My motto used to be ‘It could be worse’. Truly, it helped to put things into perspective, and when I imagined a pretty ugly situation being even worse, it managed to crack the seriousness of the situation just an incy bit. And when something cracks, light can shine through. When my son unearthed all the flowers I just planted, I thought, ‘At least he didn’t bring them into the house’. And when he did do just that the following week, I was grateful that he didn’t bring the hose inside to water them too. That would have made it worse. This approach gave me a weird space to be grateful for the things that didn’t (yet) happen.
Lately though, my mantra has been ‘Look around’. Just like when the camera pans around on cop shows to give us clues as to what really went down. A look around to get a bigger picture, a 360 degree view of all that’s involved. It gives me time to draw in that extra breath before my blood pressure rises or say something I try to take back a hundred times after. Literally, it gives me time to centre myself, and it sorely helps if I can look at something other than the problem itself. Funny enough, when I look back, it’s not as big/scary/frustrating as before. But the best thing about looking around, is I might find someone else to help.
In my career as an educator, the most amazing times are when the people I’m working with make connections with each other. I love playgroups where mums and their young kids with special needs come together once a week. You feel the mums just relax into each other. They don’t have to worry about how the world is going to see them and their children who are different – the other mums just get them. They had cleaned poop out of the living room drapes and tassle tie backs when their child had gone on a No 2 smearing rampage, they had been in the grocery store at peak dinnertime rush hour when their child broke the scream sound barrier, they had been in that shaky place locked in their bedroom after finding permanent vivid marker drawn across the new kitchen cabinets and every wall surface in between. They had been in and out, in and out of hospital and digested thousands of words of med-speak. Their marriages were teetering and sleep was a cruel joke. They would come to play group and let out a big, audible sigh. They looked around and saw comfort and support. Once I heard a mom say thank God for her son, after watching another wee lad screech every time the others came too close to him. I looked at her son who was still not walking at three and mealtimes that took almost two hours to get through. This mum was using both mottos – it could be worse and look around.
We have each other. No problem is so big that we can’t share the cost or difficulty. Look around and see who can help.
