The Gift of Grace in a Text

Monday morning I had a complete break down. I flat hit the bottom of  the world of overwhelmed with a potty break in the land of self pity.   I suppose I should have seen it coming.  Two weeks ago I scrubbed every baseboard in the house and last week I sorted and organized my sweaters and t-shirts.  My sweaters are now stored based on style--cardigan vs. pull-over; solid vs. pattern; long sleeve, short sleeve, 3/4 sleeve; and  fabric and texture.  My t-shirts were far more simple to do--I only have  three types--UVA, All Saints, and Finlandia (what does that say about me?).  I sorted them by theme and long sleeve/short sleeve.  So yes, I suppose I should have seen it coming.



My family should have also seen it coming if not for weeks then definitely this weekend.  The most glaring "clue" was when I asked Sarah Katherine to make sure she wrote any of her activities on the family calendar.  When I made this request the whole family, who had been milling about in the kitchen, froze.  No one wanted to make eye contact but you could feel the electricity of terror just below the surface.  "You mean you want me to actually write on the calendar and not just tell you so that you can write it?" SK hesitantly asked.  I have to give her credit, she slowed my descent into breakdown mode for a bit-- not enough to actually stop the process and definitely not enough to reverse it, but a definite reduction in speed.  "Yes I replied" a little frightened myself, "but only in your color and make sure you don't write too big.  I think you can handle this."  Chris looked at Sarah Katherine and I could almost hear him saying, "You screw this up and your on your own kid.  I don't touch command central, I mean the family calendar."

There were more clues Sunday evening that neither I nor my family chose to recognize.  We are very good at denial when we need to be.  They have seen this rapid fall before and perhaps they were silently hoping that if they didn't move too quickly or draw too much attention to themselves I would take the dive alone and not bring along casualties.  So they were very quiet as I ran around the house making piles, cleaning out drawers, color coding the chalk board and researching the best apps for keeping track of your calendar and to-do list.  (You know there are a wide range of opinions out there, but most lists include aNote and 2Do.  I already had 2Do and realized I hadn't opened it in months, so I bought aNote and was thrilled to see it syncs with my google calendar and evernote.  Too bad it doesn't with my paper calendar.  (Yep, I'm one of those dinosaurs.)

Sunday night I even stooped so low as to write in sharpie (that is tres serious in this house!) on the list of things for them to do--a list that had been growing ALL day--that if I didn't have Christmas lists by the end of the day there would be no gifts. I was definitely in hot pursuit of Mother of the Year.

Later that evening as I fell into bed exhausted but with my head still spinning rainbow colors and tears of exhaustion seeping from my eyes , Chris calmly and lovingly asked me what was wrong.  I couldn't even answer because frankly, I didn't know.  I just felt angry, out of control, and overwhelmed and now guilty because I could see how I was acting and yet I couldn't seem to stop it.  Definitely not a good excuse.

So Monday morning--I woke up tired and the final clue that I was sinking, or perhaps the obvious sign that I had hit the bottom, I didn't make the children hot chocolate and coffee.  They definitely had the good sense not to complain-in fact they said nothing.  And I felt worse; I realize I do that for them each morning not because they expect it but because I love to do it.  It makes me feel good to prepare it, carry the tray upstairs, and wake them up.    It really is all about me.

When Chris finished showering, it was obvious to him I had hit the bottom, and he, as he always does, tried to talk me off the ledge.  Okay, there really was no ledge--he was talking to me through the shower curtain as I was getting ready for work but a ledge sounds so much more dramatic, perhaps I should say I just wanted to follow the suds from the shampoo straight down the drain--anyway,we talked and talked or rather he listened as I listed my failures--only doing 3 loads of laundry and not four, haven't done as much Christmas shopping as I wanted to have done by now, found my nephew's birthday card and check (from July) on my desk,..well you get the picture.  It was about doing--not being.  I felt like Martha and I want to be Mary.  Chris, who I suspect also wants me to be Mary with a little Martha thrown in every now and then,  listened and said all the right things; not just the right things but the true things.  We are doing a pretty good job; our children are happy, we have each other--relationships are strong.  I was getting so bogged down in what I wasn't "doing" that I had lost sight of "being".  And he also spoke the truth in love, yes some things were slipping through the cracks; but not, he stressed, the important things and we just needed to work together and we could get it done. I began the slow crawl back up from the pit.  Chris left for work and I continued to get ready and to crawl out of the abyss.

It's harder to keep your eyes on the light and to keep pulling yourself up when your solid rock isn't shining the light down and holding out his hand.  But Chris had to go to work, and honestly, some journeys have to be made on your own.  I really tried to stay focused on our conversation, and for the most part I did.  I did feel better; I could rationally think about and differentiate between what were the essential things that needed to be done and what were the nice but neurotic things.  As I said, it's hard to keep the forward momentum when your alone and only have yourself to talk to (and yes I was actually talking out loud), so there were a few times that I slid back down, just a little.  I took another potty break in the land of self pity and thought about all the years I was a stay-at-home mom and how much more I felt on top of things back then, how I got everything done effortlessly and with a perpetual smile on my face--basically I pictured myself vacuuming in heels while singing a tune with a five course meal ready to serve to my family as they came home from school and work all in good moods and ready to have a family sing-along around the dining room table.   (The land of self pity also has a magic drug that helps you forget reality.)  And then I thought of my cousin who really and truly has to be one of the kindest, sanest, most reasonable, and happiest people I know.  William once asked me, "Does Cousin Beth ever not smile?"  I thought of Beth and how she has worked since her children were born and while she may have had her own descents into madness, I don't know about them.  I do know, however, that I am in awe of how she's done it all these years.  So I decided to text her and tell her that. I actually thought I was giving her a vitamin dose so that if she ever did find herself on the downward spiral she would know that someone recognized her amazingness.   And she texted me back--and that text back was the final push I needed to return to the world of being only semi-neurotic. My text may or may not have given her anything, but her text made me laugh out loud--out loud and at myself; her text was a gift of grace.

Everyone should have their own personal "Cousin Beth" if you don't, I can rent you mine!