Moving On

On Wednesday, our middle school will have a special eighth grade chapel to send them off to high school.  Most everyone of them will be continuing on to high school at Dunham, but this will be Riley's last chapel there.  It is a big goodbye for her but done so, in her very quiet way and I'm the one feeling it.  (Of course I am because I'm a thinker and a feeler!)

After attending an eighth grade event last week, I checked in with her about how she felt about the ending of the school year.  She loves the school but has not found a fit within her small class of girls and she is really ready to move on. I have to remember that it is very brave to acknowledge that you need to make a change and follow through and do it.   This is a big life lesson and we have worked through it step by step together as mom and daughter and as a family.

I know a thousand percent that she needs to try another school and she's ready.

But my heart is ripping up ever so slightly. 

For seven months from the very beginning of school, we have talked about this endlessly.  When difficulties arose over the last few years, I would broach the subject of changing schools for  high school. I said this never thinking she would ever move.  After much disheartenment over the summer and at the beginning of the school year, I brought it up again.  She said yes.   We diligently looked at other schools, weighed every pro and con and she is moving on.  She even has uniforms from a graduating St. Joseph's senior.  Thank you to that mom and daughter for thinking of us!

I've thought this situation out every way possible. I talked to so many people to get every angle on this specific issue.  We did our homework.  But now there is nothing more to think or decide, only to finish and feel. My stomach turns when there is a reminder that she won't be at the same school we have known for ten years and she won't be with her sister.  These feelings are all mine, not hers. I have to own my stuff and not project, but I am allowed these mixed feelings.   I am so excited for her new future, she deserves it.  Owning my feelings will allow them to pass through more easily.   I think mixed in with these emotions, is, could we have done something differently? And much deeper is do I fit in? Yeah, it goes deep.  It always does.

And then I logically think it through and know that not every school works for every student.   And my appreciation for my uniqueness is growing.  And she is ready to go.

So here we go, the end of this school year is here.   There are always mixed feelings about things ending and new beginnings.  This is a special year.  No more Lower School Moving Up ceremony.  Riley is moving on to a new high school.  Mallory is moving up to 6th grade.  All is well. (Well, there are other things going on in the world...)

Today is the Honors ceremony.  It's a good run through before tomorrow's send off chapel.

I will bring tissues.

All will be well.

Namaste.

Life is Full of Curves

I have two daughters, three years apart.  They could be no different from one another.  Why do I think that they should be more alike?  For some reason I do. On a daily basis, it comes into my head, and I take note of the differences.   One helps me get out of the house on time, putting unbelievable pressure on me to do so, while the other has no concept of time.  I have to remind myself to get my behind in gear with daughter #2 because we will never leave the house if it is just us two.

One loves to do her hair and makeup and is into clothes and could shop and spend money for hours.  The other could care less and does not want to spend money.  One can easily start a conversation with a stranger, the other not so much.  One is always on time, knows exactly what is on the agenda and how things run.  The other rolls with it and flies by the seat of her pants a lot.

And the Big bad truth is that I need to let them be who they are.

No matter what!

This is a tall order.  But I am working really hard to do just that.  Over the last few months, I had to explore one important issue that could mean big changes for the whole family in order to let one child be who she is.

My oldest daughter has had a hard time fitting in at her current school.  Her personality is more quiet and shy and with different interests than most of her peers.  She has tried to fit in.  Middle school for girls can be cruel, period but, especially when you are not like the other.  It is all about fitting in, but what if you don't?   Throw in social media and it can be a nightmare.  The school that she has attended for the last ten years, happens to be on the smaller side.  There are only 18 girls in her grade with 32 boys rounding it out.  There is not much place to turn to find female companionship.

At the beginning of the school year, she was already burned out and begin to make comments about not wanting to go to school.  And she loves school.   For the last few years, I had asked if she wanted to look into other schools and that high school would be the best time to do so.  I never really thought she would say yes.

She said yes.

After many, many conversations, a lot of exploration, school visits, and months of waiting on admissions: we are starting high school at a brand new large girls' school in August.   There are around 275 girls per grade.  I'm ecstatic that she gets to explore new territory and find girls with similar interests.

My other daughter is happy as can be where she is.

So I will now be driving to two different schools and dividing my loyalties.

I never saw this coming.

I have grieved that one daughter will be leaving the only school we have known for ten years and the sisters won't be at the same school anymore.  I will absolutely move through it because I am a thousand percent positive this is our path for now.

Life is full of curves.
Namaste.

One Billion Percent Necessary (It's about Feelings, Middle School & Glennon Doyle Melton)

The last few years, I have been learning to feel my feelings.  I hate writing that, because it sounds wussy.  There must be some part of this magnificent work that I do, that I still don't think is worthy.  But I know one billion percent it is worthy, it is everything.  Sitting still and embracing what hurts the most, brings you to your core, and your core is God.  (or with my fundamental baggage the words higher power is a score!)  The people who may think this is wussy, won't be reading this anyway, so let me let that go.  Feeling my feelings is the most difficult journey in my life to date.  Whatever devastating occurs in one's life, how one thinks about it is how one will work through it and how one processes it.  As a person, who repressed much, especially after postpartum depression, coming out of that is freakishly difficult. (Can you see how I think about it... {smile})

I don't repress anything anymore.  I feel EVERY thing and some days it makes me want to run and hide or better yet, scream. And most days, it's the really ugly cry that is exhausting.  It feels like the uncomfortableness will NEVER go away. Some days I'm pinging all over the place - the Presidential election doesn't help either.  And some days, not at all and other days, the energy flows through within minutes.  When I hear other people speak aloud of this concept, it rocks my world.

