The Secret Truth to Love that Nobody Tells You

 

What is all this love business about anyway?                                  

This past summer I visited my aunt. While I was there I was a part of a conversation that shook me a little bit. It challenged some of my ideas about what love actually is. I really spent a lot of time wondering if I had this love business wrong all along.

Let me say- visiting my aunt at her place always feels a bit like “coming home.” And- I don’t think that feeling is unique to myself, nor do I think that happens by accident. I can see there is a lot of hard work and preparation that goes into being a (frequent) hostess, and it is truly a labor of love. Whenever I’m there I do my best to show my gratitude for the gift of hospitality she gives by helping out as much as I can- with whatever I can. I don’t think it helped my cause much that my dog (rest in peace Ruka, sweet girl) pissed on her carpet every chance she got. But I digress.

We were sitting around, and as the dusk turned into night the topic of love came up.

“It’s not a feeling, it’s a verb!” I claimed.

Not a single person agreed with me. They were pretty much all in agreeance that love is- well- a feeling. And by definition they’re right. I googled it. On the definition of love, Webster says this:

NOUN 1. an intense feeling of deep affection 2. a person or thing that one loves 3. (in tennis, squash, and some other sports) a score of zero; nil:

VERB 1. feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone

I do not accept that. And yes- I’m stubborn, and yes- I dislike being wrong, and yes- I frequently am, but this really has nothing to do with that. A feeling? No. That’s so minimal. Its bare bones, and no depth. It feels empty and shallow and reduced- reduced like the browning, and bruised bananas at the supermarket that nobody wants.

If that’s all love is; a feeling- by all means you can keep it. I don’t want it. I’ve had that kind of love, and the damage myself, and my lover were able to conjure up in love’s name was beyond a nightmare. I’m over it. I need more. I demand more. I must see, hear, and feel more. I need to stand in loves brutal grind prevailing in triumph; tired and all at once feeling exhausted and accomplished and inspired.

Love is a skill. For some that skill is fine-tuned, and expansive. For others it’s limited and fleeting. Then there’s a spot smack dab between the two, which sometimes looks really good, and like you’re all peace love and joy, yet other times it just looks sad and icky and messy and depressive. This is my spot, my space- I’m all up in this category. I’m both. I’m the grey area. The middle. The stretched out distance between the two extremes. And. I happen to like it here (most days). Love can be intense, and consuming. Reaching inside I rip everything out, and hand it over, and then there’s the constantly showing up as someone better than I feel like. It is tiring. Love will wear you thin.

In my mind the definition that has best described love comes from Corinthians 13:4-8: - and I’m not one who normally quotes the bible- but this is pretty brilliant.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

How I interpret that is that love is a way of being. These are skills. It is work. It is effort. It is not easy. It looks a lot like me having patience with you on the days that you’re working my last damn nerve. Rising to the task of showing you kindness when you piss me off takes an energy that I don’t always have. It is a practice; an exercise, and as some of the people who know me can attest- is not my strong suit. But- it is a suit that’s being worked on constantly. I am endlessly altering, and tailoring, and adding fabrics that enrich that suit. Because- my god- the people I love are worth it. I am worth it. I am worth exercising and strengthening my love; the way I give it- and the way I receive it.

The Corinthians passage also makes this claim in regards to love: it is not self-seeking. I’ve seen my aunt demonstrate this time and time again. She wakes at the crack of dawn after a long night of entertaining, she steps over the bodies of her sleeping houseguests to fix my grandfather a hot cup of coffee, and breakfast. That is love’s work people. There is no reward at the end of that for her. No pot of gold. No accolades. Just her, and the love she performs. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and as someone who spends a lot of time taking care of other people myself, I know it’s not easy.

So, in matters of love, let me be that. Let me feel that. Let me be the deliverer (or receiver) of hot coffee and bacon in the early morning hours after a sleepless night. Let me not forget that love is a way of being. When I am in love, I am softer, gentler, and more open. When you minimize what love is by calling it a feeling, you take away everything magnificent, and magical, and special about it. When you say it’s simply a feeling- well that’s great, but only you can feel your feelings so it really doesn’t do much good- unless you’re willing to put that to work. If you say you love me- yet have no patience for my neurosis then thanks, but no thanks.

And so- at the end of the day- I want to do more than feel love; I want to perform love. I love writing- so I do it often. I’ve put about five hours into this piece alone. It started out as one thing, but turned into something else. What good is me saying that I love writing if I never create anything with it? If I don’t put time and energy into it, do I really love it? If that’s the case maybe I would be considered an admirer of writing, rather than a lover. No?

I love parenting. I didn’t always. I was a young, and selfish mother. But the love I have for my children transcended that, and so I practiced it daily. I took classes, I read books, and I made mistakes. I learned, and I sought guidance. I prayed like hell for God to make me better, or give my kids someone better than I was. Little by little I got better at this parenting thing. I worked hard on my parenting until I began to evolve as a parent. I grew, and we all got better as a direct result of me loving them. One day I woke up and we all kind of liked one another. We’ve been in-love ever since. Which really just looks a lot like me doing a bunch of stuff, I don’t always want to do; or responding appropriately to situations that I’m not always sure I’m mature enough for- and after I’ve said goodnight to my kids, after a really long, hard day- being really super-duper grateful that I am their mom, and I get to do it all.

