I do a double-take. He looks so familiar, but I can’t place him. Fifty-something. Wild curly hair. Animated and grinning.
Given that I’m already miffed – and rushed – I let it go, continuing to my car.
“Miserable morning,” I mutter to myself, adjusting the heating pad beneath the backs of my legs. Turning over the ignition, checking the clock, and fighting the wave of agita over my son’s lateness, again, the 45 minutes wasted at the store, another long night ahead.
I wonder what mood the teenager will be in when he gets home. We fought on the way to school.
Stop moaning, says the Adult Voice. So you’re three hours late. So you had a disagreement. It’s not the end of the world.
And I set aside my annoyance. At least, I try.
Truthfully, I want to scream. And keep screaming until there’s no voice left. But I am an adult. I am that voice. I do not scream. Yet I know I’m stretched too thin and any little thing feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. My technology traumas over the weekend. My son’s chronic lateness. My fatigue. The pain in my legs.
The fact that I’m too worn out to cook at night, too achy to stand at the stove – that’s what sent me to the Hot Food Bar in the first place. An irritation in the pouring rain. A splurge. A means for a real dinner. The reason I waited, paced, sipped coffee. And the damned ovens were on the fritz. I couldn’t wait any longer.
The coffee was excellent, says the Adult Self. And only $1.69. It costs twice that at Starbucks.
“I know, I know,” I counter. “But I didn’t get what I was after. And now I’m later than ever. Again.”
You were smart enough to grab that value meal at the check-out, she reminds me.
I try to listen, to absorb the logic of the Adult Voice. But now I’m stuck in traffic, I miss my turn, I’m even later getting home. I forgo the umbrella, drag my things in from the car, taking off my damp clothes, putting away the food, laying out the heat and then my laptop in the best chair for a day like this, a day when I want to cry uncle, a day when the pain is hard to ignore, a day when even the laptop won’t cooperate, disappearing into a maintenance mode that requires me to wait.
Again.
Your car is running well, she says. They repaired it correctly this time. And I nod.
It wasn’t what you planned, but you’re set for dinner. I nod again.
You can’t sweat the small stuff. Especially if it’s out of your hands. Like ovens. Like rain. It isn’t personal.
I take a breath. The updates and scans on my computer are finishing.
And then I know. The man in the store.
He was the image of my uncle. My sweet, funny, sly, disheveled, scrabble-playing, music-making uncle. He passed away only months after my mother. A man who was full of mischief and merriment, much like my grandfather. My dear, dead uncle. Still alive, in my memory.
The dark cloud is lifting. The Adult Self continues to negotiate with the child, and oddly, instead of crying uncle, I see my uncle, and experience a flood of sensation that is warm and loving.
And I settle in, to begin my day. Three and a half hours late.
It’s not the end of the world, she says. And I nod.
Mama said there’d be days like this. I love when a nice memory comes into play when things seem overwhelming. Sounds like you are back on track now. I can really relate but like you said. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Sometimes though… sometimes it feels personal even when it is anything and everything but.
I am glad that the memory, the resemblance, and the thought of your uncle lightened the load, just a bit… and I hope dinner is delightful!
@ TE and @ notasoccermom – There are days where things just seem like an unending dribble of irritations. (But we know it can always be much, much worse.) It is small stuff – most of it, anyway. And “just life.”
@ Kat – unfortunately, those hours will come out of my sleep tonight. But it could be worse. 🙂 As for the kid, it does get tricky with teens and time management, doesn’t it… (your method worked for yours? How old is he? With a senior in high school, the consequences are huge, and it’s a matter of too many near all-nighters.)
Easy to say “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” harder to do in the moment. But, life is full of moments; in the end, the three-plus hours late is meaningless, right?
As for your son’s chronic lateness, I “healed” my kid of that by not being available to get him where he needed to go in time (even though I could), and he suffered the consequences. Once that happened enough, he “got” it. And then he grew up a bit.
As moms (parents, really), we are always balancing how much to do for/how much to make kids responsible for. But, as I’ve told him, my job is support him while he becomes and adult and self-sufficient, otherwise I cripple him. He may not like it (although he’s thrown the “I’m in charge of my own life!” at me. Oh really? Does that mean your laundry, dinner and toilet scrubbing, too?), but it must be done of he’s to grow up and move on. Tough love indeed!!