One of those speaking is Glennon Doyle Melton.  I recently watched her on Super Soul Sunday. Her second book  is "Love Warrior."   I heard her story of bulimia by age ten, a mental hospital stay in high school, and her addictions.   When a friend summarized her book in a sentence for me it really opened my eyes.  She said Glennon was running from pain the entire time with her addictions.  (This is not a new concept but I was ready to hear it in a different way)   Not namby pamby feelings, but pain.  Pain is something that people can wrap their heads around.

So, it's not feeling my feelings, it is feeling PAIN.  It is the essence of living life.  Life is incredibly difficult AND beautiful, all at the same time   (Glennon calls it Brutiful.  Brutal and Beautiful. Dang it, wish I would have coined that.)   I've read so much about addictions and I see it everywhere now in compulsions both good and bad, in so many different ways.  So much of our society runs from our feelings and that is running from pain.   Glennon reports that she thought of herself as broken.  She thought of herself as someone who could not handle pain. And so she had hid from it with addictions.

What caused her pain? In short, she said she is a sensitive human being: a deeply feeling person in a messy world. There are those of us who respond to energy differently.  Oprah said she learned over the years of her talk show that families have children who are the sensitive ones: the child who absorbs the energy of the family, subconsciously, unconsciously differently from the rest of the family.

I am that one.  It took a while for this aha to sink in.  I thought other people felt things as deeply and as sensitively as I do.  They don't.  But there are plenty of people out there who do.  I have to respect myself and this work because it is what is right for me.  It is who I authentically am.  Finding my authenticity is finding God beneath all those layers.  It is finding the love and the light to take me through the difficult and the beautiful that life is composed of.  And when you taste that expansiveness of love and light, you don't go back.   Sitting through the pain, gets you to the light.

In my house, I have two young ladies.  One just turned eleven and the other is about to turn fourteen.  They are now both in middle school.  Some of the most brutal years of high school.  And we are feeling it.  Really feeling it.

There was one week where both of them were having difficulty and there was much emotion in the house.  I put my big girl mom panties on.  I listened.   I problem solved when necessary and kept my mouth closed when they wanted no advice.  Their emotions and pain pinged me but I carried on.  There were steps I needed to take, and I did.  I wanted them to be heard.  I want them to know they matter.  I want to be their soft place to fall.  (George does to, in his own manly, fatherly way) And after the turmoil of the week passed, I felt it.  I had to have my own meltdown from listening and letting their pain pass through.

I am the sensitive one and that's okay.  That is who I am.  And I know the feelings won't kill me.  I know at my core, there is love and light.  And I know if I feel my own feelings as difficult as it is sometimes, I can show up for my loved ones who need to be heard.

This is my work.  Feeling my feelings.  It is not easy but one billion percent necessary.

Namaste.

My Induction Into The Tribe

My daughters are growing up.  Yes, they tend to do that.  Sometimes they seem to undergo metamorphosis overnight.

My oldest daughter is staying up later and now comes to my bedroom to say goodnight. This is the opposite of the well ingrained last twelve years of me "putting her to bed." This past week, I have watched when she turns to walk out my bedroom.  She is almost as tall as me now and her body is long and lean but with curves.   She now has a teenager's figure.

How did that happen?

She now takes much longer in the bathroom getting ready.  She has been voluntarily taking showers for months with no reminder from me.  On and on, there have been subtle little changes.

And everything beyond teenage body changes is going on too:  attitude, distancing,  independence, deafening silence, or one word answers and what in our house, we call caving. (Caving: going into a space to be alone)   I deeply understand the need to be by myself after I have been with others for periods of time.  And I can especially see that after a long day of middle school.  But for brief moments in time, I painfully miss the little girl who use to cry loud and long for me when I dropped her off at the nursery.

And sometimes, I'm happy for the reprieve.

It's a transition for sure.  Mothering is the transition from this little baby who looked at me for every single thing she  needed to now, her slowly learning how to do for herself and me backing off.  And this will continue throughout the upcoming years.   It's a wonderful, positive growth but one that I need to batten down the hatches for.  As the sales woman in a clothing store with two grown daughters gave me the sign of the cross over having a tween, it was an induction into the tribe.

The tribe of a mom with a teenage girl.  Well, almost.  I've got 7 months officially.

I've been told to give it a few years, and they will one day walk back in as they had previously been (nice temperament), like nothing ever happened.

This morning as I was working Middle School Carpool, and a daughter stomped off ignoring what her mother was asking, I walked to the mom's open car window and gave her the sign of the cross.  She said, "You have no idea."

 I told her that I did understand nodding my head, "I have a twelve year old."