Thursday, October 2, 2014

Mindful

Someone I'm working with said to me the other day, "The only way to change the world is to change yourself." For some reason that struck not just a chord in me but a reverberating gong. My husband and I are in a good place. I adore this man. I'm so proud of him and so grateful to him for so many things. This is always true, yet so much of where we are depends on where my own head is. Sometimes I lose sight of this completely.

I suppose it's also true about my relationship with my son, which is also in a lovely place at the moment. It is so completely about not sweating the small stuff with him. He's such a good kid. Who cares if his room is always always such a mess and that he never can remember to pick up his cups/glasses/plates from the coffee table and throws the living room couch cushions to the floor? On the bright side he brings in groceries and fills my prescriptions and always helped me with Aunt Winnie before she died. He is definitely a family person, so good with my cousins, his aunts, so responsible and intrinsically generous. I'm working on being less cranky and critical with him and wouldn't you know it, he opens up and becomes his sweetest, goofiest, most accommodating self when he doesn't feel as if he's going to be ambushed at every turn.

Life is so everything at once, isn't it? I'm juggling hospital visits with the care and feeding of my cousins from out of town with a difficult project with a short deadline. I'm trying to be all things to all people (including myself) and do my work well. It's complicated and I get undercover frazzled while trying to project calm and steadiness for my cousins. And yet at the very core of me at this moment is peace. I have in my line of sight what matters. The trick is not to lose that.

My son's 23rd birthday will be on Saturday and his sister is coming to the city for the weekend to bake him a cake. She's decided on an apple cake with salted caramel and cinnamon cream cheese frosting, with his approval. The best part? All four of us together again, if only for a day or two. This is my version of heaven.




6 comments:

  1. Oh, I needed this post. That might sound selfish, but there's much in here that specificially pertains to me and my moods of late -- particularly the part about being critical! Thank you, Angella -- for spreading your joy and peace.

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    1. Dear Elizabeth, the day in day out of mothering is in many ways the antithesis of mindfulness, unless of course we remember to be mindful. I too often go on automatic and forget to notice and to choose how I am being in the moment and whether a skirmish is really worth picking. Occasionally though, the light breaks through. Hugs.

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  2. it is so easy for us to see what we dont have and so difficult to get off that train. but when we can, when suddenly we're just sitting on the platform bench, watching the trains go by, happy to be exactly where we are...oh, god..hold onto that moment! have a wonderful weekend, angella!

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