“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” — Rumi
It has been five days since we took our Sweet Girl to summer camp, and most of those days I have been tied to my computer in a virtual learning retreat – wonderful and engaging and thought-provoking, but also heavy and intense. The topic? Who Is God and Why It Matters. No small subject.
For months, I have felt like I’m going through my days with experiences and thoughts piling up, waiting for more time so that I could unpack them, find the nuggets of inspiration or ideas and then act on those. I have been thinking of these three weeks as my opportunity to slow down and to do this unpacking of memories.
I want to recall the feeling of certain moments, the energy in the air, and what I was feeling and experiencing during the rush of time. I want to unwrap these moments and truly savor them.
Life goes quickly. When I don’t allow myself time for reflection every day, I risk losing the moments I hope to return to. Most of my moments and my days are filled with goodness, learning, and positive emotion. There is so much input though… classes and reading and podcasts and world news… that I need to allow myself time to take it all in and let it settle there. I almost always feel like I’m in catch-up mode. (Like today – the classes are finished but I’m going through an email inbox of over 100 small tasks.)
One such experience: My daughter and I were laying in the dark in a hotel room last weekend, the night before camp began. She talked to me about her favorite memories from previous years at camp and what she was most excited about for this year. There were small worries interspersed in there, quickly covered up by more excitement. “What if I miss you?” “What if I need you?” I reassured her that we are always linked together and that she could talk to me in her head and imagine what I’d say.
Coming back to this moment, it strikes me that she could probably do this for a lot of things. When we parents feel a strong need to start lecturing our kids about the moral thing to do, the proper way to act, or a wrongness in behavior, our kids already know what we’re going to say. That is why they immediately roll their eyes and tune us out. They know. They are watching us and learning from us, even when we are not consciously modeling what we hope they will learn.
I always think that there is so much remaining for us to teach her, but maybe our job is to give her abundant love and support and space to grow and learn for herself. And maybe many small talks are far better than a few longer ones. I know that when SG comes to me with a question, that is when I have her attention, and that is when she is most receptive to learning an important lesson. And I always couch my answers in understanding, curiosity, and love.
I have been quite preoccupied lately with worries and fears for SG’s future. How can I get her to read more? Does she understand what is truly important and what is merely superficial? When will she start caring about making a difference in other people’s lives? Does she understand how to work hard for something she wants? What do I do about limiting all this technology she is immersed in?
Mr. B is great at discovering SG’s interests and making them his own. She is interested in football and hockey, so they now watch all the games together and talk about sports often. The same with technology and music. He encourages her interests and makes them something they can do together. I don’t think I’ve been as good at aligning my own interests with hers, mainly because her interests lately are on makeup, shopping, and expensive athleisure clothes. But I’ll keep my eye out for other interests of hers.
That conversation in the dark was definitely a time to treasure, and one good thing is that I recognized it in the moment. Mainly I listened, but I also reassured and encouraged. So I think I’m on the right track. Now I will focus on enjoying the grand adventure of parenting a teenage girl and try to have fun with it where I can.
