Many of us grew up being told that we may not be able to control what others do, but we can control how we react to it. I know I have carried this bit of wisdom to my children. It’s important, and it’s one worth reminding even our adult counterparts about. We get to pick the lens we see through.
Yesterday morning I woke after a sleepless night with the baby, who is teething and woke every hour to nurse until finally at 4 AM, he pulled out the big guns and just wailed in agony for a half hour. The sun came up all too soon and my other four children were bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to start the day. I pulled my stiff body out of bed, rubbing my puffy eyes, yearning for rest, and knew that today had the possibility to be rough. When I said good morning to my son, I let him know I’d been up all night and it may be a hard day for me. He replied, “So if you’re grumpy, we’ll know why.”
I reflected on that. Am I warning him that I might be a displeasure to be around before it happens? Am I giving myself, subconsciously, the right to be “grumpy?” I decided at that moment, I still had a choice in how this day would go. I couldn’t control the baby waking repeatedly, but I could choose to be more gentle today as a result and know to have a more heightened awareness of the potential for emotional disregulation that comes with the lack of sleep.
I let the day ease in or at least tried. It wasn’t long after my decision to have a good day, that the baby pooped out of his diaper, up his back…the dog pooped on the kitchen floor…my son screamed at me to come wipe his poopy butt on the toilet…a child ran through the dog poop I had yet to pickup off the floor…I was having a “shitty” morning. This thought and all too obvious pun were the first sparks of light. I could laugh at this. I could do what needs to be done. And I could move on. I had a choice. Would I let this set the tone for the rest of the morning? The rest of the day? It would be easy to do so now that I had a solid foundation to go into it tired, angry, and frustrated. Don’t get me wrong, I cursed that dog under my breath, but then came the pause… I didn’t want to have that kind of day AND I got to decide. So, I cleaned up that “shit show” and got on with it.
And let me tell you, the kids and I had a beautiful morning. We learned about Edgar Allan Poe after being inspired from a novel we were reading, Book Scavenger. We researched his life, read his poetry, made watercolor paintings to illustrate his poems, painted gold bugs in honor of his story The Gold Bug, we created ciphers and hid them as clues for each other. I let the day unfold without trying to force a strict agenda. I told my kids that we had our routine written down of subjects to cover, but that I would be flexible if inspiration struck.
After lunch, we got outside; we were going to just go for a walk, but as we got going down the road, we noticed a lot of trash being unveiled after the melt. I returned to the house to get a garbage bag. We then proceeded to do some spring clean up of our rural country roads. It was exactly what we needed. My children were eager to help and search for hidden garbage. They felt a purpose. They felt helpful. They felt a part of nature and that they were making this world a better place. I breathed deeper. I was so happy I let myself choose love today so I could be open to this experience. My children and I were in the driver’s seat. The poor choices of others littering, became our opportunity to bond, laugh, and grow closer. It gave us an opportunity to give back to our community, safely distanced, in a time of quarantine.
“Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things. Make the best of your circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.”
-Robert Louis Stevenson
In these times of uncertainty, combined with our usual daily struggles, it’s all too easy to find ourselves in a dark place, lacking joy, but it doesn’t have to be like that. We have a say. Our mind is a powerful place and when there’s so much around us we can’t control, we need to be prepared to change focus on what we can. We choose the lens from which we see and experience the world. Life is not done to us, we are an active participant. We are not the victim of circumstance, unless we believe it to be so.
Choose love today. Choose love everyday. And if you forget, choose love next time.
Stay home. Stay safe. You have a choice. Choose love.