Sometimes, enough, really is enough.
An epic water drop from someone’s porch bombed like a crater into a huge lake, splattering me with the scent of morning snow and sweet coffee as I carried my mug in one hand, and held her hand with the other.
The serenity was palpable which is a far cry from our night before.
She’s relentless. A spitting image of the energetic constitution of my own inner child.
Last night, she curled up in my arms, pink faced and sobbing and mustered, “I’m crying because you always yell at me when I do something bad.”
I don’t consider myself a yeller, but I’m being reflected as of late, that that’s a mechanism I’ve picked up after saying the same thing eighty-fucking-billion times.
She started preschool this year, and as an empath and her mother, I know the double edged sword of her struggle.
She’s experiencing bystander trauma when she sees the kids at school do bad things and then get yelled at for it.
She wants to be pulled out of school because of it.
She wants to sit with “the bad” kids who can’t take ninja classes with her, “but not have to be bad to sit out.” She doesn’t want the pressure of making a mistake and getting yelled at, and she doesn’t want to see her friends, being kids, making kid mistakes, and getting yelled at when she believes they’re trying just as hard as she is, to figure it out enough, to be good.
She resonates with the kids who feel “bad” for their mistakes, and wants to do anything, including not try at all, to avoid being “bad,” or seeing them feel it.
Then she comes home, and bull in a china shop Hayven style, tries so hard to engage the baby, and will end up falling on him, or pushing him, and truly, it’s an accident, but there’s me, standing over here, loudly reminding her that this is why she can’t get too close to the baby. Yes, I’ve sat down and showed her what is acceptable, and yes, I could do it more, but most days it feels like time leaves little room for patience.
She tries so hard to be good, and I always tell her we’ll love her even when she does bad things, for which she always says “Thank you Mommy.”
As of late, she’s toying with the concept of “some” over never and always. She often says, “sometimes I do good things, sometimes I do bad things,” or “sometimes grammy gives me a toy, and sometimes she doesn’t” or “some people like you and some people don’t, right mommy?” She’s psychically trying to find herself on the good side, while feeling “bad” for not knowing exactly how to be good enough, always.
The pressure is boiling her insides.
So last night, she told me she understands that she’s a bit too rough with the baby, but she’s four, orienting a four year old’s body, and she feels defeated, like she really can’t make that part of herself stop. When she sees her friends at school get yelled at while she sucks herself up tight so she’s not one of them, she sees a part of them that she wants to preserve, without it getting them into trouble. She believes that they can’t help it, wanting to protect them from feeling bad for being themselves, just like she has to when she isn’t gentle enough with the baby.
She says her teachers are nice, “sometimes,” which I think is a good lesson for a four year old about larger life. There’s a part of me that though I too, want to be on the “good side” of things as a mother, I'm feeling bad for not knowing exactly how to be good enough, always, and I need the lesson that sometimes is better than never and as long as I merely lean towards “good,” sometimes, has to be enough.
This morning was different. She let me leave her without crying and without another teacher having to pull her out of my arms, because I guess, sometimes now, she does that. It was only her and I, hand in hand, snow at our feet, getting each other, like we do. These moments, even if only sometimes, have to be enough.