Beautiful, BLW, and not an accident, I think, that he came to your mind giving you a sense of calm, and of the joy he brought to your life.
Very real and powerful post, Wolf. Thank goodness we have that voice – that adult voice, that conscience, that voice of moderation and reason – whispering in the back of our mind. I know I need to do a better job of paying attention to my voice. She has wise things to say if I just quiet down enough to hear her.
It sounds like a frustrating morning. I’m hoping the heating pad has worked a little of its magic on the parts that ache. Relief of pain is an incredible feeling, even if it’s only partial, no?
The adult voice vs. the inner child — how that dialogue is familiar to me. It’s hard to know when to let each side speak in the process of self-soothing. Perhaps the memory of your uncle was meant to be a third party, sent to intervene and help you both.
Yes, CT! And thank you Eva and Linda. And thank goodness for that adult voice! (And I haven’t thought of my uncle in so long. It was truly a delicious and happy memory. Including of multi-generational scrabble games going back to my childhood, and played with my own children from the time they were little. Ah, for the great traditions we can pass along.)
Would love, ever so much, to give you a big-ass hug. Glad your uncle showed up to lighten your spirits. Hope the day has improved since this morning.
You guys are all wonderful. Really. (Thank you for the virtual hug. :)) The rain stopped, my kid apologized for this morning, he inhaled the “value dinner,” and I’m still trying to make up those 3 and a half hours… Have heat, will (not) travel. 🙂
By senior year, I got myself where I needed to be, did my own laundry, cooked occasionally. It all helped me so much when I went off to college.
On the thought of all nighters… In college, my boyfriend was a terrible procrastinator and would never finish anything until the last possible moment, often after two or three nights of little to no sleep. He often had to ask for extensions and his actual class time suffered because he hadn’t slept enough to be present. One important lesson for real life is that there is limited time. Sometimes things are not done as well as we could hope, but being done and keeping healthy and sane are important.
I know your son is an artist and I think art often works on it’s own timeline. Still, encourage him to find time to sleep. Encourage him to let go when things need to be done rather then pushing past the point of endurance.
I don’t really like advice. We are all of us different people, but I wish so much that someone had taught that guy to manage time better. And sometimes that means turning something in that isn’t perfect just to be done.
Ahhh, Transactional Analysis and the parent/adult/child ego states. Always something to learn from those interactions whether they are within ourselves or between others. I hope dinner together with your son made the frustrations of the day evaporate. As for memory of your uncle, perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that the man was there just at that time. Angels do walk among us and minister when needed. Sometimes without words.
It wasn’t dinner together, exactly. It was dinner – he ate on a tray while doing homework on the couch. I ate, while still working… with a little tray of my own, elsewhere. Right now, we’re both on that treadmill. Hopefully, not spinning our wheels. And strangely, very much in this together. And yes, to angels when we most need them.
Reminds me of something we discussed at my Grandfather’s memorial service which is, life is to short to worry about the small things. Which he was great at, and me not so much. I worry about all kinds of small things. Striving to hold on to a piece of him by modeling those things he modeled for us grandchildren, though.
Powerful post and words BLW. I love when we have those moments of true epiphanies, reminding us of what is important when we are entrenched and consumed by details.
You know, it might be more special – more adult – than you realize that you don’t just scream anyway. I know well many parents (usually well-meaning) who scream just the same. Nothing much gets accomplished when everyone is screaming, that’s for damn sure – the pain and frustration get worse; dinner gets burned or dumped into the garbage; everyone goes to bed mad. Better to rely on the adult voice, the mutterings just for you, and wait for the dark clouds to lift. Glad they did.
That non-screaming, thing, Leslie. It’s taken years to get here.
I like your adult/parent role model. I like how you care for yourself, nudging yourself down the grown-up path; while honoring the kid that wants to have a major melt down; deserves to have a major melt down. I like how you remind yourself that it is not your whole day that has gone to hell in a hand basket….I like how you allow the memory of your funny uncle to bubble to the surface and help you smile instead of working harder to stay stuck in misery. If I judge by the way you are willing to treat yourself; your son has a gem of a mom, even if he is slow to realize it right this minute.
♥