Vulnerable (strength).

I had a conversation with a friend today; a good friend, a noble friend. She like me has a family, a small one, a miniature-mirror in her child. They argue, fret. Mostly in unison, definitely in awe of the other. I do that. I understood.

I told her a story about my three year old; spirited in her freshness, vulnerable—she once cried (ok, thrice) when a cockroach was left behind by his master returning to outer-space, in some movie. And again, when she watched me nearly retch over an argument with a loved one. Put those tears away Mummah. The sun is out, my baby girl once said. And I love her for that and/but you know what:

My child makes me nuts. I have a nutty if her Kelsey Kounters are strewn across the floor. If she refuses to pay attention when she’s making the letter Z with too many arms, or if she forgets her name ends in A and not her favorite letter of the week. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as authoritative. I want to throw that damn book in the trash.

My child makes me proud. I’ve grown to not give a complete shit if people don’t want to hear how she speaks with the level intonation of a learned adult, that she recognizes the varying hue ethnic difference can and does lend to people, that she knows Santa is fake and God is as real as she is. I am what my positive parenting book boasts as supportive. I want to throw that damn book in the trash and write my own.

So, conversation with friend had me thinking. And a lot of times we start with us; as in, I can hear what she’s saying, what reality does this spin for me? How can I draw from what I know (about me) to share with her? And I realized, in the advice I attempted to share with her, I needed to press my ears to my own palms; to make sense out of the own song of my faintly thumping heartbeat.

I told her to be kind to herself, to understand that vulnerability is too, it’s own kind of strength, that good intentions most definitely do count. And, to recognize that you get what you get because you’re supposed to and can handle it. And, perhaps somewhat less tritely, that she is good, great and doing right by her kid.

Sometimes, we have to listen to the advice we give others, give it to ourselves. Remind ourselves of how hard and hearty our lives can be, at 7 AM, on the way to the school dance, making sandwiches for a play school lunch, declining ice-cream for breakfast.

And I hope that makes sense, and perhaps more than that, I hope she/we realize how much right we do, when we intend to.

I'm thinking, at least, I have some work to do.

So, if you see me doing said work with my hands pressed to my ears, I'm likely finding my own rhythm in the drumming song between palm and a pulsating inner ear/heatbeat. Though this is a blog about mental health, so, you know, don’t rule anything out.