So- the secret is simple- Love is a verb, it is an action, it is a skill. And unless you are performing, creating, nourishing, cultivating, practicing, sweating, working, or being your love… Well then sadly, you are in like- or in lust- or in some other thing that is not love. And maybe- just maybe I'm wrong- but if I am- I don't want to be right.

 

Much Peace.

The difference between me and you is the Incredible Hulk (& I think he had Asperger Syndrome too)

               The difference between me and you is The Incredible Hulk (& I think he had Asperger Syndrome too)

           My experience raising a young man with special needs

If I’m lucky enough to look back on my life in 60 years (I’m 34 now) no matter the trials that lay before me, I’m certain I will say parenting a child with special needs is the single most challenging task I ever undertook - and yet the most rewarding. Most parents in general, I think, would agree though. Raising our kids is the most beautiful, painful, awesome, insightful, thankless, inspiring, tiresome, fear-filled, excruciatingly annoying, agony rich, tedious, tender loving job on earth. It is the thing - most of us will say at the ends of our lives, that we were the most privileged to have had a hand in.

Nevertheless my sisters and misters that have had the task of raising children with special needs will know, our paths as parents are paved with a different kind of stone from that of parents with typical functioning children. And some days it feels like God chose the wrong person to give care for, and advocate for this wonderfully messy, and complicated little human. “It’s not me!” You’ll scream in despair at the top of your lungs, “I am not the one you intended to raise this child.” You’ll sob from bitter exhaustion. “It couldn’t possibly be me.” You’ll question. “Why did you choose me? I have no idea how to raise this young person, or how to guide him.” Momentarily you’ll give up. “I can’t help him. I can’t do it.” Then you’ll pick yourself up off the floor, or the sofa (in my case) of your best friends’ living-room, you’ll go to your child, you’ll wrap your arms around him, and hold him as long as he’ll allow. He’ll say in his awkward little way, “I love you.” – And for an instant, it will feel like the very end of a fairy tale, when they say, “And the two of them lived happily ever after.” – Only the process just starts all over again.

So when other parents are talking about the challenges of raising their “normal children” and comparing those tasks to yours, you’ll tilt your head and smile a bit, knowing deep down how very different your journeys are. Some folks might recognize this, and say to you, “I couldn’t do it if I were you, I don’t know how you do it” (as if that’s somehow comforting). You’ll think to yourself “how in the hell do you know what you would do? Because what other choice would you have but to do it?

A few years ago on Mother’s Day, I took my kids out to see the new Avengers movie. When I left there I made a post that said something along the lines of “I’m in love with the Hulk, he’s a beautiful hot-mess of a man.” I fell in love with Bruce Banner that day. Why did I fall in love with him you ask? Well because figuratively speaking, The Hulk is my son. And you don’t want to get him angry. You don’t want to disrupt his world. Trust me, you don’t. But, being his mom I must integrate him with the very large, and real world in which he resides. A world that as he grows he’s supposed to take his place in. As a parent, that is my duty. How do I integrate The Green Giant into a society where he can function? We know from the comics and movies that what The Hulk really needs is seclusion. But the longer he is secluded the more alone and real his differences become to him, the sadder and empty he becomes. He needs nourishment. One can’t be nourished properly in seclusion. Can he? At least not forever.

Recently I attended the funeral of my daughter’s friend who committed suicide weeks before her 16^th birthday. What do you say to that mother? What do you say to yet another mother, who tells you in confidence they found her son hanging in the bathroom - another minute more and he would have been dead? This is what mental illness looks like people. Suicide becomes the very last attempt one can make to quiet the mind. These are cries for help, or a release from feeling strong armed and caged in their minds. Are you with me?

So what do you say? If you don’t know what to say, you say nothing, lest you say something stupid. Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine it happening to you. It’s frightening isn’t it? The difference between me and some of you, is that I get it. I don’t always know what to say, but I’ve learned what not say to those parents. I’ve been there. I know what it feels like to have The Hulk come home from school in a rage, wanting to hurt himself because he’s tired of no one understanding him, and appreciating his differences. The world is not equipped to deal with his differences. So they seclude him, because- well what else do you do? He’s tired of not having friends, and of finishing his classwork in the time it takes the teacher to explain it to the others. He’s tired of not being able to do the things he wants while he sits there waiting for his “peers” to catch up. He’s tired of not being included to the birthday parties and sleep-overs. He’s tires of the misunderstandings, the missed connections, and miscommunications. He’s angry because he’s different and he knows it, and the world just wants him to stand in line, and follow suit, but standing still makes him queasy, and his body sometimes moves without his own permission. I’m convinced The Hulk was “on the spectrum.”

