The Stories Of My Life... wherein my child reflects my struggles

​Last night, playing a family game of Clue, my nine-year old ran right straight into her own story.  She’s the youngest, and had a story in her mind that she wasn’t capable of winning this game up against two adults and her older sister.
 
But there was a moment where, by luck, she realized she had learned two of the three things she needed to know to win the game.  In her surprise, she gave away part of what she had found out.  Her world fell apart.  She was so close.  But with her slip, the possibility of winning had evaporated.

I know this place.  The one in which the untrue story that I believe in comes into direct conflict with what is possible if I believed in something else.  It’s a direct challenge to my world view… it’s painful… and confusing.
 
I’m actually deep in the throes of writing that story down.  In fact, I’m going to be performing that story live in Santa Cruz at the YoniVerse Monologues in March.  It’s the story of my conflicting experiences of myself as a mother. 
 
And so, as I sat with my girl last night, and she felt all of her anger and frustration and sadness about the story that she wasn’t capable… she ripped paper into little pieces and told me about how much it hurt.  My heart ached for her… and I sat with her as she tore the paper and felt the feelings.

​And then we talked about the stories she believes about herself… and we talked about what was really true… and we talked about how which story we put our attention on matters… and I told her my story about motherhood.  While I talked I tore some of those tattered pieces of paper into hearts.  Pretty soon… she was helping me… and organizing them into a larger heart.

She understood my story, and I understood hers.  It was so amazing.

Truth is that we’re both still sad about the truths that exist in our stories about how we’re not perfect (because we’re not perfect… we’re human).  But, we both found a bigger landscape for truth and possibility.  And best of all, we got to feel human together.
 
As we came to our sense of humanity she made a “snow angel” in the remaining scraps of paper… and we brought greater definition to the angel… and made her “real”.​

And so when my daughter crawled into bed we marveled at how the anger and frustration and sadness had resulted in an angel and a heart on her floor.
 
I’m humbled by her wisdom and her ability to feel her feelings.  I’m still worried about how easy it is for her to believe that she’s not good enough.  And I’m heartened by our ability to be present with each other. 

Ram Dass said “We are all just walking each other home”.  The key implication is that we’re in this together.  And I think the together part is the healing part.