Like when you turn a switch too far ’cause you were in a hurry and used too much force.

(I think you know where I’m going with this.)

And so, after some puttering around, shoving kitchen dishes from one counter to another, filling the sink with dishwater, adding dish soap, and then going back to the chair, you have now migrated to the living room.

“Mom! This is great! Come here and see!”

What NOW?

You make your way up the stairs. “See what we did, Mom?”

There, on the wall where the cardboard used to be, is a larger work of art. On the walls are hand prints in browns and blues. Color, color — aimed at the wall, for sure — after all, these aren’t two-year-olds who have no aim at all. Nevertheless, there are stockinged feet, and paint that disobeys the laws of intention, and the collateral damage that comes from the strike in a war on plainness in a child’s playroom.

Like the mattress of the bed he doesn’t sleep in.

And it is the paint on the mattress that escalates a different kind of war that has nothing to do with paint.

Then there is another lecture, with gulps of breath and hands on face and rubbing forehead: “What did I do wrong? How did it all come to this?”

There comes a bucket of water and rags.

There comes the announcement that, after the pizza is eaten, everyone goes home.

It’s not real pretty, but to be honest, it’s not that ugly.

Because:

1. Things are things. In my house, I decided that long ago. This is the advantage to having things that don’t cost a lot. Things that can be covered, things that can be replaced, and things that are not as important as those who use the things.

2. It’s upstairs. No one has to come upstairs. The ceilings, the walls, the floor can all be repainted.

3. It’s a mattress. It can be covered with a mattress pad and a sheet.

4. Is having a stroke a better option than being upset, then just letting go? I don’t think so.

5. I can deal with it later. There is always later.

6. The kids are here. They are not in a shelter, or on the streets, or out throwing bottles, vandalizing, getting vandalized, bullying, or getting bullied.

They are kids, living spontaneously, in the moment. Not something I do very well.

The biggest trick for me is to learn how to find the balance between letting kids be in control of my home, or me taking back that control in a way that leaves us all feeling pretty good about things. Having fun without destruction and disrespect. Being kids without being berserk. Respecting boundaries, without setting up prison walls. Being firmly loved into lessons, rather than punished into rebellion.

Actually, it’s pretty much about me feeling good about how it all comes down — and knowing that as I choose how that’s going to happen, they will feel good, too. I am not a dictator. But I also have the right to ask that I, and my house, and my possessions, be treated with respect, while also holding an attitude of, “Things are going to happen, kids will be kids, and it’s the joys and love in life that are most important of all.”

They will learn all of the rest, because they are good teachers.

Silly Me

I’m sittin’ here writing a new post as if there were lots of people reading, and I’ve only let one person know I have this blog. So much for publicity!

It’s Sunday; it’s raining outside, Benjamin spent the night with a friend last night so I have some lovely quiet moments…

CHILDREN.

Now that Benjamin is nine and I’ve moved into a big house, the kids all want to be here. Most of the time. I’m the taxi, the pizza maker (that or chicken nuggets), and my pantry is raided every ten minutes. The 24 Kool-Aid jammers I got not long ago are gone…

Though I kinda love it, I also find it a bit hard to adjust to after years of being On My Own.

When kids decide they can get into my fridge and cupboards…h-m-m. Time for a conversation or two.

When kids TP my entire house (indoors) one night…and use up at least 6 rolls of toilet paper…I told them it was funny once, but now, they could go TP someone else’s house, and then they start up with it again a weekend or two later…but I catch them in the act and put a stop to it right then and there…

When they want to videotape a YouTube event with my video camera, and they’ve been using it as if it were theirs, so I insist on doing it myself (and it is fun), I run out of tape; then I get another tape and later discover I recorded over some stuff I’d video taped a while back. Oh-oh. Oh, well.

Yeah. It’s an adventure.

I would never trade it for anything.

I remember being a kid. I think of the things I wish I could have done, or wanted when I was his age, and I get permissive. Within reason. I know many friends and relatives think I’m a pushover. They’re right. I am. But I know my limits and I know when I’ve had enough.

A lot of the adjustment is done within me. I know that when I resist things, they feel worse. If I go with the flow, things feel better. And it is SO MUCH EASIER.

Some will say that easy just isn’t the way to make it in life. But then I say, and where has DIFFICULT gotten you? Are you any happier doing DIFFICULT than you might have been had you decided EASY was the road?

I know that many equate EASY with LAZY.

This isn’t about LAZY. If you would enter my house, you would rarely see me lying around on my couch (not that doing that necessarily has to mean one is lazy, either. I don’t like the word “lazy” anyway — more on that some other day). It means that I am really wanting to react less, push against things less, and allow myself to enjoy more. And gee, hard work can yield a lot of satisfaction…but the hardest work I’ve done IN THE FLOW, without resistance, is the kind that is so satisfying. That’s the kind of hard work I want to do.

Pushing all the time against kids and plain old randomness in life so that I can have an orderly life and feel somewhat in control doesn’t always result in happiness. It just results in me having to push hard to keep it that way. Why not stop pushing, and get happy with things as they are?

I’m still playing with it. I’m not an expert. I say “playing with it,” because if I say, “work at it,” I contradict the very thing I’m setting out to do.

I look back at my life and see that I’m sure a lot more comfy with the chaos than I used to be.

There is a difference, I’ve found, between what I think I am supposed to be (and still would like to be sometimes) and what I am, or let’s say what my life is like.

But I’m learning that as I get happy and OK and even find things to appreciate in WHAT IS, the “what I’m supposed to be” or, better yet, what I’d like to be (or do or have) is a lot more possible.

I’m not well-practiced at it. But that’s what practice is — doing it so that one gets better and better and better and better…

Life is just practice every day, and I can choose what I want to practice. I’ve had enough of practicing resistance and frustration with everything that happens (almost) and trying to get everything around me to be what I want so that I can finally be happy. Now, I’m going to be happy first.

Why does it have to seem so hard sometimes? DUH! OK. So let’s go play!!!!!