Feeling like a good parent isn’t always easy. Feeling like a good parent while monitoring, evaluating, and assessing a child with special needs, well as my friend puts it, “makes you feel like his case-worker rather than his mother.” We don’t always get the luxury of just being mom. Especially when I think my boy isn’t being treated fairly. Then I turn into super-hero, bad-ass, robo-cop, defense attorney mom, weaving in and out of the roles, of mother, advocate, and social worker, as I tie your words into knots, and push them ever so gently back down your throat to a place where you wish you never spoke them.

Parenting a child with special needs takes a vast amount of courage that is filled with miniscule triumphs. The road is laborious; it is unstable, crumbling, and unreliable in many places. People who should have the answers, don’t always have them. And sure anyone could say, "Whose road isn’t uncertain? Life is hard! Buck up!” But those of us that have traveled both roads know the roads are built much differently. One is tattooed with the footprints of common folk doing common things, as they coast through to their common destinations. All of the places they need, neatly marked on maps. The other was put together hastily, and never quite finished so we end up building our own roads so we can get where we need to go, only to find that the places we need don’t always exist, and so we end up pioneering landmarks on our own maps as we “blood, sweat, and tear” our way to equality for our children. We fight for their basic rights, policing new situations they are reluctantly integrated into. Because if we don’t, well who else will-? They’ll be swept into a system that knows no middle ground, one that knows no grace, nor has the time or wherewithal to help extract their potential.

 And so at the end of the day, we are different. We want the same things, yes. But what separates me from you, is that I am the girl who in the tireless hours of the night searches for a cure to the gamma that poisoned The Incredible Hulk. Waking up with sleep crusted eyes each morning just to catch a glimpse of the remarkable young scientist that he strives to someday be, hoping, wishing, and praying like hell that nothing happens that day to make him angry.

Anyone who knows him can see the progress he’s made, the incredible strides, and you know under all that green, Bruce Banner is waiting patiently for me to help him change for good into the great man he’s always been intended to be- green free.

 

 

Who are you?

 

Caterpillar: Who… are... you?

Alice: I-I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then. – Lewis Carroll

This resonates with me.

Alice's visit to Wonderland is the best analogy for my own life I ever found.

In my favorite version of it (Tim Burton’s), she falls down the rabbit hole as she’s trying to clear her head after being faced with a major life decision. The rabbit hole takes her to "Underland". It’s there she comes across all these peculiar circumstances that force her to face herself; preparing her for who she is to become. She gets big, she gets small, and she gets to try herself in all these different ways until she fits. She finds companionship. She discovers her own courage, her bravado, her muchness. She finds herself. Amongst all the chaos and madness of Underland, Alice finds herself. She comes into who she was always intended to be.

When I woke up in my own Wonderland several years ago, I was a mother to three young children (more on that later). Today two of those children are teenagers, and one is well on her way with a 13th birthday coming up. Some days it's like- how did I get here? And how do I balance it all? Some days I feel big, others I feel small, and like a lot of other mothers I have many roles, and I never know which one life will throw at me next. I find myself in situations that force me to become the type of woman I never dreamed I'd be; a better, more grown up, responsible, conscious, assertive, compassionate version of the girl who fell down the rabbit hole contemplating frivolous things.

I’m parenting my children solo, in the sense that I’m the sole breadwinner, provider, and caretaker for them. There is no weekend “me” time, or money coming in to help pay for healthcare, sports, or bubblegum. But damn I used to envy those moms. Sometimes I suppose I still do. I don’t put a lot of my energy there though. I’ve learned that there are upsides and downsides to being those moms. As well as there are both pros and cons to solo parenting. Some of the pros to doing this thing alone are that my kids and I do what we want, or more accurately put, we do what I want. Not sharing finances, and custody means that I also don’t share decision making. There is no going back and forth with another adult about what my kids will or won’t do. What I say goes. I don’t waste any time or energy debating morals, culture, schools, haircuts, clothing, and etcetera with someone who has opposing views.

Also. No sharing, splitting, or rotating holidays! Sure it would be nice to have every other weekend off from “momming” it but it wouldn’t be worth it if I had to forgo Christmas every other year. Something else I noticed recently is that I get to be greedy with their love. I know this probably makes me a horrible person, but I can’t help but revel that every time they succeed or get some type of victory they come to me first. I get to share all of the wonderful things that happen to them before anyone else. Further, I and I alone get to brag about it all. And brag I do.

But here I go again- you’ll get to see this is a theme with me. I start out in what seems to be a dialogue about me, and it very quickly shifts to my children. Being a parent, a single parent at that, leaves little time for yourself- guilt free anyway (that’s another topic for another day).

 

My work weeks have been slowly draining the life from me, my schoolwork never really feels finished, and my home never really seems to be in order. Much less, there being any time or space made for the things that I love.

Blogging is my attempt to find some balance. I’ve always had a passion for writing. I think it’s an insanely beautiful thing to see words consume a blank page- one meaningless letter at a time until they’ve filled pages telling heroic stories, or ugly truths. It’s while putting my thoughts on paper that my own truth makes its way out of my clouded, busy brain.

This blog is my place to share ideas and thoughts; to contemplate, reflect and connect with like-minded people. That’s about all I have for now. Check back soon to read more from See Mom Do.